I wanted to burst through the door and run after Theo. I’m going with you! But I couldn’t because we weren’t married. Because I was a woman. I could have howled with frustration.

Even when, half an hour later, Dries, Annie, and I were sitting in church, I could scarcely focus on the miraculous birth of our Christ. My mind clung to Theo riding the train through the cold and the dark, alone and worried.

I could think of little else the following day, and the next. I couldn’t draw an easy breath until a letter arrived from him at last.

“What does he write?” Dries was at my elbow as soon as I closed the door behind the mailman.

We had spent the morning together, just the two of us. Annie was at her seamstress.

My eyes ate up the maddeningly short page. “Theo found Vincent in the hospital with high fever. The doctors say it’s from madness and are unsure whether he will remain insane. He…” I had to reread the sentence. “Cut his ear off with a razor? Theo says he will know more in a few days. Right now, Vincent is still too agitated.”

“His ear?” My brother touched his own lobe, his tone bewildered. “Why?”

“Theo doesn’t say. Only that I must not delay my plans to return to Amsterdam. I should not wait for him to come back to Paris.” I reread the brief missive again, but I couldn’t puzzle out more than on my first turn. “I don’t understand.”

And then nothing from Theo for another two days, while I fretted, and then, finally, a new letter, this time with a newspaper cutout from the local weekly, Le Forum Républicain.

“Dimanche dernier, à 11 heures ½ du soir, le nommé Vincent Vangogh peintre, originaire de Hollande, s’est présenté à la maison de tolérance no 1…”

I handed it to Dries. I only had a modicum of French.

“‘Last Sunday, at half past eleven in the evening,’” he read, “‘one Vincent van Gogh, a painter and native of Holland, presented himself at brothel no 1, asked for one Rachel, and handed her his ear, telling her: Keep this object carefully. Then he disappeared. Informed of this act, which could only be that of a poor lunatic, the police went the following day to the home of this individual, whom they found lying in his bed, by then showing hardly any sign of life. The unfortunate was admitted to the hospital as a matter of urgency.’”

I collapsed into the nearest chair, knocked down by the words, which were wholly incomprehensible. “Poor Vincent! And, oh, my poor, poor Theo.”

I looked to my brother for consolation, but I found his gaze assessing. He looked exactly like Papa just then. Papa when he was ready to lay down the law.

“There can be no engagement party, Jo. You must see that. This gives you time to think the proposal over.”