CH 12

Guin remained for a long moment simply perched at the end of my bed while I built up the fire and opened the door to my studio and then the studio window just enough so that the smell of paint and turpentine didn't become overwhelming.

There was already a blank canvas on the easel in the middle of the room and a small, folding table with all of my painting supplies. Beside the table was a cabinet I had built years earlier with compartments designed to hold extra paints and brushes, pencils, a knife, and folded rags. The top swiveled, providing an extra space for sketchbooks to be held when I needed extra room.

I heard the creak of the bed when Guin stood and walked out of the bedroom, followed by the soft padding of feet as she entered the studio where she took a seat behind me, silent as a mouse.

"What are you painting?" she asked at last.

"I don't know yet," I answered as I continued to stare at the blank canvas, pencil in hand. "Perhaps nothing at all."

After a while I thought she had returned to my bedroom, but I turned and found her still watching me.

"Perhaps you need a bit of inspiration," she suggested.

I grunted. "I assume by inspiration you mean–"

"Sex," she said plainly.

My lips parted at her manner of speaking and I couldn't help but chuckle. "Yes, I understood what you meant."

She raised both eyebrows and tilted her head toward my bedroom. "Shall we?"

"Well, I was about to retire for the night," I said. "To sleep," I clarified.

Guin leaned back and looked at the clock on the mantel before turning back to me. "It's not even eight."

I covered my mouth. "It certainly feels much later," I said, straining to speak over a long, drawn-out yawn.

She eyed me up and down. "You are being serious?"

"If you would like me to hire a cab, I will see you home safely," I offered.

Guin inhaled. She reached behind her back and pulled on the lace until her shoulders came free of her gown. "I am not sleeping in this dress and corset," she said, turning sideways. "Would you help me with the buttons?"

"You intend to sleep here?" I asked.

"I do."

"Where?"

"I will take the bed."

I chewed on my thumbnail. "I'm not sleeping on the floor."

"I didn't expect you would, Kimmer."

I unbuttoned the side of her dress until she was able to finish the rest and shimmy out of the fabric.

"Still tired?" she asked once she was down to her corset.

"Extremely," I answered, yawning as I stretched my hands over my head.

She walked into my bedroom and hung up her dress while I rummaged through my chest of drawers and pulled out two sets of pajamas.

"You'll look utterly ridiculous in this," I said, handing her an older pair of silk pajamas that had started to fray at the hem. They were probably the oldest articles of clothing I owned and there was no reason to keep them as I hadn't worn them in years, but they would do for an overnight guest.

"You would rather I look like a man than be naked in your bed?"

"As I said, I'm sleeping."

We both dressed, scrubbed our faces, and I cleaned my teeth while offering her tooth powder. While she scrubbed her teeth with her finger, I placed Elvira into her cage, giving her one last kiss for the night before I covered her up.

"In bed by eight?" Guin questioned with a shake of her head.

I shrugged and turned down the lamp. "I am typically awake by four-thirty."

"My God, are you mad?"

"I like to make the most of my day."

She slid into bed beside me. "I prefer making the most of my night."

"There is still time to salvage this one," I offered. "There are typically a few cabs for hire around the corner if you would prefer a different arrangement."

She inhaled, staring at the ceiling. "Do you want me to leave?"

"It makes no difference to me," I answered. "Unless you continue talking, then yes."

I turned my head and saw her smiling with her eyes closed. After several seconds, I turned onto my side facing the window and watched the lightning become more distant as the storm dwindled.

The room felt too still and I couldn't sleep. I thought about what Guin had said at the tea shop and imagined what married life would have looked like for me if the idea of settling down had been appealing.

I had always disliked the idea of "settling" as my feral tendencies refused to be tamed.

It wasn't so much the monogamous part that seemed difficult, either, as I was fairly certain I could have committed to one woman for the remainder of my life and she would have been satisfied as often as she desired.

The physical aspect seemed fairly simple and straightforward, but the commitment beyond the bedroom seemed unappealing the more I thought of it. Sitting at the same table with the same person for breakfast and supper, day after day, year after year sounded suffocating. I could not imagine planning holidays for an entire family, and living for someone other than myself, attempting to think up new topics to discuss beyond the weather and art.

Still, despite my reservations, I considered what it would be like, waking at four in the morning while my wife slept. My day would start with a walk to the corner bakery for a cup of coffee and two Danishes to take home once the sun rose. A pot of coffee brewing, the stir from the bedroom, a morning kiss and nuzzle and sweets at the table over predictable conversation.

