Chapter 1

My husband gave my mother’s mark to his childhood friend in front of buyers, press, and his whole family, so every piece I made from that night on would carry the other woman’s name.

The centerpiece waited beneath a black cloth at the edge of the stage. I had spent four months cutting its gold branches and setting forty-one stones. The empty space at its base was the width of a grain of rice. I had left it clean for my mother’s last touch.

Thomas, my husband, stood in the light I had been promised.

“Tonight is about the future of this house,” he said. “And the person who can carry us into it.”

I pulled the cloth off my centerpiece before anyone could applaud. The sapphires caught the stage lights, but every camera remained pointed at Rebecca, my husband’s childhood friend, in her white dress.

Thomas smiled toward the buyers. “Rebecca will be the public face of the house.”

A reporter raised her recorder. “And Audrey?”

“Audrey does what she has always done best.” Thomas glanced at me. “She works.”

His family laughed softly, as if he had paid me a compliment.

I took the centerpiece off its stand and held it against my ribs. One gold branch caught in the beadwork of my dress. I freed it without bending the setting.

“What exactly did you give her?” I asked.

Thomas kept his smile for the cameras. “We’ve re-registered the maker’s mark in Rebecca’s name.”

The words moved through the showroom faster than sound. Buyers leaned toward one another. Two cameras swung to me.

“That belonged to my mother,” I said.

“It belonged to the house,” Thomas replied. “This keeps it with the house.”

“My mother cut it by hand.”

“And Rebecca can represent what it means.”

Rebecca lifted her chin. “I didn’t ask him to erase you, Audrey.”

“You agreed to put your name on my work.”

Her fingers smoothed the white ribbon tied around her waist. “Thomas asked me to protect the brand.”

I turned to him. “You told her that was protection?”

“I told her the truth. She photographs well. She speaks well. You have never wanted to stand up here.”

“You never asked me.”

“You would have said no.”

“Then you should have heard me say it.”

Thomas reached into the velvet case on the lectern. He placed my mother’s hand-cut steel punch in Rebecca’s palm, closing her fingers around the worn shaft.

My mother’s file marks still crossed its side. One shallow groove came from the winter I was twelve, when she let me steady it while she repaired the edge. Rebecca held that groove under her thumb.

Thomas pointed to the centerpiece. “Bring it here. Rebecca will make the anniversary strike.”

“No.”

His smile broke at one corner. “Audrey, don’t make this ugly.”

“It became ugly when you put it in her hand.”

Rebecca looked toward the cameras. “This is only ceremonial.”

“Then strike something you made.”

Thomas lowered his voice, but the microphone carried it. “The piece belongs to the house.”

I lifted it higher. “Who cut the wax?”

He did not answer.

“Who chose every stone?”

“Audrey,” Rebecca said, “everyone knows you made it.”

“Whose corrections are in my mother’s sketchbook?”

Thomas held out his hand. “Give me the piece.”

I stepped to the demonstration block myself. If they meant to take my work, they would do it where every lens could see. I laid the gold flat, checked the branch beneath it, and moved my fingers away.

Rebecca raised the hammer.

“Straight down,” I said. “If you know how.”

Her first blow landed at an angle. The steel punch jumped, slicing a second edge through the tiny crest and crushing the gold beside it.

A buyer in the front row stood.

Thomas stared at the damage. “Can it be repaired?”

I picked up the centerpiece and turned the ruined base toward the cameras.

“Yes,” I said. “By the woman whose hand you just removed from it.”

In the fresh indentation, Rebecca’s red lipstick reflected back at her.