6.

Freddie was on his way out to see the doctor when Tomasz appeared in the open doorway of the apartment. Claire stood by as Freddie shook his hand heartily. “Good to see you,” Freddie said.

Tomasz smiled. “You don’t look well, sir.” He wiped the hand Freddie had shook on his pant leg.

“That’s what she tells me.” Freddie waited. “Is there something you need from me?”

“Just here to have a word with your wife.”

Freddie glanced at Claire, who hadn’t let out a breath. But he didn’t pause on this long. “About the building board?”

“Yes,” Tomasz said.

When the elevator doors shut on Freddie, Tomasz reached for Claire’s hand and she pulled away from him with the pretense of searching through her purse for her powder. She could not feel her own face.

“Well?” Claire said, not meeting his eyes.

He stood there with his hands in his pockets, a smirk on his face.

“I’m very busy,” Claire said.

“You are a funny woman, Mrs. Bishop,” he said. Then he shrugged and handed her a stiff, charred piece of canvas: it was from the bottom right corner of the painting. Claire could make out the last of Nicolette’s signature, missing the N. He showed her a blister forming between his knuckles. “I forgot to cut it out until I’d already lit the fire. I burned my finger.”

“I told you I didn’t want to know.” She was surprised by the anger in her voice.

He took off his hat and bounced it in his hands.

Claire forced a smile. “Thank you, Tomasz.” She slipped the proof into the pocket of her suede coat. Again she unclasped her purse. “I’m sorry, I’m not carrying much on me now.” And she continued to dig for the money she knew she’d somehow have to get from Freddie.

Claire stood in the doorway of her empty bedroom and looked in, like it was a museum installation and she was on the other side of the velvet rope. The king-sized bed, the paperbacks on the nightstand, Freddie’s filthy socks draped over the hamper in an attempt at tidiness—everything in its place, as if people lived there.

And then the bedroom was not empty. There was Freddie, lying in bed, and she was in the armchair in the corner of the room, her art history book face down on her lap. He was re-reading his signed copy of Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. The doctor had diagnosed some kind of respiratory ailment with syllables that were new to her. She felt she could see his infection writhing in his lungs.

There was a space of carpet between them that seemed to help her. She was wide awake. The room drenched in lamplight, soft, yellow. She hadn’t planned to speak but then she was saying, “I don’t really care that you’re sick.” The bedside clock ticked and she looked over like it had whispered something she had not quite understood and needed repeating.

He rolled on his side and propped his head on his elbow to look at her.

“I think we should separate.” She said that. She did.

A hesitation, very small. “You don’t mean that.” He didn’t sound surprised or hurt, merely pragmatic. But perhaps that was another mask Claire could no longer penetrate.

“I do mean it.”

“Prove it.”

She braced the plush arms of her chair. “I slept with Tomasz.”

Freddie coughed. “Tomasz. The super?” His coughed and laughed at once. “That’s ridiculous. That is so ridiculous it’s embarrassing. I don’t even believe you.”

“That’s fine, don’t believe me,” Claire said.

“What’s gotten into you? Is this about yesterday on the river? It was a joke. You can’t honestly be mad about that.”

“You know that’s not it,” said Claire.

“What is it?” Then he laughed. “Is this about the painting? It is, isn’t it? Jesus, Claire.”

“It’s not about the painting. I had it destroyed anyway.”

“Destroyed? What do you mean?” When she didn’t answer, he stood with more gusto than she’d seen in him for days. “Let me know when you’re done feeling sorry for yourself and maybe we’ll have some fun again.” His nose was running and he wiped it with the back of his hand. “What do you plan to do for money? Where will you go?”

Claire put down her book and looked him in the eye. “I’ll live here. You’ll move out.”

“Is that so?”

Claire held her stare.

Freddie stumbled toward her and pulled her from the armchair and held her forearms tight, as if he planned to shake her. She didn’t fight him. “It’s just a painting, Claire.”

“I know it’s just a painting!”

Freddie let go of her and stood with his arms at his sides like they were someone else’s arms. Claire knew that if she walked into those arms, they would embrace her and all of this would go away, and the painting might be a painting.

She flew from the room, down the hall to the den, and lunged for the glass display cabinet. She grabbed as many plates and porcelain clowns as she could hold against her chest with one hand. With the other she grabbed the wooden case that held her fork collection and wobbled to the window. Freddie was behind her, catching his breath. The window would not magically open, and she tried to tuck the case under her arm to manage a free hand. Only then did Freddie snap to and say her name.

It was exactly the way her mother said her name when Claire first returned home after marrying Freddie: Claire had changed, and her mother was betrayed by that.

Freddie reached around and opened the window for her.

“Do it,” he said, smiling.

She turned to him, at once horrified and furious. Then she chucked every last trinket out the window. She would have liked to have laughed. Giddy desire. A string of deadly, smashing clowns.

Claire stood in the hall, wool coat in hand, facing the front door. If she could stand still forever, nothing would happen to her, nothing bad, and the painting would not mean a thing. It struck Claire that she could have lied to Nicolette—she could have told someone else’s story, and would the portrait have changed? Would it show a different fate? Or wish?

She could hear Freddie packing, huffing and shoving his illness into a few tired suitcases. She imagined his mean laugh and the whole circus of Greenwich Village calling her a fool for thinking she could survive alone. Panic began to swell in her stomach, her chest. She tried to tamp it down with the simple task of slipping her arms through her coat sleeves. She felt sorry for Freddie. It was a thrill, a rush of heat to say, even as she only half-believed it, “What do I care what you all think?” This was her town, her circus. In the back of her mind was a faint singing, the choir of anticipation—that cocktail of dread and hope all flattened into one note.

She opened the door.