Dionne was still in a state of mild shock and disbelief. She sat in her car for a long while, looking at the house across the street, her dad’s house, dreading going in. The first sign that something wasn’t right had been the fact that the yard hadn’t been mowed in quite some time. What would she find inside? She hoped it would be as she remembered it but that had been well over a year ago. She should have suspected something was wrong when he stopped inviting her over and insisted on visiting at her home instead.

     The voice of the police officer still played in her mind from that morning when he’d called Dionne to tell her about the accident. Her dad was out on his morning walk when he was struck by a car while crossing the street. The driver said he had looked right at her before stepping out in front of her.

   Dionne closed her eyes and gave a silent prayer before finally opening her door and getting out of the car. She had to find some answers. Her dad was always so happy, so upbeat. She’d had him over for dinner a couple months back and he’d seemed pretty normal to her then. Although now as she thought about it there had been some oddities about his behavior. He usually took time to walk around and look at whatever new piece of art she had hanging in her living room but that evening he didn’t even glance at them. He also didn’t have anything to say when she asked him about what new pieces he was working on. He merely waved his hand and said he wanted to about something besides art for once. But he’d been happy and pleasant in every other way that evening so she hadn’t thought too much about it since then.

   She was at the front door, standing still with the key in her hand hovering in front of the lock. How long she’d been standing there she wasn’t sure but she regained mastery over herself and she unlocked and opened the door.

     The house was a mess and there was the stale stench of old things long since rotted lingering in the air. Dionne stepped over the threshold and took it all in. Bits of old food were ground into the carpet as though they’d been dropped and then walked on for weeks. Her father’s bookshelf, where he kept the few, but beloved books that he owned was empty. The wall opposite the bookshelf was marred with dents and the books lay before it in varying degrees of distress as though they’d been thrown violently at the wall and then left where they landed.

   The most disturbing thing though was the paintings. Her father had always used his living room as his art studio where he painted and it was always a delight for her to look over his paintings in their varying stages of completion whenever she visited. Some of the easels were still upright with their paintings intact but many of them were knocked over, their paintings lying ignored on the floor. What was more, these paintings were nothing like her father’s usual work.

   The photo-realism he captured in his artwork was what made him so famous in the art community. He didn’t mind the impressionist, surreal, or other art styles, but he could never bring himself to paint like that.

   “I can only paint what I see,” her father was famous for saying, “and I see reality.”

   These paintings were anything but realistic. Though many of them had realistic elements, each one was marred by white splotches. Some paintings had a few, others had many. At first Dionne thought they were suppose to be snowflakes but the scenes were obviously summertime, or else interiors, and none of them had snow on the ground. One painting had a single white splotch that dominated the majority of the painting, all but obscuring the still life underneath. Another, the first one she’d seen, had countless, tiny white splotches as though it was a blizzard even though the scene was of two people talking in a diner.

   A few of the paintings that had been knocked over looked as though they’d been stepped on; something her father never would have done even to a painting he hated. The worst she’d ever known him to treat one of his paintings that wasn’t turning out was to scrape the canvas clean and begin again.   Dionne moved farther into the house looking for something, anything, that would explain what had happened to her father. She couldn’t believe that he’d stepped out in front of that car on purpose but at the same time she found herself expecting to find a note from her dad explaining why he’d done it.

   The kitchen was worse than the living room. Shards of broken dishes littered the floor, though not so many that it looked intentional. The cupboards were closed and when she opened them she found the majority of his dishes sitting there and intact. Many of the broken dishes on the floor had remnants of food on them, but there wasn’t that much food on the floor so the dishes must have been dirty when they were broken, but not full of food. Had he dropped them? Certainly most of the debris was near the counters and particularly around the sink.

   The counters themselves were mostly covered in cans and boxes of non-perishable food. This was the one place where everything was pretty well organized. The cans were stacked and lined up in neat rows. The boxes were similarly arranged in neat rows and everything was grouped into what looked like breakfast, lunch, and dinner foods. A can opener was even placed beside the stacks of cans.

     The refrigerator was empty.

   What in the world had happened to her dad? Could he have gone senile in such a short space of time? But he hadn’t had any trouble remembering things as far as she could tell. They’d spoken on the phone often enough over the past month that if he had been going senile she would have noticed. Wouldn’t she?

   Dionne left the kitchen and made her way to the bedroom. Her dad, she remembered, had always kept a journal. He’d shared bits and pieces of it with her from time to time but in general he’d kept his journals private. Though she wasn’t sure where he kept his current journal she felt that his bedroom would be the best place to begin her search.

   Here, at least, things looked mostly normal. The bed was made and his clothes were mostly put away. The only oddity was that his hamper was full to overflowing. It didn’t look like he’d done laundry in a couple weeks at least.

   There was a journal and a pen sitting on the nightstand beside the bed. The journal was thick, probably several hundreds of pages, and bound in dark leather. Dionne told herself that her dad probably kept the journal there for ease of access, that it wasn’t set out especially for her to find. His most recent entry would be a normal entry. She wasn’t sure she would be able to handle it if the last entry was addressed to her. If it was an admission of his plan to…to do what he did.

