“He painted more than this. He gave the first few to Gauguin.” Theo came up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Vincent meant to start an artist colony in Arles with some of his Paris friends. Gauguin is the only one who’s moved down so far.” Theo pointed at a painting of a house, then another one that showed the interior. “The yellow house at 2 place Lamartine. My brother’s yellow chair and yellow bed. Yellow flowers. In Arles, Vincent found the light.”

I put my hand over his. “Then may he return to that light.”

In February, two months after the ear incident, Vincent had been confined to the hospital in Arles on the order of the police. His neighbors had petitioned, saying they feared his mental state. It’d broken his heart, according to Theo, that they should be scared of him. He had nothing toward anyone but goodwill.

“He’s to be discharged soon,” Theo said. “But he’s so wretchedly worried about going back to his old neighborhood, he’s thinking about committing himself to the asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.”

“I hope he—”

Footsteps in the hallway had us turning at the same time.

The fiacre driver who’d brought us from the train station dropped our luggage. “Monsieur.”

Theo thanked him and paid him.

Then we were alone.

“Gratitude.” Theo came back to me, putting his arm around my waist this time. “Sunflowers mean gratitude to Vincent. He never loses faith.”

I leaned against my husband and imagined an entire vast field of vibrant golden petals. Thousands of these flowers, unworried about the world, unafraid of the storms, turned as one in gratitude toward the light, toward the sun.

The idea had me smiling.

“What do you think of my other treasures?” Theo gestured at the multitude of curiosities that made the place into a messy bachelor apartment.

He stepped to the nearest shelf and picked up a little vase. “Vincent bought this.” Then a pottery bowl. “Vincent thought it was interesting.”

For a moment, I felt overwhelmed, by the apartment, by the avalanche of strange and unfamiliar things around me, by the noise of the city outside—I could hear the bell of the omnibus from Rue Jean-Baptiste and the clopping of horseshoes on the cobblestones from a hundred carts and carriages, the shouts of a collier, the local coal peddler.

Then Theo was in front of me. “What a dream come true to have you here at last.”

The warm light in his blue eyes settled my nerves.

“How did you manage the fresh daffodils?” A prettily tied bouquet sat in a glass on the sideboard.