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Clint waits, but I don’t tell him that the studio mostly holds boxes and old furniture. That the good windows are covered with old newspaper and the sign out front was painted over years ago.

“He believed in me,” I say instead, and hope that’s enough.

Clint’s voice is quieter when he answers.

“Maybe he was right.”

The painting in front of me is a sunset. Too orange, too easy. Good enough for tourists. Still, I have to look at it. I can’t look at him.

“Maybe.”

I let out a breath as we move on to a stall of carved wood and polished stone, and suddenly Clint’s hands are busy again.

They pass over things with quiet judgment. A wooden jaguar gets one finger along the spine. A black stone bowl gets lifted, weighed, turned toward the light. He runs his thumb over the corner of a small cutting board, checking the grain.

“You’re very serious about objects,” I say.

“I like stuff that knows what it is.”

“That bowl knows?”

He lifts it again. “Heavy. Useful. Pretty without begging.”

He sets it down and checks the price written on a little sticker underneath. His expression changes. He puts it back carefully, exactly where it was.

A vendor offers him a carved box.

Clint smiles politely. “I’m looking.”

He is. At everything.

I realize, watching him, that wanting is different when you have to do the math first. For me, wanting has often been an embarrassment. There’s nothing in this market I couldn’t have if I wanted it, and that makes wanting feel indecent.

For Clint, there’s a distance between wanting and getting. Maybe that makes wanting more hopeful, less obscene.

He picks up a small wooden turtle, frowns at it, then shows me the uneven leg.

“Tourist junk,” he says.

“We are tourists.”

“Speak for yourself. I’m an international shopper.”

I laugh.

He grins and sets the turtle down. His eyes have already moved past it, deeper into the stall, toward something heavier.

A chessboard. Stone, or a good facsimile. Cream and dark green squares, polished until the whole surface catches the light in soft broken pieces. The board is thick, heavy-looking, with a carved edge that makes my fingers itch to touch it.

Clint touches first. His hand settles on one corner, then slides over the squares.

The vendor notices immediately. “Beautiful, yes? Handmade.”

Clint nods.

“How much?”

The vendor gives a number, and Clint’s hand stops moving.