“Ah, yes,” she said. “It was in the late sixties. I’d already made a bit of a name for myself, and one day a friend told me about a show in the Village by a talented black artist who’d just moved to New York from Paris. I just had a feeling it was Jesse. It was like a sixth sense. I walked in and there he was. I was forty-six … at least Judith was forty-six.” She chuckled. “Anna would have been fifty. I hadn’t seen him in nearly thirty years. Of course, Jesse didn’t recognize me right away, but you should have seen his face when he did! I made sure he met all the right people, then, and of course we became fast friends, as equals finally. There had always been a bond between us. My husband Max was an agent and he took Jesse on as a client, and we introduced him to Bernice, who became his wife. We never lost touch, even after he moved to Edenton. But in all these years, he never mentioned that he still had … this.” She motioned toward the mural.

“He was adamant you be invited today,” Oliver said. “We thought it was because your painting—Judith’s painting, Daisy Chain—would have a place of prominence in the main gallery. We had no idea it was because of the mural.”

Judith turned toward me. “What kind of shape was it in before you restored it?” she asked.

“It was a mess,” I said. “And I had such a short time to work on it because he—Jesse—insisted that it be finished by the gallery opening—today. If it wasn’t finished, his daughter Lisa—do you remember Lisa?”

“Yes, yes. Of course. I saw her many times.”

“If the restoration wasn’t completed by today, she’d lose the house.”

Judith frowned. “I’m not following you.”

Oliver and I explained about Jesse’s conditional will. “So I had less than two months to restore the mural and I had no idea what I was doing,” I said. “Oliver had to pretty much teach me everything.”

“You were a very quick learner.” He smiled at me, but Judith hadn’t seemed to hear me. She looked deep in thought.

“He insisted the opening be today?” she asked. “August fifth?”

“Yes,” Oliver said. “He was firm about it.”

Judith nodded. “Well, I can think of one reason why.”

“Why?” I asked.

She smiled like the cat that swallowed the canary. “Judith turned ninety-six on June seventh,” she said. “But Anna turns a hundred today.”

Oliver and I sat in silence as her words registered. I pressed my hand to my mouth.

“What?” Gloria sounded shocked. She leaned back to look at Judith. “You’re a hundred years old?”

“Jesse knew your real birth date?” I asked.