What did one discuss with a person they saw every single day for ten years? Twenty years? My God, there were people who had been married for fifty long years. I couldn't begin to imagine what they had to say to one another.

Perhaps after all those years they never said a word to one another and preferred staring into the distance, imagining their lives lived differently.

Marriage was far from bliss, as I had seen with my own parents fighting and with Val and Carmen, who seemed to sit in silence far more often than they spent holding hands and chatting with one another.

I turned onto my back and took a deep breath. Guin reached out, her hand on my chest, and I closed my eyes, imagining she was the woman I had married long ago, the one from the painting who had lost her hat and drowned.

Instead of falling over the side of the bridge, however, I'd caught her around the waist and pulled her to safety while her hat floated down the river, swirling through bubbling water while a man and his children in a row boat fished it from the water somewhere downstream. They would laugh about the incident and tell us to have a lovely day as they walked home in the opposite direction of us.

"You and this hat," I would say to my wife with a shake of my head, scarcely able to believe she would risk her life for such a trivial matter. No wonder I had regretted marrying her at first, such a flippant woman.

"A gift from you, husband," she would say. "I simply couldn't bear to see it disappear forever."

"You realize I could have purchased a new one?" I would point out, practical as ever.

"But this one is special," she would say, always the romantic.

"You are special," I would tell her, allowing myself to match her fairytale beliefs for a moment. "And not easily replaced."

The hat was definitely no longer special; it was drenched and smelled like dead fish, thus becoming mine to carry home for my wife, who refused to touch it. My lovely, aggravating, sweet and impossible wife.

My wife.

Someone who would know me inside and out, better than myself. A woman who would greet me at the door each time I returned home and fling her arms around me, greeting me with such enthusiasm, day after day, month after month, year after year.

Somehow there would always be conversation. Always joy in being together. Love and affection after disagreements and forgiveness in misunderstandings.

My other half, I mused. But I was not whole to begin with and knew for certain I could not spare any part of myself for another person.

Marriage and the title of husband would undoubtedly deplete me, but still I placed my hand over Guin's, content with the feeling of someone beside me and the illusion of a more domesticated lifestyle, if only for one night.

oOo

Guin was fast asleep when I woke around one in the morning to a tremendous boom of thunder and another storm rolling in.

I had forgotten that I opened the window in my studio until I heard several canvases clatter to the wooden floor, blown over by the wind. I rolled out of bed and stumbled over an unexpected pair of shoes left in the middle of the floor.

Cursing under my breath, I hobbled my way into the studio where the floor was surprisingly slick from the wind blowing rainwater into the room. I slid halfway across the floor, bracing myself before I placed the paintings back into their rightful places, retrieved a towel from the linen closet, and mopped up the floor.

When I returned to my bedroom, Guin was still asleep, but in the middle of the bed, arms and legs stretched out. The pajama bottoms were far too loose on her smaller waist and were down past her hip, the shirt riding up to the middle of her abdomen. Her hair was fanned out around her like a headdress with a few strands stuck to her lips.

She breathed deeply, an odd hissing sound coming from the back of her throat as she slept with her mouth wide open. I assumed she had no idea that while she slept she was about as attractive as a fairytale witch.

I stood for a moment watching her sleep like a starfish before I sat on the edge of the bed and gently grasped her wrist, intending to place her carefully on her chosen side of the bed.

"What time is it?" she groaned.

"One."

"Are you leaving?"

"No."

"What time are you waking up?"

"Closer to four."

She reached out, placing her hand on my thigh, fingers stretched out dangerously close to the last place I needed her to touch me. I folded her hand into mine and sank into bed beside her, nudging her leg until at last she managed to fit herself onto only half of the bed rather than the middle.

"How did you burn your arm?" she asked in a sleepy murmur.

I turned my head and looked at her. She had partially buried her face into the pillow, her lips still parted and the same hiss like a snake coming from the back of her throat.

"I didn't burn myself," I said.

"What does that mean?"

Her hand loosened in mine. I assumed within seconds she would be sound asleep, oblivious to whatever I said.

"I stole treasure from a dragon," I whispered, smiling to myself.

She snorted, her lips forming a smile. "Are you a fabled knight?"

"Mmhmm," I answered.

"What was the treasure's name?"

"Erik," I answered. To hell with the damned calendar. My efforts of refraining from thoughts of my brother were clearly futile.

