“No,” I said honestly. “I’m a good painter, but not gifted. A gifted painter paints. I teach. Good painters teach, hoping to find someone who’s gifted, someone they can belong to in some small measure. Gifted painters can’t stop painting, and good painters never stop trying. I’m satisfied with that.”

“And I believe the difference between good and gifted is what the artist leaves off his canvas, not what he puts there,” Amy said.

“I think I hear the philosophy major speaking,” I replied.

“Yes, you do. But I believe it, Bobo. When you did The Waiting Man, you didn’t leave anything off. It’s the work of a gifted man, but I do have a question about it.”

“A question?”

“I think the man looks a lot like you, and the bench he’s sitting on could have been Avrum’s bench. Was it a self-portrait?”

“I didn’t intend it to be,” I told her.

“But you didn’t have a model, did you?”

“No. I just painted it. I didn’t think I would ever finish it. That’s why I donated it for auction, to make me stop working on it. I hope you didn’t pay a premium for it.”

“It wouldn’t have made you rich, but you could have taken a comfortable vacation,” she said. And then she smiled, as one smiles over a pleasant memory. “Do you know how parents teach children to believe in happy secrets? I’ve always thought of it as my happy secret.”

“I’m really surprised you have it,” I said again.

“Don’t worry. You’re going to paint another for me. For here. For this place.”

“Gladly. What do you want?”

She did not answer for a moment. The amber of the fire coated her face. “I want what you feel when you paint it. Whatever that is. And I don’t want you to leave anything off the canvas. I want you to be in it, Bobo. You.”

She stretched her legs forward and cupped her hands around my hand, kneading it with her fingers.

“And now what about us?” she said quietly. “After all these years, what about us?”

“I don’t know,” I answered.

“We’re not teenagers.”

“No, we’re not, are we?”

“You were always a little afraid of me,” she whispered. “Are you still afraid?”

“No,” I said.

Her hands tightened on my hand. She drew herself to me and kissed me softly. And then she turned my hand against her breast and a soft whimper rose in her throat and slipped from her tongue into my mouth. I felt the heat of her tongue filling me as it did the first time we had kissed, felt her body turning to fit against me, felt the blood pumping in her abdomen, felt her hands stroking my back.