The alley behind the church

The alley behind the church is one of the novel’s most charged and transformative spaces, a narrow, dim, easily overlooked passageway that becomes the emotional heart of the story. Physically, it is unremarkable—concrete walls, trash cans, a back door, the faint smell of damp stone, the echo of footsteps bouncing between tall buildings. It is the kind of place the wealthy visitors at the auction never see, despite it being only steps from the chandeliers and champagne. Yet for Louisa and for the artist, it becomes a sanctuary where truth is allowed to surface. In daylight or under the buzz of streetlamps, the alley feels like a small pocket carved out of the world, a place where people who have nowhere else to go can exhale without judgment.

The alley is also deeply liminal: a border between visibility and invisibility, between wealth...