The early rooms were bright. The later rooms narrowed. Figures disappeared behind furniture. Staircases multiplied. At the center hung an unfinished canvas she’d begun the night she discovered Daniel’s affair — a woman standing before a closed door, holding the key in her own hand but not yet realizing it.

In the final gallery hung The House That Swallowed Her, on loan from the Chicago museum that had purchased it for $48 million. Beside it was a new painting: The House Opened Its Mouth and She Walked Out. The same woman stepped into morning light while the white walls broke apart behind her — not violently, but naturally, like old ice melting under a spring sun.

Every work in the exhibition sold. Evelyn kept the final painting. With part of the proceeds, she bought the brownstone from Daniel’s share of the marital sale.

He learned about it from a newspaper.

For one night, Evelyn stood alone in the empty dining room where Daniel had once humiliated her in front of his partners. The furniture was gone. The walls were bare.

Her footsteps echoed. She climbed to the attic, where dust floated in the afternoon light and paint marks still covered the floor. She knelt and touched one with her fingertips.