The Postscript: The package

The package arrived last week and, I have to admit, I was surprised.

I knew what was in it, of course. It was a painting that my friends Angel, Nora and I co-own. I had it for one year 11 years ago. Then I brought it to Paris, where Angel was living. But Angel had no time to hang the painting. She had just moved to a new condo and was diagnosed with cancer. And so it remained rolled up under her bed for two years. That’s when Nora decided her turn had come — and she was right. Before Angel died, Nora brought the painting to her family home in Vienna and hung it in her mother’s bedroom.

That’s...