I pushed to my feet to lift the pot off the stove. “Dinner is ready.”

The meal distracted Piet from his novel at last.

“Do you know what book I should like to read?” Anna asked as I served the soup. “Marie Bashkirtseff and Gustave Flaubert’s letters to each other have been published. What a tragic love story.”

Marie Bashkiertseff was a Ukrainian artist who’d moved to Paris. She’d died before I went to live there, but I’d heard of her from Theo’s friends.

“Died too young.” Piet nodded. “What was she, twenty-five?”

Somber silence settled on us once again.

Then, between two spoonfuls, Seb jumped up. “Armand Guillaumin!”

I pressed a hand to my heart. “What about him?”

He’d been Vincent’s friend. Theo had sold some of his paintings.

“He won a hundred thousand francs in the French state lottery. I had a letter from him.” Envy mixed into Seb’s excitement. “He’s quitting his job to pursue his art full-time.”

The talk turned back to painting.

I enjoyed the gathering with all my heart and hoped it would be the first of many, a more than fair substitute for Theo’s circle of artists in Paris. Perhaps even better, for these were all my friends—or in the process of becoming friends—even the sometimes pretentious Piet. He had a heart of gold, supporting his widowed sister from what small amounts he earned with his poems.

“Has Gauguin come back from Polynesia?” Jan Veth asked over apple cake, looking at me.

“I have not kept up our correspondence.”

The dinner went well, yet I was distracted by the sounds of sawing outside. Janus had accepted my decision, but he was still at the villa at least once a week. Janus was the one who fixed what broke around the house, the one who helped me crate the paintings for shipping, the one who carved little animals for Wil. Every time he strode through the door, Wil ran to him as he should have been running to his own father—a stab of pain in my heart.

“I heard he’s courting the milliner’s eldest daughter,” Anna said under her breath next to me.

Was he? I was happy for him.

Seb strode over to a crate in the corner. “And what is this?”

“Another one of Vincent’s paintings. The Wheat Fields of Auvers. I am sending it to Amsterdam. I am certain it will find him a champion.”

Jan, who’d become like another brother to me, patted my arm. “You are his champion, Jo. No one will ever care half as much for him as you do. No one knows him better. No one carries more passion for his art.”