Chapter 1: The Stolen Legacy
The grandfather clock in the hallway struck nine. I checked my phone for the fifth time—nothing. Adrian had sworn he'd be home by now, but lately his promises had about as much weight as tissue paper in the rain.
10:15. He said nine. Of course.
I grabbed the ArtForum from the coffee table, needing something, anything, to stop me from staring at the door like some pathetic housewife from the fifties. Our Beverly Hills house felt hollow tonight, all those carefully curated paintings watching me pace between rooms.
I flipped through the glossy pages, past articles about emerging artists I'd discovered first, past reviews of galleries less successful than mine. Then my hands went numb.
Evangeline Hart sprawled across white Italian leather, looking like she'd just swallowed the canary. But it wasn't her smug little smile that made my stomach drop. It was the photograph hanging behind her—my mother's photograph.
No. No way.
I shot to my feet, the magazine shaking in my grip. There it hung, bold as brass—Ansel Adams's Moonrise, Hernandez. The silver gelatin print with his signature scrawled in the corner. The only proof that Elena Rivera had been somebody before she became nobody.
The words tumbled out before I could stop them. "Mom's Moonrise... her only..."
"She's sitting there like she owns it. Like it's hers."
Ten years dissolved in an instant. I was back in Mom's cramped apartment in Koreatown, watching her dust that photograph with the reverence most people reserved for religious icons.
"This isn't just some picture, mija," she'd told me, her English still musical with traces of Guadalajara. "It's proof that I existed in that world, you know? Even if it was just for a heartbeat."
Three years as Ansel Adams's assistant in the seventies. Three years before she got pregnant with me and the art world spit her out like she'd never belonged. When she left, he gave her this—one signed print. Her consolation prize for a life that might have been.
In the hospital, when the morphine couldn't quite mask the pain, she'd gripped my hand with surprising strength. "Don't let them treat it like it's nothing, Celeste. Promise me."
"I promise, Mom. I've got it."
The front door opened at 10:30. Adrian trudged in, his Armani tie hanging crooked, his perfectly styled hair now perfectly disheveled. He looked beat, but I was way past caring.
I held up the magazine. "Want to tell me why Evangeline has my mother's photograph?"
His face did this whole journey—blank, then oh-shit, then trying-to-look-innocent. "Babe, it's temporary. She needed something classy for the interview backdrop."
Babe. Like we were twenty-somethings arguing over who ate the last slice of pizza.
"You lent her my mother's legacy for a freaking photo shoot?"
He set his briefcase down, taking his sweet time about it. "Celeste, come on. It's just a photograph."
Just a photograph. The words sat between us like a ticking bomb.
"Plus," he added, heading for his scotch, "the exposure from Evangeline's piece? That's gold for the gallery. Her connections alone—"
"The gallery?" I heard my voice climb. "Since when do you make decisions about my mother's things without asking me?"
He froze, bottle halfway to the glass. "I didn't think you'd—"
"Yeah. That's the problem. You didn't think about me at all."
I walked to my desk, calm as a frozen lake. The bottom drawer slid open, revealing the folder I'd stashed there after my last meeting with Rachel, my lawyer. Adrian watched me like I might pull out a gun.
"I've been planning this since last month," I said, dropping the folder on the coffee table with a satisfying thwack.
His mouth actually fell open. "Last month? What the hell are you talking about?"
"Since you started having dinner meetings with Evangeline that somehow always ran past midnight." My voice stayed steady even though my pulse was doing double-time. "Since you started making gallery decisions like I'm some silent partner instead of the one who built it from nothing."
If he could give away the one thing Mom left me without blinking, what did that say about how he saw me? Background decoration? A convenient tax write-off?
Adrian snatched up the papers, his face going from tan to pale in about two seconds. "Are these... Jesus Christ, divorce papers? Because of one stupid picture?"
"It's not about the picture." I looked him straight in the eye. "It's about seven years of you acting like I'm furniture. Pretty, expensive furniture, but furniture all the same."
We ended up in the living room, facing off across the coffee table like we were negotiating a hostage situation. Which, thinking about it, maybe we were.
"I want fifty-one percent of the gallery," I said, clear as crystal. "And Mom's photograph back. Tonight."
He actually laughed. "You're being ridiculous. It's one photo, one magazine article. Do you know what Evangeline's endorsement could mean for us?"
"There you go again. Us." I shook my head. "Adrian, when was the last time you introduced me as anything other than 'my wife'? When did you last mention that I own the damn gallery?"
He leaned back into the leather, and there it was—that look. The one that said silly woman. "Look, tomorrow when you've had time to cool off, you'll realize how crazy this is. Women always get perspective after a good night's sleep."
Women always. Two words that said everything about our marriage.
"I've never been more sure about anything in my entire life."
He stood up, straightening his tie like armor. "Fine. Henderson's office, nine sharp. Once the lawyers explain how community property actually works, you'll see sense."
"Nine o'clock," I agreed. "Try not to be late this time."
His footsteps up the stairs sounded different tonight. Final, somehow. I waited until the bedroom door clicked shut before picking up the magazine again. Evangeline's face stared back at me, all fake sweetness and real ambition. My finger traced the edge of Mom's photograph in the picture.
But instead of anger, something else washed over me. Something that felt a lot like freedom.
Adrian's words hit like a slap—women always—but I just watched him climb those stairs, listened to his footsteps fade down the hall. I looked back at the magazine, at Evangeline's self-satisfied grin that seemed to mock everything I'd given up for this marriage. My fingers found the outline of Mom's photograph in the image, and this strange lightness filled my chest. Like Mom wasn't just calling out a broken promise. Like she was telling me it was finally time to live for myself.