Excerpt

WARNING

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“I’ll get us drinks,” Alex suggested as they neared the next artist’s collection. “Be right back.”

Tania smiled as his lips briefly touched her cheek, his hand the back of hers, and she watched him walk away until he had disappeared into the crowded refreshment area. Even now, after knowing him for seven years, and being his wife for eleven months, she still sometimes couldn’t take her eyes off him, couldn’t believe her chance at having found someone who matched her so well in the passionate and mundane. She had never really believed in love at first sight, soul mates and all the pretty stories fed to little girls to make them dream of Prince Charming; it made the fact that she had found just that in him all the more breathtaking.

Shaking herself from her thoughts, she stepped toward the next aisle of paintings and paused by the panel that described the artist’s work just long enough to catch his name. A large landscape scene immediately grabbed her attention; at more than five feet wide and almost as tall, it would have been impossible to miss it, even with the small cluster of people standing in front of it. She usually didn’t care much for landscapes, she preferred portraits or lively scenes, but there was something in what she could see of the painting that made it appear…different.

For a few seconds, she wondered whether she had seen a picture of this particular work before, in a magazine or newspaper maybe. When the other guests moved on, she could finally see all of it and noticed the date on the small information panel by the side. The painting was only a few weeks old; she clearly couldn’t have seen it before. Underneath the date, the title was printed in bold letters, and she frowned slightly as she read it, before returning to her study of the elaborate oil work.

It was called ‘Running through the fields’, but there was no figure painted that she could see. At the forefront, bright yellows along with warm browns gave life to a wheat field so realistic that she almost expected it to ripple in front of her under the caress of the wind. On the right hand side, a cluster of trees marked the limit of the field, fruits hanging heavy and ripe from the branches. In the background, far in the distance, a house stood on top of a small hill, so white in the blinding midday light that Tania squinted for an instant, barely repressing the urge to shield her eyes from the sun.

“There you go. Champagne for my lady.”

Tania started as Alex’s words pulled her out of the quiet world she had stepped into through the details of the painted landscape. Forcing herself to look away, she gave Alex a smile of thanks when she took the flute he was offering her; yet she barely touched her lips to the drink. At her side, he was looking at the painting and she observed him to see what he thought of it.

“Nice work,” he commented, raising his glass toward the golden field for emphasis. “The play of the light is really well done.”

Glancing back to the painting, she tried to see it through Alex’s eyes, as the work of art that it was and nothing more. She wasn’t an expert, far from it, but she could see the technical qualities of the piece. It was hard however not to let herself be captured by the unspoken emotions of scene again.

“You want to move on?”

Alex took her arm and she nodded before following his lead. He stopped by the next painting, and read its title aloud.

“‘Goodbyes’. Who do you think she’s saying goodbye to?”

Tania heard the question, but she couldn’t have begun to form an answer. Unerringly as the first painting had, this second one tugged at something in her heart and captivated her.

Standing in front of a window barely open onto the night, a woman was painted in chiaroscuro, her nude figure hinted at rather than clearly shown by the light coming from behind her. There was the shadow of a shape on the window, almost indiscernible, and Tania knew, with the same certainty that she knew her own name, that the white stain against the window was the reflection of the lamp that cast light upon the woman, and that the form laid out next to it was a man reclining on a bed. He was watching the woman at the window, and although she had her back to him, she was watching him too thanks to the reflection on the glass.

“Tania? You okay, sweetheart?”

Again, Alex’s voice intruded on her contemplation, and with some difficulty, Tania came back to the present. For a second, everything had ceased to exist; the well-lit gallery had become a bedroom at night, the muted music in the background had faded along with the chatter around her, and she could almost have sworn the man in the reflection had moved, just a little…

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