“How dare you suggest I’m some common thief,” she snapped. “That night we met, I was being a loyal daughter, stealing plans for my father’s tomb.” She dragged out that last word like a lament. “How would you feel if some sculptor were carving your father’s tomb while he was still alive, tempting the Fates to take him from this Earth before his time?” She didn’t know how close she’d hit to my own wounds; I, too, would’ve done anything to protect my father. If I could’ve. “I had no choice but to steal those designs. I’d do anything to save my father. And now, all I want to do is protect him from heartache.” That’s when the daughter of the pope dropped to her knees, her black widow’s weeds pooling around her. “Raphael, loyal subject of my cousin, painter for my pope . . .” I knew her countenance well: she was playing courtier, telling me what I wanted to hear. “Please help me ensure that my father is not mocked inside his own chapel. Let him be as he wishes: adored by Michelangelo. Adored by everyone.”

Make the world not as it is, but as it should be.

I must’ve nodded, because Felice stood up and said, “Thank you, Raphael, for helping me to protect His Holiness. I’ll tell your duke of your loyalty, and if Michelangelo doesn’t recover, then this ceiling will be yours. I’ll make sure of it.” She turned and marched out of the chapel.

“Cover up the thumb with a good dose of shadow,” Bramante called up. “And when I come back tomorrow morning, I’ll let you down.” And with that, Bramante exited the chapel, too. I sat there for a long time—twirling my father’s paintbrush, picking paint out from under my nails, shining my shoes with spit—waiting for Bramante to return and tell me he was only jesting, but did he come back? No.

Finally, I exhaled and climbed back up to the platform under the figure of Zechariah. I found a bit of umber and quickly mixed a color to match the shadows already in that fresco. Instead of using Michelangelo’s brushes, I took out my father’s old long-handled paintbrush. I pulled up both sleeves, rolled my wrist, dipped my father’s brush into the brown paint, wiped each side on the edge of the bucket, and raised my hand toward the ceiling.