"Erik? Your son, I assume?"

"No."

She took a long, deep breath that sounded much like snoring, and I released my hand from hers.

"Were you burned on accident or on purpose?" she asked after a long silence.

My breath hitched and I closed my eyes. "On purpose," I answered.

"Why?"

I felt her shift closer to me, her breaths on my neck, and wondered if these were the conversations married people shared in their beds, horrors and tragedies of their unlinked pasts that delivered them closer together, binding them. I had no desire to weave my life together with another person in such fashion, sewn into their fabric in a way where my experiences were now theirs to know and for me to have their past embroidered within me.

"I would rather not talk about it," I said.

She turned so that her head was beside my shoulder, her arm wrapped around me. Trapped I thought. This was most definitely what marriage felt like, suffocated by another person night after night until death did we finally, mercifully, part.

"Does it hurt?" she murmured.

"Yes," I answered.

"Right now?"

"Almost constantly."

Her lips were against my upper arm, then my shoulder and at last my neck as she wriggled beneath the covers and settled in beside me. I felt the heat of her lips and the flick of her tongue gently press to my neck a second time before she sighed.

"Your bed is soft," she said. "I prefer something more…firm."

"I said you didn't have to stay."

"I wanted to stay."

It was my turn to ask questions. "Why?"

Her hand snaked down from my chest to my stomach and paused. "You know why."

"Was that the only reason?"

She nuzzled me again. "Not really."

I grunted, doubting the validity of her statement.

"Will you kiss me?"

"Yes." I turned facing away from her. "At four."

She feigned a gasp of insult, but allowed me to sleep a few more hours before I woke and kissed her forehead, then her cheek and finally her lips when she stirred.

The night air was cool and smelled like rain, her flesh warm and inviting. She nibbled my bottom lip and wriggled from the borrowed pajama bottoms, then helped me from mine.

"Good morning, Kimmer," she murmured before I rolled her onto her back and continued kissing my way down her willing body.

oOo

It was still raining when I selected six paintings from my studio and carefully wrapped them in waxed paper to deliver them to the gallery at nine.

Elvira sat on her perch shredding the extra pieces of paper I had cut off, vocalizing in delight as she made a mess.

After several years of caring for her I'd come to realize that it was best to either place a tarp or large bed sheet beneath her stand as it made cleaning up after her far easier while still allowing her to enjoy her avian lifestyle confined to city living. Without a rainforest and trees, I was limited with ways to keep her entertained and found myself often foraging for smaller tree branches and foliage I thought she may find enjoyable. Paper, it seemed, was by far her favorite object.

By my estimation we were close in age and I knew for certain she had spent at least a decade confined to a filthy cage in a noisy salon. She'd been given a perch too small for her feet and a mirror with multiple cracks. Her water bowl was always empty and her food dish never had more than bread and seeds.

With ten years of her life wasted, I spoiled her rotten. It was still a far cry from a life within the jungles of South America, but it was the least I could provide.

"How do you select what you want to show in a gallery?" Guin asked.

She was at the table a safe distance from Elvira, cup of tea in hand, while I sat on the rug with my paintings, paper and adhesive tape around me. The newly sharpened scissors I held in my right hand made the most satisfying sound as they effortlessly sliced through the paper in a perfect, clean cut.

"The final decision is up to the gallery owner, but these are the ones I would like for him to consider based on what he's shown previously at his gallery."

"None of them look like the woman or the tree."

"Nor should they."

"How many have you sold?"

"The two you saw yesterday."

"That's it?"

I paused. "You mean in my lifetime? Between commissioned portraits and other sales, I believe it's around thirty."

Her eyebrows raised. "That still doesn't seem like a lot."

I grunted. "I suppose I've had an artistic drought for a matter of years," I said.

"Were you better before?" she asked lightly.

"Yes, unlike most people, I've become worse over time." I cut the next sheet of paper and set it aside. "There were a few weeks one summer when a lot of British tourists were out in the parks near the Louvre, and after being swept up in hours of fine art, they were ravenous to take home some Parisian art for themselves. I sold four paintings in two days. If I hadn't been employed elsewhere, I imagine it would have been more."

I glanced up and saw Guin with her chin resting in her palm as she gazed out the window, appearing bored by the conversation. I placed my scissors on my knee and began to fold the paper at the corners around the canvas.

After months of not having a single person inquire about any of my paintings, selling four in a matter of days had been an outstanding strike of unexpected luck.

