“No, no, no,” D’Arcy cried furiously. “That’s not how it was supposed to be!”

“Nothing was,” Dan said dully.

D’Arcy almost had to walk out of the room to stop herself from crying. What right did she have to weep? She’d only known Jess for two weeks. Dan had mourned her and loved her all his life. She realized Josh was holding on to her as tightly as she was holding on to him. Because he had loved Jess too. Everyone did. It was impossible not to. And now she was gone.

Then she found herself held in an embrace, Dan on one side, Victorine on the other, her mother and her grandfather, two people she knew she loved unquestioningly, watched over by Josh, a man she knew she loved unquestioningly too. It was a love she never wanted to, in fifty years’ time, weep for because she’d had to surrender it.

“Champagne,” Dan said suddenly and gruffly. “We need champagne.”

D’Arcy nodded a little uncertainly while Josh went to track down a bottle and some glasses left over from the opening party. Dan pulled the cork from the bottle and passed everyone a glass.

“Once upon a time,” Dan said, his words soft, “Jess asked me to raise a glass for her. One day, when your heart is mended, and you think of me, raise a glass for me, won’t you? We’re worth remembering, she said. I never did raise that goddamn glass. Because I thought, I hoped…that it wasn’t over. And far from being mended, my heart…”

He closed his eyes, unable to go on.

“Well,” he said after a long moment. “I think you know how my heart feels right now. But she deserves all of our raised glasses. Because she is most certainly worth remembering. To Jess,” he said, his last words strong, as Jess deserved them to be.

“To Jess!” the others cried, proclaiming his toast to the gallery filled with her works, her artistic works and her works of flesh and blood, remembering her, celebrating her, vowing, as D’Arcy was doing, to live and to love the way Jess had never been able to.

Then Josh kissed her forehead and wrapped his arms around her. “After the exhibition,” she said to him, the idea forming as she spoke, “let’s go back to the chateau and hang all her works there. Let’s open it to the public so that they can see it. Let’s make the world raise their glasses to her too. If that’s okay with both of you.” She looked over at Dan and Victorine, who nodded.

“You should run the Jessica May Foundation from there too,” Dan added. “Make it yours. Make the chateau a place where women can have time and space to make their art. Let Jess’s legacy continue to grow, every day.”

“Really?” D’Arcy said, awestruck at the thought that a foundation to which she’d once looked to for support might now be something she could use to support other women artists like herself to achieve their dreams.