His speech seemingly over, Mr. Rothschild leads me silently to the next painting. The picture is not another still-life, but rather a portrait of a woman—a regal, snobbish-looking woman. Jared’s mother, bejeweled and sitting on a heavy damask wing chair, the woman speaks to me as clearly as she had done in person two months ago. You can never have him, I’ve already made plans for my child—and they don’t include you— half-breed!

                I step to the next painting unassisted, compelled by my own fear.  This one is a scene. A dusty library, probably Harvard’s, flanked with blurry students toiling over endless stacks of books at mahogany tables. One table, near the center, is vacant except for an imposing stack of books and a blank notebook. While the majority of the painting is shadowed and dark, the vacant table is illuminated—a superb accomplishment of chiaroscuro and a modern-day twist on the technique that Rembrandt perfected.

                As viewer, I have the impression that a student has left the table to gather more information. The picture is suspended in time and by literally highlighting that moment, Jared has illustrated that it was a significant event and not just a slice-of-life portrayal. Did the student ever return, or are the books still sitting there abandoned? Had Jared dropped out of Harvard Law?

                Imbued with a sense of something-big-is-coming, I step to the next painting. Is there a message in this collection? It feels like reading a swift mystery novel; pulse-pounding, knowing that I won’t know everything until I’ve devoured every last shred of information.

                The next canvas holds a notable resemblance of me bending over a pond’s edge, tempting ducks with a slice of wheat bread in outstretched fingers. An excellent study in Impressionism, the soft hues and hazy quality offer the sense of a dream, of a captured idyllic moment in time. Monet would have been proud to see his work so artfully replicated.

                I can’t catch my breath. What does this mean? Like an abstract mathematical theory, I can’t line up the factors to solve the equation. My race to the next picture is halted in mid-step, and I wipe my dewy palm across the hip of my skirt.

                Jared has painted the living room of my loft, as it was the morning before he walked out the door, a calculating liar. His carefully-framed paintings again hang on the exposed-brick wall. An easel holds the same picture that I destroyed in my fury—miraculously repaired for the purpose of this painting—and his portfolio lays sprawled across the terra-cotta couch.

                It was like Jared had never left. He hadn’t caved to the pressures of his family to become another discontented lawyer, and he hadn’t acquiesced to the engagement with Ms. Old-money Pureblood, which Jared’s mother had brokered.

                I have more to see, move it. The next painting is vibrant, with a pale blue convertible Bug speeding away from little white-clapboard church, white toile catching on the breeze and tickling a bloom of wildflowers that bob at the car’s passing. Silvery tin cans dance against the ground in reaction to car’s momentum. The forward movement, the possibilities—I have never seen Jared paint anything like it. This painting is literally taking my breath away. Breathe. Move. You’re not done.

                In front of the very last painting, Jared stands with his brimming eyes. Damn. I should have known he’d be watching my little treasure hunt, letting his work speak for him. I look him into the eye for a full five seconds before averting my eyes to the final painting of the collection.

                Again, not Classic Jared, but another art movement, another purpose. This painting is abstract and something of a riddle. Crap, I need a clue. One, the colors are bright and vivid, cheery, happy. Two, the center holds a blue trashcan with money hanging out from under the lid—old money, thrown away?—and pile of leather books stacked askew beside the trashed fortune. He had thrown his law career away? Had he tossed his inheritance? Three, a tidy blonde woman stands alone, in starched virginal tulle, in the background. Had he called off the obligatory marriage?

            My eyes rest on the foreground of the painting, and I know. Oh, I know. Jared has painted, low in the forefront, a pair of clasped hands walking away from everything behind them. One arm extending in from the left, pale and muscular, and the other in from the right, lean and mocha. The two hands join in the middle, with a brilliant diamond at the apex. My diamond.