   Dionne sat down on her dad’s bed and picked up the journal. She carefully opened it to the bookmarked page but did not immediately begin to read. Her heart pounded in her chest and her hands were shaking. She wished she had someone, anyone, with her right now. She could have asked someone to come with her. She could still ask someone. She could put the journal down and leave right now and come back later, if at all.

   No. She had to know, but she would ease her way into knowing. From the pieces Dionne had read before she knew her father always wrote his innermost thoughts and feelings in his journals. If Dionne wanted to know the full truth she would have to read more than just the last entry, whatever it may be, and so she flipped back to the beginning of the journal and began to read.

   The entry was dated almost a year previous; the same time he’d stopped allowing Dionne to visit him at his home.

        I begin this journal as I’ve begun all of my others, Dionne read, to mark a new chapter in my life.

    Dionne tried to think back to that time and what he might be referring to besides her not being able to visit him in his home but nothing came to her.

        My last journal, which I had assumed would truly be my last journal, was begun nearly seven years ago when my dearly beloved companion of over forty three years, that radiant beam of light and love in my life, my dancing angel, my Denice, passed away. I’ll not revisit the details here, as they are given in depth in my previous journal and I am still too tender from it, even after these years gone by.

        Dionne remembered well how long it had taken her dad to begin painting again after her mother’s death. He’d loved her mother so passionately that, at the time, Dionne worried that the grief at losing her would kill him.

       I begin this journal to mark my admission to myself that my days as an artist are, after many long years of fulfillment and success, nearing their end. That is not to say that I am now, at this time, done with painting. Rather I can see the end of it. I’ve been seeing it for some time but did not realize at first what it was. I saw it, at first, out of the corner of my eye. A darting, fleeting thing. As though some predator stalking me but not yet ready to pounce.

   I ignored it. Art is my life. Art has defined me. I could not admit that art would ever cease being a part of my life. However, that predator continued to draw ever closer, to come further into view.

    I have begun my final series of paintings. I am not sure I will be able to finish them but I have always painted what I see, and so in this last work, I will paint what I see. What I have been seeing.

   The entry ended with a pencil sketch of the duck pond he often frequented. It looked very similar to other sketches she’d seen of his for the pond except that this one had several dots, again making her think of snow even though the sketch was clearly not a winter scene.

   The next entry was from the following day.

       I made good progress on the initial three pieces. I hope to show the progression of my predator, how it stalked up on me. How it at times now looms before me. How it obscures the world. I do make one admission here. This darkness that falls around me, that drifts through everything I see. And yet it is invisible to all those around me.

    I have to paint so slowly it is at times beyond frustrating but I refuse to compromise on my art. It will be as detailed and rich as anything else I create. At times I have to set down my paints and walk away because I cannot see it well enough, or else it’s too distracting to go on. At times everything is calm and I can paint as swiftly as I ever did.

   Dionne turned the page and found several, very short entries.

   Although there was an entry for every day, most of them were simple. They remarked on the weather, gave some details of what he had done that day, if he’d painted, if he’d gone on a walk, but didn’t often delve into his thoughts and feelings. Periodically, however, there were longer entries and it was these that Dionne began flipping through the journal in search of.

   What the predator her dad wrote of was exactly she wasn’t sure. Did he speak of the gathering darkness as a metaphor or was he being literal? Could he have been so depressed that even a year ago he was planning…that he was planning to do what he did that morning? Or was he actually going blind and this mornings accident had really been just that, an accident? Either interpretation could explain some of the things she’d seen in the house.

   The real question that was haunting her was why he hadn’t told her. Why didn’t he ask for help? Whether he was depressed or losing his sight, he should have reached out to her, to somebody. He’d always been in good health and so he’d rarely, if ever, been to see a doctor as far as she knew. She’d always assumed that he was going in for his regular checkups but as she thought about it she couldn’t remember him ever mentioning any visits to the doctor.

       I lost my temper today, Dionne read from an entry dated a couple months back. The handwriting was growing rougher and he was clearly having trouble writing in a straight line.

     I haven’t been able to paint for a week now and I was trying to just force myself through it, to finish at least one of these pieces. I can’t stand the thought that I won’t finish them. I already had to compromise and paint the things white instead of black just so I could tell the difference between the real and the painted ones. I have to admit that the white makes it look like snow falling and I was worried people would think I was being surreal. I had to put down the brush and walk away before I got too angry at the thought.

   But then I got angry anyway and lost my temper. Reading has always been so relaxing but the spots were so thick that I couldn’t make out the words on the page. I lost my temper and threw my favorite book at the wall but that only made me angrier and before I knew what I was doing I’d thrown all of my books at the wall. I’m truly ashamed of the way I behaved but I can’t bring myself to pick them up. So many of them tore in my hand as I threw them, or else tore their bindings when they hit the wall. I even laughed when I looked at the pile of books and thought how some performance artists would see it as a grand expression of mans futility and the inevitability of something or other.

   I really hated myself today and

   The entry ended there.

   Dionne flipped back a couple pages. Her dad mentioned spots in a few places before but it hadn’t really stood out to her until that entry but now she wondered what else he’d said about them: she’d been skimming over the shorter entries in favor of the longer ones.