Months before I took the position at the university, I had three more commissioned pieces and had considered taking a job with a newer broker to sell art, but their office and gallery were on the opposite side of the city, and with no desire to leave my apartment and move, the position and salary didn't seem worth the upheaval.

And then Hugo mentioned he was set to retire, I met with the dean, three more paintings sold and I felt as though I were on my way to great success. I started at the university the following September, sent inquiries to galleries, discovered teaching others was a lot more difficult than I had anticipated, and suddenly my own work was left neatly cataloged in my apartment or left on an easel to dry in my studio along with a dozen other paintings from students.

"Five minutes and I'll hire a cab to drive us both across town," I said before I depressed myself with thoughts of being a struggling artist at the age of thirty-five.

"I suppose I should dress," Guin said as she stood.

"The cab driver might prefer that you don't."

Guin stood and sauntered out of the kitchen where she paused before returning to my bedroom. "What's this?" she asked.

I looked up to see what she referred to and saw her standing in front of my wall calendar, index finger tracing along the fifteen days I had noted on my calendar.

"A reminder," I answered, returning to the adhesive tape I placed on the paper.

Thankfully she did nothing more than shrug and return to dressing while I bound all of the wrapped paintings together with twine to make it easier to carry and left them propped up against the door.

Guin decided to walk back to her apartment–a short two streets away from the gallery–while I waited outside for Stefan to arrive.

It was slightly after eight-thirty in the morning and I stood tucked within the doorway, paintings behind me to protect them from the rain, while people briskly walked past, most oblivious to me.

"Monsieur Kimmer," Stefan said once he scurried up, red scarf wound tight around his neck and matching red umbrella over his head. He closed the umbrella, shook off the rain, and fished for his keys in his pocket. "You are very punctual."

"It's the professor in me."

"Ah, yes, I had forgotten about that. How is your semester going?" Stefan asked as he unlocked the door.

"Good," I said, following him inside. "My first year students are currently volunteering for the Opera Populaire."

"Is that so?"

The gallery was between shows, the paintings from the previous exhibits removed from the walls, which looked strange in their naked state.

"The theater apparently had half of their employees quit."

Stefan spun on his heel to face me. "I'm not surprised," he said. "You heard about the…" he glanced around despite no one else being in the gallery. "The unfortunate accident."

"La Carlotta having her 'La' removed with her demotion?"

Stefan drew back somewhat dramatically. "No, no, not that. I mean the accident," he whispered.

"What accident?"

"Well," Stefan said. He took a step toward me. "There was a stagehand found dead."

"Dead?"

"Hanged."

"Hanged?" I incredulously asked.

"From the rafters." He leaned in and whispered, "murdered."

I furrowed my brow, finding this to be an unlikely rumor, similar to the ghost. If there had been an employee murdered in the theater, most certainly every newspaper in Paris, if not all of France–and probably most of Europe–would have been sensationalizing the unfortunate event to drive up readership and scare the daylights out of readers.

"And where did you hear this?"

"From the new stagehand," he answered.

"Charlot?"

"Yes!" Stefan was positively giddy with the morbid story. There was a twinkle in his eye as he laced his long, thin fingers together. "He witnessed the whole thing."

"And who was this stagehand murdered by?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

Stefan pretended to appear apprehensive in sharing the details. He wrung his hands and gave an overexaggerated sigh. "They say the theater is haunted by the spirit of a former theater employee."

Ah, wonderful, I thought to myself, the damnable ghost has an origin story. I wondered if my students were familiar with the phantom's life before he decided to take up residence within the theater for an eternity. I couldn't help but think that if I met my demise at the university, I would have no desire to spend my afterlife in the studio.

"Undoubtedly a worker who was killed before the theater's completion?" I guessed.

Stefan shrugged. "All I know for certain is that the ghost has been there for years, but it's only been the last twenty that he has been stirring up a bit of mischief. Nothing nefarious at first, mind you, as he was content with the way his theater was run."

I cocked a brow. "His theater?"

"Indeed. He was satisfied until recently, and now the repercussions are swift and severe."

A ghost with a temper. Lovely.

I apparently looked unconvinced as Stefan leaned toward me.

"I can assure you, Monsieur, Charlot has seen him with his own eyes."

As much as I desired to think of this ghost as nothing more than a conjured up story for publicity, Stefan's tone certainly piqued my interest.

"And what does the ghost look like?" I asked.

