Delphine is waiting for me in the garden. Inside the iron gate, deep into the courtyard, past the vines and the shade flowers and the ferns that grow up to our waists, she sits reading. She makes room for me on the bench, says she’s learning to interpret dreams, asks if I’ve been remembering mine. I tell her I haven’t. Not one since Papa died.

“Can I draw you?” I ask.

“Of course.”

I tear two pages from my sketchbook and fish two pencils from my bag. “Here. We can both do it. I’ve been practicing a technique from one of Papa’s old books. We look at each other and imagine that our eyes and our pencils are one. We don’t even glance down at the paper as we go. That’s a rule.”

“All right,” she says. “I’ll try.”

It becomes easy after the first minute, looking at each other’s faces and nowhere else. Whenever our gazes meet, it’s a surprise. I spend a long time on her fawn-brown eyes and her full lips and the curve of her chin. There’s an ever-present crease between her brows from how seriously she takes the world. My cousin, closer to me than either of my sisters, as close as any person could be. We’re quiet as we work, just the scratches of our pencils across the paper and the familiar garden sounds. Rustle of leaves, occasional flapping of wings. We’ve been meeting here almost daily for the last two months, ever since we stumbled upon it by chance one day after Mass. We’d never noticed it before. Now it’s our place. “When we’re finished,” Delphine murmurs, “I have a secret to tell you.” I nod, but I’m focused on the exact spot where her earlobe meets her jaw. I almost forget that I’m drawing at all. It’s more like I’m running a finger across her face. I could go on for much longer, but then—

“Wait,” I say. “You’ve kept a secret? From me?”