Tomás Reyes arrived on Thursday carrying a canvas under one arm and a coffee in each hand.
"One's for you," he said, offering a cup. "I asked the department what you drink. They said black, no sugar, in a specific mug, but I figured a paper cup would have to do."
He was tall, with the lanky, unsettled energy of a person who hadn't yet learned to be still. His hair was dark and needed cutting. He wore paint-stained jeans and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing forearms covered in what Margaret initially mistook for tattoos but were actually ink sketches — studies of hands, faces, architectural details, drawn directly on his skin.
"You draw on yourself," she said. It was not a question.
"When I don't have paper. Which is always. Paper runs out. Skin doesn't." He grinned. "I'm Tomás."
"I know who you are. Why did you bring a canvas?"
"I'm working on a piece for the spring show. Figured I could paint during downtime." He propped the canvas against the wall, face out, either from confidence or obliviousness. Margaret looked at it despite herself.
It was good. More than good. It was a large-format oil painting of a kitchen — cramped, specific, clearly painted from life. The countertops were cluttered with the debris of actual cooking: half a lime, a knife with a worn wooden handle, a pot with steam rising in a column that the artist had rendered with startling transparency. A woman stood at the stove with her back turned, and something about the set of her shoulders — tired, tender, concentrating — made Margaret's chest tighten.
"Your mother," Margaret said.
Tomás blinked. "How did you know?"
"The way you painted her shoulders. You've watched her stand like that ten thousand times." She turned away from the painting. "Your technique is strong. Your color sense is exceptional. You over-blend in the mid-tones — let the brushwork breathe."
"That's the most anyone's said about my work since I got here."
"I'm your supervisor, not your therapist. Set up at the back desk. When students need help with shading or proportion, I'll send them to you. Don't critique composition — that's mine."
"Got it." He paused. "Dr. Dao, can I ask you something?"
She waited.
"I've seen your thesis show catalog. The ones from 2019. Those paintings—" He stopped, recalibrating whatever he'd been about to say. "I just wanted you to know that your work is the reason I applied here."
The room was very quiet. Outside, rain tapped against the north-facing windows.
"That person doesn't teach here," Margaret said. "Set up at the back desk."
She turned to the still life and began rearranging the cloth, folding it into a new configuration, her hands steady and precise and giving away nothing.
Tomás watched her for a moment, then carried his coffee to the back desk and sat down. He pulled a pen from behind his ear and began drawing on his forearm — a quick study of the still life, the pitcher rendered in five confident lines.
Margaret didn't look. She had trained herself not to look at things that might make her want to paint again. But she could hear the pen moving on skin, a sound like a whisper, and she recognized the rhythm. It was the rhythm of someone who couldn't stop making things, for whom creation was as involuntary as breathing.
She had been that person once. Before the hospital room. Before the small white coffin. Before she learned that the world could take everything and still expect you to stand at a stove, or an easel, or a lectern, and carry on as though the center still held.
She straightened the cloth one final time and began the lesson.
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