Stefan paused. He looked away from me. "I promised Guy I wouldn't add to the rumors," he said. "But…I trust this conversation will remain private between you and me, Phelan?"

"Of course."

"Well then… the ghost is not completely dead, but not at all alive. He is trapped in this eternal state."

I narrowed my eyes and remained silent, skeptically curious.

"His eyes are the color of the harvest moon, glowing as if the fires of hell are behind them. His mouth is black and twisted, decaying as if death is slowly claiming him. And his face?"

Stefan shivered and hugged his arms around his thin frame. He looked away from me and took a ragged breath.

"His face is so deformed, so twisted and vile, that those who look upon him shriek in horror and never recover. You had best drop to your knees and beg God you never see a face so hideous as The Phantom of the Opera Populaire."

I was certain Stefan expected me to blanch or make a face of disgust, but I did neither.

For years I had dropped to my knees and prayed to see a face most would have considered hideous, a deformed visage that was always inches from mine, that I had kissed on the cheek and caressed when he stubbed his toe or skinned his knee. A face I wished to see once more because I had loved him more than anything and anyone, terrible scars and all.

"Well, I will let you know if I see the ghost tomorrow then," I said, irritated by the description of the ghost.

oOo

I followed Stefan toward the back, surprised by how swiftly he walked, like a tiny yet elegant gazelle in a perfectly tailored brown suit with the tassels of his red scarf waving behind him.

There was another man already in the back cataloging the paintings from the show that had ended and carefully noting which ones had sold with the buyers' names. He sat at a long table, glasses on the tip of his nose, black receding hair slicked back.

The man looked up briefly, greeted Stefan with a warm smile, and continued working.

There were a dozen easels set up in the back, which Stefan told me to place my paintings on for him to enjoy while he stepped away for a moment.

"Kimmer?" the man who remained in the back room said.

I paused from unwrapping and turned to look at him. "Yes?"

"Congratulations on two sales," he said.

"It's a start," I said under my breath.

"More of a comeback, wouldn't you say?"

I turned to face him, brow furrowed. "I beg your pardon?"

"These are not your first sales, if I'm not mistaken."

I stared at him for longer than necessary. "Have we met previously?" I asked.

"In passing," he said, pushing his glasses up. "When my belly was flatter and I had a full head of hair. My name is Ignacio. I used to work for–"

"The Fabiennes," I said before he finished, recognizing him at last as one of the men who had done general maintenance and groundskeeping around their estate. "My God, it's been years. You look…busy."

Ignacio smiled. "I look fat and bald," he said with a chuckle. "I blame my wife for the belly and my father for the hair loss."

"You look content."

"Yes, I am, I suppose. And how are you these days? I remember watching you paint their whole family and being fascinated by the process."

"I haven't done portraits in years," I admitted. "Theirs was one of the first I completed, actually."

"You were a bit smitten with their daughter, if I remember correctly. She looked at you like there was no other man in the world."

More than smitten, I wanted to say. We had been completely consumed with one another, spending hours entwined in each other's arms. Sometimes I was surprised we weren't permanently attached from the amount of time we were tangled in embraces, belly to belly, lips to lips, fingers laced together.

"She has a son," Ignacio continued. "He must be fourteen or fifteen by now."

Marco was sixteen, I wanted to say, but nodded instead, concerned that if I continued with that topic, Ignacio would think the boy resembled me and ask questions I had no desire to answer.

"You know her husband passed shortly after their marriage?"

"So I have heard."

"Such a shame. I don't believe the poor girl ever recovered from being widowed at such a young age."

I frowned. Neither of us had recovered from the time we had shared, brief as it was in hindsight.

"She lives at the same address," he said. "The estate–"

"It's a lovely home. You took wonderful care of the grounds."

"I am glad to have seen you again, Monsieur, glad to see you are still painting. Your two from this show are wonderful and you deserve every franc. I hope you do well with the next showing."

I thanked him, despite feeling as though it was truly only one sale and to a buyer who remained anonymous. Jean didn't count as he had purchased several of my paintings, and being my closest friend, I would have given them to him, as a token of our long friendship.

I continued placing all six paintings on the easels, rearranging the order until I felt satisfied with the display. Stefan returned a moment later with another gentleman behind him.

"Ah, what a fine selection," Stefan said. He turned to the unnamed man beside him and nodded. "Take your time."

The young man stood with his brow furrowed and hands behind his back. He was dressed in a blue suit, his ocre beard neatly trimmed and intense pale blue eyes studying my paintings.

