She shook her head.

The painting’s secret was not its beauty, but its sound. In the gallery’s quiet, Arthur could hear it: a low, persistent hum. It was the sound of a train. The train his father had taken. The train Marie had listened for every night for twenty years, her ear tilted toward the tracks three miles away, believing—against all evidence, all paint, all time—that he would step off it again.

“Six thousand on the phone. Seven in the room.”

“Fifteen thousand. Thank you, sir. Sixteen?”