Chapter 1
I heard the first ornament break before I understood what Vanessa was doing.
The sound was small.
A delicate crack of glass against hardwood.
Then my stepmother wrapped both hands around the Christmas tree and shoved.
“No!”
I lunged forward, but I was too late.
The seven-foot tree crashed sideways.
Branches scraped across the floor. White lights flickered. Red ribbon tangled beneath the trunk.
And the ornaments my mother had made shattered everywhere.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe.
Vanessa stepped back and lifted both hands.
“Oh my goodness.”
Her voice was so fake it made my stomach twist.
“What happened?”
I stared at her.
She knew exactly what had happened.
Ten seconds earlier, we had been arguing because she wanted me to remove my mother’s ornaments.
Vanessa had called them old.
Cheap.
Depressing.
I had told her they were staying.
Those ornaments were the last Christmas pieces I had left of my mother.
Mom had painted some of them when I was little.
One had my tiny handprint.
Another had crooked silver letters spelling my name.
One ceramic angel had been made during Mom’s final Christmas before cancer took her from us.
Now its wings were broken beneath Vanessa’s shoe.
My knees hit the floor.
“No…”
I picked up the angel.
The head had snapped off.
Something inside me broke with it.
Vanessa sighed.
“For heaven’s sake. They’re decorations.”
I looked up at her through my tears.
“They were my mother’s.”
“And your mother has been dead for years.”
The room became silent.
Completely silent.
Vanessa apparently forgot my grandmother was sitting twelve feet away.
Grandma Pearl had come for Christmas that morning.
She had been drinking coffee quietly from Dad’s favorite blue mug.
Now she set it down.
Slowly.
Vanessa noticed.
“What?”
Grandma Pearl stood.
She was seventy-two years old, barely five-foot-three, and normally the warmest person I knew.
But I had never seen her face like that.
She didn’t yell.
She didn’t curse.
She simply stared at Vanessa.
Vanessa shifted uncomfortably.
“Pearl, don’t look at me like that. It was an accident.”
Grandma glanced at the tree.
Then at me kneeling among pieces of my mother’s memories.
“An accident?”
“Yes.”
Grandma stepped around the sofa.
Vanessa’s confidence returned.
“I barely touched it.”
I opened my mouth.
“She pushed—”
“I said it was an accident!” Vanessa snapped.
Grandma stopped.
Then she looked toward the kitchen.
That was when Vanessa’s expression changed.
On the marble island sat her masterpiece.
A huge gingerbread cathedral.
Vanessa had spent almost three weeks building it for our church Christmas competition.
Sugar windows.
Candy-cane pillars.
Fondant snow.
Tiny icing wreaths.
She had bragged to everyone that the prize was practically hers.
Grandma Pearl started walking toward it.
Vanessa went pale.
“Pearl.”
Grandma continued.
“Pearl, don’t.”
Grandma reached the island.
“Seriously.”
For the first time, panic entered Vanessa’s voice.
“That is my church contest entry!”
Grandma Pearl looked back at her.
“So?”
Vanessa rushed forward.
“I worked for weeks on that!”
Grandma placed two fingers against one corner of the gingerbread base.
My breath caught.
“Pearl!”
Grandma shoved.
The entire cathedral slid across the marble.
Vanessa screamed.
It dropped from the counter.
The roof struck first.
Then the walls exploded.
Candy windows scattered across the kitchen floor.
The steeple snapped in half.
Vanessa stood frozen.
Grandma looked directly into her eyes.
“Timber.”
I covered my mouth.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Vanessa did neither.
Her face became purple with rage.
“You crazy old—”
The front door opened.
Dad walked inside carrying grocery bags.
“Merry Christmas! I found the—”
He stopped.
His eyes moved from the fallen Christmas tree to me.
Then to the broken ornaments.
Then to Vanessa’s destroyed gingerbread cathedral.
Finally, he looked at Grandma Pearl.
“What happened?”
Vanessa instantly burst into tears.
“She attacked me!”
Grandma actually smiled.
Dad put down the bags.
“What?”
“She destroyed my competition house!”
Dad looked at Grandma.
“Mom?”
Grandma folded her arms.
“Ask your daughter why she’s crying first.”
Dad looked at me.
I held up the broken angel.
His face changed.
He recognized it immediately.
Mom had made it while sitting beside him in our old kitchen seventeen years earlier.
“Grace?”
I pointed toward Vanessa.
“She knocked down Mom’s tree.”
Vanessa spun toward me.
“Stop lying!”
“I watched you do it.”
“She’s been disrespectful all day!”
Dad stared at Vanessa.
“You knocked over the tree?”
“It was an accident.”
Grandma snorted.
Dad walked closer.
“What were you arguing about?”
Vanessa hesitated.
That hesitation told him everything.
I wiped my face.
“She told me Mom’s ornaments were ugly. I said I wasn’t taking them down. She grabbed the tree and pushed it.”
“That is not what happened!”
Grandma stepped forward.
“I saw it.”
Vanessa’s face fell.
Dad went silent.
I had learned that Dad’s silence could be worse than shouting.
He crouched beside me.
He carefully picked up another broken ornament.
Mom had painted our family on it.
Three smiling stick figures.
Dad.
Mom.
Me.
His thumb brushed across Mom’s painted name.
Then Vanessa made the worst mistake possible.
She rolled her eyes.
“Oh, Michael, please. You can replace those.”
Dad slowly stood.
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
“You can’t.”
Vanessa crossed her arms.
“So now I’m the villain because Pearl destroyed something valuable too?”
Dad looked at Grandma.
Grandma didn’t apologize.
“She wanted Grace to learn that memories don’t matter,” Grandma said. “I gave her the same lesson.”
Dad rubbed his forehead.
For one moment, I thought he would defend Vanessa.
He had defended her before.
When she excluded me from dinners.
When she moved my mother’s photographs.
When she called me oversensitive.
But this time Dad walked toward the front door.
He opened it.
Vanessa frowned.
“What are you doing?”
Dad looked at her.
“You’re going to your sister’s tonight.”
She laughed.
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.”
“This is my house.”
Dad’s expression hardened.
“My daughter was here first.”
Vanessa stared at him.
Then something frightening appeared in her eyes.
Not sadness.
Not regret.
Fear.
She grabbed her phone from the counter.
“If you throw me out tonight, Michael, you’re going to regret it.”
Dad looked confused.
“What does that mean?”
Vanessa stared at him for three long seconds.
Then she gave a strange little smile.
“You really have no idea what your daughter’s been doing behind your back, do you?”
My stomach dropped.
Dad turned toward me.
“What is she talking about?”
“I don’t know.”
Vanessa picked up her purse.
“Oh, Grace knows.”
I truly didn’t.
But when Vanessa reached the doorway, she leaned close to Dad.
“Before you choose her over me, you’d better check the account.”
Dad froze.
“What account?”
Vanessa walked outside.
And five minutes later, while Grandma and I gathered the broken pieces of my mother’s ornaments, Dad opened his banking app.
I heard him gasp.
Then his phone slipped from his hand.
I looked up.
“Dad?”
His face had turned white.
May you like
More than forty thousand dollars was missing.
And according to the transfer records, every dollar had been sent from an account bearing my name.
