Page 112 of Theo of Golden

But again, there was plenty in my life and work to distract my mind from those questions. And two facts kept me in my place: She was married, and I was famous.

Still, a thousand times I considered reaching out to her.

Imagine my complete surprise when, years later, I received a letter from her little boy.

Actually, there were two letters, one from him and one from her. My head spun when I recognized who they were from, and my hopes leapt at the prospect of being reunited with her somehow. Maybe something had happened in her marriage? A death? A divorce?

But there was no such news.

In fact, she told me she was “a happy mother, a cared-for wife, and a blessed woman.” There were few details. She stated that she had married “a very good and gracious man” within weeks of returning home from Madrid.

Most of all, I think she wanted me to know about you.

Her letter is enclosed.

As you will see when you read it, your mother implored me, in the strongest possible words (but not unkindly), never to write or pursue her.

I honored her request until the day of her death, though I have doubted, even grieved over, that decision many times.

I never replied to her letter.

I did, of course, reply to yours.

I have often wondered, why did she write to me at all? What did she expect of me?

I will never know the answer to those questions, but I am forever grateful that her letter, the very few words she sent me, brought me as an old man to Golden to spend part of my final years with you.

Asher took a deep breath as he processed the truth of what he was reading.

Theo. His father?

He gazed at the portrait of himself and then lifted his eyes to the glass doors overlooking Broadway. Through them, he could see the oaks of the Promenade and sense the long shadows of the dying day.

He resumed reading.

Asher, when I first visited your studio, we talked about one of the paintings in your entrance hallway, the one you once described to me as your mother’s favorite, the framed landscape of the tree on the hillside with the person standing at the easel.

You told me that you have always wondered about that painting. I will tell you the story.

It depicts a field near a cottage in Biscopo, a small town on the coast of Spain.

Shortly after your mother and I met at the Prado, another artist-in-residence, a Spaniard, took us to Biscopo, us and a dozen others, to study seascape and sky. He was from the old school of realism. He assured us we would never see a place like it. “It will crush you as artists. It will tempt you to burn your brushes, slice your canvasses, and declare yourself defeated. It will show you how paltry your art is, how meager your talent. It will be the pinnacle to which you will aspire for the rest of your creative lives.”

He was a bit melodramatic, perhaps, but his description of the place was not overstated in the least.

It was there and then, in Biscopo, that your mother and I first talked at length, painted together, and fell in love. Months later, one holiday, she and I returned, rented a small cottage on the cliffs, and painted in the open air during the daylight hours. At night we would walk to the field with the tree, spread out our red blanket, and sleep beneath the stars.

We returned there a number of times.

It was our Elysian Field. I did a painting of it — “Me, Painting You, Painting,” the one in your studio — and gave it to her as a birthday gift.

I also gave her an opal necklace on a gold chain, a necklace my mother and grandmother had worn. The heart-shaped opal, we agreed, was the Mediterranean night in miniature — ocean, sky, stars, moonlight, seashore. We called that piece of jewelry the “Evening of Biscopo.” It was my pledge to marry her someday.

And yes, as I painted her standing in that field, she painted me, facing her, the vast ocean and open sky at my back.

I close.

As strange as it might sound, Asher, especially at this, my happiest season of life, I long for heaven. It might still be many years away, but I think of it often as the low sun and long shadows lengthen over my days. Some laugh, of course, at the notion — many of my artistic peers, and yours, find my hope positively naive and fanciful — but beauty, throughout my life, has always seemed to hint at something more. I long, as one has said, not just to see it but to verily become part of it. Enough of this standing on the outside looking in. Soon, if the Grand Artist has spoken truthfully, soon enough, the door will open for me.