   Sure enough, he’d been mentioning spots since almost the beginning and she’d just missed it.

   One entry read, I spent almost half an hour thinking I’d missed one spot after another on the bathroom mirror while I was cleaning house before I realized they weren’t spots on the mirror. I didn’t mind them when they stayed on my peripheries but now they’re growing pretty bold and venturing further into view.

   Another more recent one said, I’m see them in my dreams. Sometimes they stick and start to build up like dark snowdrifts.

   Dionne turned back to where she left off. The next entry was dated a couple weeks later and it was the first time her dad had missed writing even a short entry for each day.

       It’s been rough, he wrote in an unsteady scrawl. I really can’t see much these past few days but I couldn’t go to bed without writing down something. I’ve given up on finishing the painting. I was stumbling around the house so badly that I knocked some of them over and I’m pretty sure I stepped on at least one of them. I don’t go in the living room now for fear of causing them further damage.

   I was running out of edible food this week and today I finally had a clear enough view that I was able to throw out most of what was going bad. I’ll try to go shopping tomorrow. Store’s not too far I can walk there and carry back a few bags. I’ve still got my strength at least. I’ll have to figure out a system for knowing what it is I’ve got so I’m not surprised. Probably stick to pre-made meals so I don’t have to try to cook.

   I worry for Dionne.

   Dionne stopped reading. This was the first mention he’d made about her and she was afraid for what she would read next. Why would he be worried for her when it was his health that was failing?

       I worry for Dionne, she read again. I feel like the farm boy who’s driven the cart further and further into the mire because he was too stubborn to change course but now he’s stuck and can’t go on or turn around to get back out. But she’s got her own life to live with her own struggles and I couldn’t stand the thought of imposing my problems on her. What if she’d tried to take care of me? Or worse, what if she’d tried to put me into one of those so-called care homes? Stuck in a single room with a bed, a chair, and nothing but a tv to keep me company. No thank you.

   I only hope Dionne doesn’t blame herself.

    I can still take care of myself. I just have to make a few adjustments. My heart breaks that I can’t paint anymore but I can still manage to live here on my own. I’ll hold onto my dignity for as long as I can.

        Dionne turned the page and found it blank. She flipped through the rest of the journal but there were no more entries. His vision must have been so poor that he’d never been able to write again.

   Presumably he’d been finding ways to manage, more or less, since his last entry. He could have been going out shopping that morning and just not seen the car, but there didn’t seem to be much empty room on the counters for fresh groceries. Maybe he’d been going to the park. Certainly he couldn’t have been spending all his time in his house. Dionne knew her dad hated sitting around at home doing nothing but that he could quite happily sit by the pond or under a tree all day.

     If he had been forced to sit at home, unable to go out, unable to paint, unable to see, perhaps it had proven too much for him. Dionne wondered if she’d ever know the truth.

   As it was, she set the journal back down and began the work of cleaning up her dad’s home. She began a load of laundry first. She swept the kitchen and threw away broken shards of cups, plates, and bowls. She found and cleaned the dirty dishes that were scattered throughout the house and wiped down the kitchen counters.

     The living room took the longest to clean  and the sky outside was beginning to shift hues in preparation for the coming sunset. Most of the books looked salvageable with little to no damage but some of them were so severely torn that she could only throw them away. She’d have to come back another day with a carpet cleaner to see if she could remove the food stains but in the mean time she picked up what she could.

     The easels were the last thing to be set right. She was happy to find that none of the paintings were so terribly damaged that she wouldn’t be able to repair them and while none of them were finished, as her dad had lamented, they were all sufficiently along that they were still beautiful works of art depicting, as he had hoped, the world as he was beginning to see it.

   As she looked over the collection her eye caught sight of a small slip of paper that had been tacked to the side of one of the easels. Her breath caught in her throat as she pulled it free but she quickly relaxed when she saw what was written. Her dad often titled his paintings as collections rather than individual titles, such as Pond At Sunset #1-7, and this appeared to be the list of names her dad had been considering for this collection of paintings. All but one had been scratched out and Dionne nodded, a half smile on her lips.

       Snow Fall

   It was perhaps a little more imaginative than what her dad might have usually done, but it was also quite accurate in how the paintings themselves looked in a literal sense. She replaced the note and gave the room one last look. She’d come back tomorrow and finish cleaning, or perhaps she’d give it another day or two. She still needed to plan the funeral and deal with all of the other things that her dad’s passing would involve.

   Her heart was still heavy but she thought that now she could at least sleep tonight. She’d deal with tomorrow, and the day after that. But, thinking again about her dad and how he’d struggled for so long on his own, how his desire not to burden anyone else with his struggles had cost him his life. Dionne wouldn’t let herself make those same mistakes. She pulled out her cell phone on her way back to her car. Her dad didn’t have to struggle on alone, no matter what he thought, and she didn’t have to either.

   The phone rang twice before the familiar voice answered.

   “Hey,” Dionne said, speaking for the first time since she’d received the news that morning and she was startled by how shaky and full of emotion her voice still was. “I could really use some company this evening,” she pushed on, glad that she would not have to be alone.