Page 6 of His Vow

"The grandmother's not in the frame," I said.

Silence. I turned.

Barefoot and shorter than the scattered heels made her out to be, she studied me with wide brown eyes. Golden-brown skin, loose dark curls past her shoulders, a simple dark dress fitted at the waist — with a dusty hem from recent climbing and a faint crease between her brows from a vanished frown.

"No," she said. "She's not."

"But you know where she was standing."

The crease returned. Her head tilted. Her lips pressed together, then parted. "Most people tonight said it's pretty. You're the first person who told me why it works."

"Pretty is a waste of a painting like this."

Her teeth showed first. Then the crinkle at the corners of her eyes, then the sound — bright, unheld, a laugh that pulled her whole body forward half a step and made her press her hand against her sternum.

"Okay," she said, catching her breath. "You get the full tour."

She turned and walked toward the far wall. I followed.

She stopped at a streetscape. Favela rooftops, laundry lines strung between buildings, colors so saturated they vibrated against the white wall. "This is Pinheiros," she said, touching the edge of the frame. "The riverbank. Rafael painted it from memory because the actual site was demolished before he could photograph it." She pulled her hand back. "He was furious. He said he went to paint it, and there was just rubble and a chain-link fence. So he sat on the curb across the street and painted what used to be there."

"From the curb?"

"From the curb.” She nodded. “He had a sketchbook and a set of pastels he'd stolen from his university's supply room." She glanced at me. "Don't tell anyone that part."

"Noted."

We moved to the next painting. A boy in a doorway, one hand on the frame, half his face in shadow. His expression was open, unguarded, caught between entering and leaving.

"His younger brother," she said. "Lucas. He died at sixteen. Car accident." She was looking at the painting, not at me. "Rafael doesn't talk about it much, but he paints Lucas into everything. If you look closely at the streetscapes, there's always a figure in a doorway or a window. Always watching. Always half in, half out."

I looked. She was right. In the Pinheiros streetscape, a small figure stood at the edge of a rooftop, barely visible against the sky.

"Rafael layers his paint," she said, stepping closer to the canvas. Her shoulder was near mine. "He lets earlier colors bleed through later ones. See here — " Her hand found my forearm, fingers pressing lightly against my sleeve, pulling my attention toward the upper right corner. "That orange underneath the blue? That's the first layer. He painted the sunset first, then painted the daytime over it. So the painting remembers what came before, even when you can't see it anymore."

Her hand stayed on my arm. I looked at the corner she was pointing to. The orange bled through the blue, like heat through glass.

"So nothing gets buried," I said.

"Nothing gets lost." She turned her head. We were close. "That's what I love about his work. The past is always showing through." Her eyes dropped to her hand on my arm. She didn't remove it. "Most painters cover their mistakes. Rafael lets them become part of the finished thing."

A waiter passed with a tray of champagne. We both reached. My fingers closed over hers on the stem of the glass. Her skin was warm. Half a second. She pulled back with a quick breath.

"You first," she said.

I picked up the glass. I didn't drink from it. I held it out to her. "You need it more. You haven't stopped talking in twelve minutes."

Her mouth dropped open. "Twelve? You were counting?"

"I count everything."

She shook her head, the curls shifting across her shoulders. She bit down on her lower lip to hold back what was clearly another laugh, then gave up and took the glass. Her fingers brushed mine during the handoff. The touch was light. Brief. Neither of us acknowledged it. Neither of us stepped back.

She took a sip and tilted the glass toward me. "I'm Soleil. Like the sun. My mother was French."

"Nolan."

"Just Nolan?"