It was not until after she got home and gave Max his Go-GURT snack-think yogurt in a toothpaste-like squeeze tube-that Grace had the chance to take a look at the rest of the photographs.

The message light on the answering machine was blinking. One message. She checked the Caller ID and saw that the number was blocked. She pressed play and was surprised. The voice belonged to an old… friend, she guessed. Acquaintance was too casual. Father-figure was probably more accurate, but only in the most bizarre sense.

“Hi, Grace. It’s Carl Vespa.”

He did not have to say his name. It had been years, but she’d always know the voice.

“Could you give me a call when you have the chance? I need to talk to you about something.”

The message beeped again. Grace did not move, but she felt an old fluttering in her belly. Vespa. Carl Vespa had called. This could not be good. Carl Vespa, for all his kindnesses to her, was not one for idle chitchat. She debated calling him back and decided for the time being against it.

Grace moved into the spare bedroom that had become her makeshift studio. When she was painting well-when she was, like any artist or athlete, “in the zone”-she saw the world as if preparing to put it on canvas. She would look at the streets, the trees, the people and imagine the type of brush she would use, the stroke, the mix of colors, the differing lights and casts of shadows. Her work should reflect what she wanted, not reality. That was how she looked at art. We all see the world through our own prism, of course. The best art tweaked reality to show the artist’s world, what she saw or, more precisely, what she wanted others to see. It was not always a more beautiful reality. It was often more provocative, uglier maybe, more gripping and magnetic. Grace wanted a reaction. You might enjoy a beautiful setting sun-but Grace wanted you immersed in her sunset, afraid to turn away from it, afraid not to.