Page 11 of Time After Time

I hold out my arm, and she curves her hand into my elbow.

I disperse the acid between us by telling her about a painting on the large wall above the dining table.

She goes along with my efforts, choosing, as I knew she would, not to pick a fight as she wants to. She knows she won’t win. We’re not in a committed relationship. I’m not herboyfriend. We’re companions, sharing a holiday and a bed.

“It’s a Georges de La Tour—Magdalene with the Smoking Flame. One of the originals. Margot thinks it’s too somber for a dining room, but I think it fits.”

Calypso tilts her head to study it.

A woman in candlelight, her face caught between reflection and sorrow, one hand resting on a skull, the other near a flickering flame.

“I agree with Margot,” she murmurs.

“Let me show you the original Picasso in the next room. You may like it better.” I steer her away from the La Tour.

The painting came to my attention because of Ember, the yearshecame to my attention.

I was in Chamonix with my family and hers. She was just about to start her masters at Stanford, and since I worked in Palo Alto and lived in Los Gatos, we got talking.

“Why do you like it?” I ask when Ember tells me the La Tour is her favorite painting in the whole chalet.

“Magdalena is contemplating her mortality,” she explains shyly. “La Tour was obsessed with that kind of stillness. Grief without drama. Light and shadow. It’s the kind of painting that doesn’t raise its voice, but you can’t stop looking at it. La Tour knew how to get his message across elegantly, don’t you think?”

I glance at Ember, entranced by her explanation. “I’m surprised an astrophysics student knows so much about art.”

She looks at me, amused. “Are you saying I’m too nerdy?”

“Charmingly so.”

She laughs, not offended, not petulant. “I once worked a summer at El Prado in Madrid as an assistant to an art restorer.”

She isn’t even smug when she says it. It’s just a fact she’s stating. Her humility is not something I often see in the God-complex world I live in.

“Really? You paint?”

“Yes, I do. Why do you look so surprised?”

This woman has so much more depth than I everthought possible, not that I ever thought about her one way or the other. She flew under the radar, the sister and daughter of friends, not in my circle of interest.

“You have to admit, it’s unexpected.”

She smiles, shaking her head. “Only if you’re judging people.”

That was when I fell, hopelessly charmed by how she gothermessage across so elegantly.

CHAPTER 3

Ember

Iarrive five minutesaftereight for dinner, so I can sit in a cornerafterall the couples have found their seats.

The table is long and wide enough to seat twenty comfortably, but tonight we are only twelve so the chairs are spread apart, no one sitting too close to the other.

Papa sits at the head, with Mama on his right. Aksel and Freja flank either side, while Jonathan is next to Freja. Gisele and Heidi sit across from them, next to Aunt Tanya and Uncle Bob. Calypso is right by Ransom, leaning into him.

Just sit on his lap already, woman!

AndI colossally miscalculated because the only place left is between Ransom and Uncle Bob.