Despite the beard and fine suit, it was clear he was young–perhaps no older than some of my students, and I eyed him with a bit of suspicion as he examined my paintings.

No one said a word as he walked slowly from one painting to the next, bending at the waist on occasion, turning his head to the side, or clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

"Who is–"

Stefan held up his hand, silencing me while the man scrutinizing my work barely allowed his gaze to flicker in my direction.

Most likely he was some idiotic aristocrat's spoiled child who wished to become an art collector and had reserved an hour of Stefan's time at the gallery to trounce through and pretend he was knowledgeable.

I was certain this boy didn't know the first thing about art. He would most likely look at the clouds in the sky or the shine of an apple and think to himself that it was a fine looking fluffy cloud or a fruit that appeared real enough to eat, missing the emotional impact and technique.

I crossed my arms, finding myself annoyed by this nameless fool who had finally made his way to my last painting, which he seemed to be staring at with disdain.

"Kimmer?" the man said at last, his voice much lower than I would have imagined. I found myself surprised he wasn't still clinging to his wet nurse's apron strings.

"And you are?"

"Theo," he answered. "Van Gogh."

He spoke as though I would recognize his name, but his surname meant nothing to me.

"Art broker," he said.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. "You hardly seem old enough to deal in art."

"Well, despite my age, Monsieur, I've been dealing art for a few years now."

"Before you could walk, I assume."

He grinned back at me. "I started when I was sixteen and now I am the manager at Goupil and Cie on Boulevard Montmartre."

My heart stuttered. I blinked at him, realizing the severity of my folly and quite thankful my sarcastic remarks hadn't been far more cutting.

Goupil and Cie was the largest and most prestigious art dealer in all of Europe. When I thought of such a large firm, I pictured a pretentious man in his forties as the manager, not an individual who barely looked over twenty.

"Van Gogh?" I questioned. "You are Dutch?"

"I am. Is that problematic?" he asked, raising a brow.

"No, of course not. Merely an observation on my part as you speak fluent French."

"Thank you. I joined this location recently, but I am out of Brussels originally," he answered with a warm smile, offering his hand.

"What brought you to Paris?"

"I followed my older brother here, actually. He has been a broker longer than me, but in his heart, he is an artist. A very good artist, I might add, one of the best I have ever seen."

The affection in Theo's voice when mentioning his brother was what captivated me the most. I shook his hand, intrigued by the obvious adoration he had for his older sibling.

"You must be waiting for De Gas," I said.

Theo looked me up and down with his keen, exceptionally pale eyes. "I'm actually here to see your work, Monsieur Kimmer."

I felt my expression sober and breath hitch. "I beg your pardon. My work?"

Theo nodded. "I hear you've sold both of your paintings recently displayed," he said. "I've had the opportunity to view both before they are delivered to their new owners and I must say, after having the pleasure of seeing a few more of your paintings privately, I would like to speak with you about future sales."

I fully expected that Jean would suddenly walk into the back room, having set up an elaborate jest. That wasn't quite his style, however. Valgarde didn't know enough about art to pull off any sort of scheme of this magnitude and I didn't know anyone else that would have bothered with such cruelty on a large scale.

My mind could scarcely process his words. An art broker, from a well established firm, had come to see my paintings on a rainy Sunday morning. The very notion defied all reason as I hadn't sold anything in years and my only gallery showing had been for two weeks.

I glanced at Stefan, who stood by smiling at me, and realized that indeed the manager for Goupil and Cie had come to Stefan's gallery to view my work.

My emotions fluctuated somewhere between elation and absolute trepidation. I looked from Theo to my paintings and wished I had displayed them differently, that I had brought a more recent portrait that was in my studio at the university and swapped it with the landscape I'd painted months earlier that suddenly looked like something one of my freshman students would have submitted in the first semester.

"Are you interested in representation?" Theo asked.

It felt as though my body and soul had temporarily separated. With a nod of my head, my soul rejoined the organs, bones and muscles it had abandoned and I swallowed.

"Yes," I said at last. "Yes, Monsieur Van Gogh, I would be very interested."

"Then let's make an arrangement to discuss. I believe I have buyers who would make offers on some of your paintings," he said, gesturing to two in particular. "If you are willing to sell."

"I appreciate your consideration," I said, shaking his hand again.

All at once the impossible strides in the art community I had longed to take went from meager baby steps to an immeasurable leap.