We met at a group exhibition where I had sold nothing.
Claire approached after everyone else had gone and asked why my best piece was hung near the toilets.
I laughed because I thought she was joking.
She was not.
Within a month, she arranged a small showing in a gallery I had previously been afraid to enter.
Two landscapes sold.
Then a portrait.
She negotiated prices I would never have dared to request.
With her help, I stopped taking every illustration job that arrived and began paying the studio rent on time.
I trusted her because she had earned trust in concrete ways.
When she asked for a spare key so she could show work while I was out, I gave it to her.
When she suggested keeping my exhibition documents in a shared folder, I agreed.
When she said an artist should concentrate on creating while someone else handled the paperwork, I felt grateful.
The arrangement was simple.
She could offer specified paintings for sale, and she received an agreed commission when a sale closed.
Anything else required my approval.
The portrait of my mother was excluded.
I had written that myself on the inventory sheet because saying it once had not seemed sufficient.
Claire had replied that nobody would force me to sell something personal.
Later, she asked whether I might reconsider if the right collector appeared.
I said no.
Later still, she said refusing a major sale could look immature.
I said no again.
Each refusal became shorter because I thought repetition made my meaning clearer.
I did not understand that she had stopped treating my answer as a decision.
She had begun treating it as an obstacle.
