Wash becomes more solitary once again, but he goes out each morning to draw near the ocean. He observes “how radiant the world was, empty and silent like this” (219). One morning, while he is out observing the sea creatures, he sees another person set up an easel and begin to paint at a distance. Wash is annoyed that someone else has come to intrude upon his mornings, and the person shows up day after day, interrupting his solitude.

One morning, the painter comes to introduce herself, and Wash discovers that she is a charming, pretty, biracial woman named Tanna. Tanna admires Wash’s work and asks him to teach her to paint, startling him. She reveals that she is originally from the Solomon Islands, but that her mother died in childbirth. As they learn more about one another, Wash begins to enjoy her company, and a mutual attraction begins to develop between them. As Wash is close to her on the beach, he “wanted so much to take another step forward, into her,” but that “a terror rose up” in him (225).