The prospective studio looked smaller without Iris walking its edges. I had come to release the provisional booking, not to look again, but the owner had left the door open while he went downstairs for the sheet I needed to sign. I stood by the mirror and could see the empty room twice.
Iris arrived carrying a narrow folder. I had told her when I would be there because her measurements were still taped inside the cupboard. She nodded to me, opened the cupboard, and peeled the sheet away slowly so it wouldn't tear. The strip of tape made a dry little sound.
"You don't have to save that," I said.
"I measured it. I want it." She folded the tape onto itself and put the sheet in her folder. On the back were the lesson times she had penciled in. I recognized the square she had drawn for the upright under the mirror.
The owner came up, heard that we were both there to finish, and gave us the release sheet. I read it instead of signing immediately. No money had been paid. No lease had been made. There was still a place for my name, which made the end of it look unexpectedly official.
I asked for a minute. He went downstairs again, and Iris waited with the folder held against her coat. The radiator knocked. I had liked that sound on our first visit. I had imagined learning when it would happen, making it part of the room.
"I could borrow for the beginning," I said. "Not against the painting. A small loan. Enough to get through until the teaching builds."
Iris closed her eyes briefly. "You brought me here to release the room."
"I know. I'm only saying there's another way."
"Another way to do what? Pay the rent, or make it so I can't be angry?"
I looked toward the stairs. I didn't want the owner hearing us, which was a convenient concern to have when I didn't want to answer. "I'm not trying to buy forgiveness."
"You may not be trying. But every time there's a problem, you offer to carry more money. Then I owe you for carrying it." She set the folder on the windowsill. "I don't want you in debt for a room I can't afford."
I said that at sixty-one I could decide what to do with my own finances. She agreed so quickly I had nowhere to put the argument. "Yes," she said. "And I can decide not to build my work inside that decision."
Below us somebody tested a vacuum cleaner. Its motor rose through the floor, then stopped. I ran my thumb over the crease in the release sheet. The room was not responsible for any of this. Its floor needed attention, its window caught the afternoon light, and another tenant might use it very well.
"I thought if I solved the money, we'd be back where we were," I said.
"We weren't where you thought. I was waiting for figures. You were waiting for a painting to turn into figures. After Wednesday you knew there was a reason it might not. You let me keep waiting without telling me that."
There it was, without the theft question, without my mother's house or the inheritance. I could not fix it by finding a better explanation of the painting. I had given Iris information late because I had wanted to give her a result.
"I should have called you from outside Tessa's office," I said. "Before I drove home. I don't have a better version of that."
She picked up her folder. "That's the apology I needed to hear. It doesn't make the room possible."
When the owner returned, I signed. I thanked him for holding it provisionally and said we would not be taking it. He asked whether he could remove our note from his diary. I said yes. It was a small, practical question, and answering it felt worse than looking at the sheet.
Outside, Iris offered me the measurements if I wanted a copy. I said she should keep them. We walked to separate cars without discussing loans. Before I got in, I looked up once at the window. Nobody stood there. I drove to my next lesson early and waited in the car until it was time to knock.