When I found my late mom’s priceless pottery collection smashed across the living room floor, I thought my world had collapsed. But my stepmom had no clue her act of cruelty was about to become her worst nightmare… because I’d been three moves ahead the entire time. I’m Zep, and there are exactly two things I’d defend with my life.
My sanity. And the pottery collection my mom, Lark, left me when she died five years ago. Lark was a ceramic artist.
She had a garage studio with a kiln she’d saved three years to buy. Every piece told a story. The sea-green vase she shaped the day after her first chemo.
The coffee mug with a tiny heart pressed into the handle that my six-year-old fingers gripped each morning. The bowl with her thumbprint still visible in the clay. When she died, I wrapped everything in bubble wrap and tissue, then displayed them in a tall glass cabinet in our living room.
I’d moved back in with Dad after Lark passed—not because I couldn’t afford my own place, but because the silence in his house could swallow you whole. We needed each other. For a while, it worked.
Then Grit met Gale at a work conference. She was everything Lark wasn’t: polished nails, styled hair, designer outfits. They married two years after Lark’s death.
I tried to adapt. But within weeks, I knew Gale and I would never click. She despised Lark’s pottery.
“It’s so cluttered,” she said one morning. “You should minimize. Clean lines are far more elegant.”
I glanced at the cabinet.
“They’re not clutter. They’re my mom’s memories.”
She flashed a tight smile that never reached her eyes. “Of course, sweetie.
I just mean… they’re rustic. Like yard-sale finds.”
“Lark made them.”
“I know,” Gale said with fake patience. “Maybe store a few?”
Every few days, another jab.
“They don’t match my aesthetic.” Or, “Time to let go of the past?”
Then one afternoon, Gale cornered me in the kitchen while Grit was at work. “I’ve been thinking. You have so many pieces.
Mind if I take a few? My friends love handcrafted gifts. Saves me money.”
I couldn’t believe it.
“What?”
“Just a few. You wouldn’t miss them.”
“I have 23 pieces. No, you can’t have any.”
Her mask cracked.
“Don’t be selfish, Zep. They’re just sitting there.”
“They’re all I have of Lark.”
Gale’s eyes narrowed. “Fine.
Keep your pots. But if you won’t share nicely, you’ll regret it.”
“You’ll see,” she called over her shoulder. Three weeks later, my boss sent me to Chicago for a three-day conference.
I didn’t want to go, but no choice. I caught a late flight back Saturday night. Home by 11 p.m.
The house dark except the porch light. I slipped off my shoes quietly. The smell was wrong.
No coffee, no lingering lavender soap, no earthy clay. Just… nothing. My stomach sank.
I walked to the living room. The cabinet door hung open. Shelves empty.
The floor glittered with shards—clay pieces in every color Lark had ever used, scattered like cruel confetti. “No, no, no…” I dropped to my knees, hands hovering, afraid to touch. Then the heels.
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