This time, Daniel waits until after breakfast to call. I consider letting it ring but know it’s pointless. He’ll only show up at my door with a box of my favorite truffles. After so many years, he knows how to get around me.
I take my time refilling my coffee cup while the phone continues to ring. Seven times. Eight. Nine. I still don’t know what I’m going to say. I haven’t allowed myself to think about it since his first call. But now I have to think about it, because he knows I’m here—where else would I be?—and he isn’t giving up.
“You’re becoming a nuisance,” I growl when I finally pick up.
“What if it wasn’t me?” There’s a smile in his voice and a hint of annoyance that I’ve made him wait.
“Who else would be calling me?”
“True enough. Have you thought about what you might want to do?”
I take a sip of my coffee, wincing as it goes down, hot and strong. What I want to do is turn back the clock, go back to a time when I still had dreams, before my heart froze over. “No,” I say flatly. “I haven’t had time.”
“I know a little more than I did the last time we spoke. The agent called again yesterday. His client’s been looking for a space to open a gallery. They’re definitely thinking lease rather than sale, which means you wouldn’t actually be letting go of the place. You’d just be . . . sharing it. For a good cause.”
I let out a sigh. “There’s property all over this city. Why does he have to have mine?”
“It’s a she, actually, though the agent still wouldn’t drop her name. He did tell me the gallery would showcase up-and-coming artists. She’s even got a name. She wants to call it Unheard Of.”
I run the name around in my head. Clever. Intriguing. Of course it’s a woman. “You should have told him it wasn’t available when he called the first time,” I snap, annoyed that life seems determined to throw me back into the past when all I want is to be left alone.
“I’m not your guard dog,” Daniel says in the voice he reserves for me when I’m being exasperating. “I’m your lawyer. My job is to offer counsel when there’s a serious opportunity on the table. And this one is serious. They know about the fire, that repairs were never completed. Gleason says she doesn’t care. Apparently, they’ve been looking for a space for almost a year, but nothing he showed her measured up. Eventually, she shelved the idea. Then she spotted the row house and just knew it was the one. Her exact words. She said it was as if the building had been waiting for her.”
Waiting for her . . .
The words seem to vibrate in my chest, the way a tuning fork resonates when struck. “She thinks the building—my building—has been waiting for her?”
“That’s what he said. Who knows with these artsy types.”
“I’m an artsy type,” I remind him dryly.
“Of course you are. So maybe you and this want-to-be gallery owner are kindred spirits. Should I set up a meeting?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I know, but maybe she’s right. Maybe the building has been waiting for her. Maybe you have too. They’re only talking about a lease. And you’d know it was being used for something meaningful. For art.”
“Stop your wheedling, Daniel. I’m not a child.”
To his credit, he remains silent. The truth is I can be rather childlike at times. Sullen and immovable. And yes, difficult. I suppose that’s what comes from a life that’s denied you everything you ever wanted. But now it’s someone else doing the wanting. Someone with a dream. Someone who believes in art and artists. Do I really want to play the spoiler?
“Soline?” Daniel prods finally.
“Set up a meeting.”
There’s a beat of startled silence. “For what day?”
“You pick the day. I won’t be there.”
“You don’t want to meet this mystery woman?”
“No.” My answer comes so fast it surprises even me. I’ve never cared much for the business end of things. That’s why I have a solicitor. Daniel can oversee the negotiations and finalize the deal if one is reached, then send the necessary paperwork by courier. I can bear that much, as long as I don’t have to sit through it all with a smile on my face and pretend I don’t remember the stitch-by-stitch unraveling of my life. Because I do.
I remember the day I learned the Nazis would come. I remember where I was and what I was wearing. I remember what Maman was wearing and what she said. And I remember not wanting to believe any of it. It was impossible. But Maman knew better and had quietly begun hoarding what we would need—what I would need—and on my sixteenth birthday, she decided it was time to prepare me for what was coming.