I was not the same as I had been. I had known the love of a good man and the startling brilliance of another, the feel of my very own babe in my arms. Never would I return to the time before. Eyes once opened would not be forced closed again.

“I want to accomplish the task Theo set me. Vincent’s work needs another agent, and my best chance for finding one is here. Did you think I’ve come back to Paris to pack? I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. I don’t need you to decide my life for me.” We reached the house, and I fumbled for my key with frozen fingers. “I need you to help me work out how to best preserve Vincent’s legacy.”

Dries threw up his hands. “I would understand your attachment if the paintings were Theo’s own.”

“They might not have come from his brush, but he carried them in his heart.”

“They have little value. Nobody wants them.” The gentle light in Dries’s eyes begged me to see reason. “You have to let them go, Jo.”

I wanted to argue, but every art dealer I had talked to agreed with my brother’s pronouncement. They had all offered the same advice, in fact. I refused to believe those people. I chose to believe my husband. “Vincent was on the brink of being discovered before he died. He had his first solo show last month.”

“At your own apartment.”

“Anna Boch bought The Red Vineyard for four hundred francs. She knows great art when she sees it. She’s an artist herself.”

“She’s an heiress to the Villeroy & Boch ceramics empire. She can afford to indulge friends.”

I finally unlocked the door. “Word is going to spread. I will not toss aside a single painting.”

“You have a mountain of canvases, Jo. Do be reasonable.”

A bitter laugh escaped me. Life had stolen the man I held most dear, and in the most cruel way. I was supposed to be reasonable?

A bent-back crone passed us and cut me a sharp look. I was wearing widow’s black, laughing with a handsome young man on the front stoop of a rented apartment. I turned my back to her and went inside, stepping out of the wind at last.

“Theo was an art dealer.” Dries tapped the snow off his boots on the mat before crossing the small foyer. “With a whole roster of collectors. And with all that, remind me how many of Vincent’s paintings he sold altogether?”

“Theo ran out of time. I can find Vincent another agent.”

“I will not be here to help. I tendered my resignation, Jo. Annie and I are returning to Amsterdam.”

The news knocked me off balance. “Why?”