About this story
Meeting him, restless and mocking beneath real talent, you offer within a day to fund two years of sculpture study in Rome. His mother frets, his employer scoffs, and Mary Garland, a friend of the family, warns you that opening a door is not the same as rescue.
How it opens
Northampton summer pressed heat through Cecilia's vines and slowed the village street.
CeciliaRowland, Rome has taught you pictures but apparently not how to enjoy idleness.
You had money, judgment, and an uncomfortable appetite for a purpose beyond collecting.
CeciliaA local law student made it for my birthday and thinks nothing happened.
Choose
The flaws are young, but the gesture already knows what it wants.
Whoever made this should not spend another month copying legal papers.
Let me see the maker before I decide what the work promises.