“I promised I wouldn’t. It doesn’t look too bad. The first two floors are empty.”

On the third floor, Violet’s perfume still lingered. I paused on the landing to fight back tears. I drew a deep breath and carried her with me. “The living quarters will need the most work.”

“There used to be three bedrooms and a bathroom up there. Your great-grandfather had one of the original guest rooms converted into an office. He could step over and work when he couldn’t sleep at night, without having to stomp up and down the stairs.”

Violet had kept the room as her own office, with some minor changes.

“I like that there’s a fully functioning kitchen up here.”

“Made from the smallest bedroom. Violet had that done when she’d converted the two bottom floors into a gallery.”

I could see why Violet needed the upstairs kitchen. The kitchenette on the ground floor offered nothing more than a place for the caterers to wash their hands and toss away their trash.

Her bedroom was straight out of an opera, the Phantom’s living quarters. The crimson velvet draperies and floor-to-ceiling gilded mirrors were the definition of high drama. A decadent crystal chandelier hung above the bed.

“You think you can get it all done?”

“I think I can manage putting stuff into boxes.” I walked into the bathroom—golden clawfoot tub, large enough for two, pink marble tile. Echoes of my grandmother’s presence filled every inch of space. “If I can’t finish on this trip, I’ll come back.”

“How long can you stay?”

“Four days? Five, if I reschedule a few meetings. Diya volunteered to wield the hammer at Sunday’s auction.”

“Make sure you clear out everything.

You can donate furniture, but do not donate anything paper. If you donate clothes, check the pockets first.”

“Want me to check if there are secret messages sewn into the seams?” I closed my eyes. “Sorry. I’m tired.” And the headache was banging.

After Mom and I clicked off, I grabbed two painkillers, then ran the water in the bathroom sink for a minute before I drank from my cupped hands.

I wanted to lie down. I walked past my open suitcase, my clothes crowded to one side by Violet’s robin’s-egg-blue box. In my search for the pills, I had knocked off the top. The badly painted mystery baby lay with his eyes closed on his grimy canvas.

I would never know who he was or who painted him. Johanna Bonger? Or Anna Dirk, Johanna’s friend? The diary did say that Anna studied art. Or the mysterious Clara, who’d carried on a correspondence with Johanna in Dutch and was possibly writing Jo’s biography?

The ugly little painting was a symbol of all the questions I wouldn’t be able to ask Violet, all the conversations we would never have—about the diary, the letters, my grandfather even.