“That is a lie,” I whispered fiercely, pressing my lips against the crown of her head. “Do you hear me, Sadie? That is an absolute, vicious lie. Nobody is going to jail. Nobody is taking our home. You and I are going to be just fine.”

“Why does Aunt Vanessa hate us?” Sadie wept into my collar. “What did we do to her, Mommy? Why did she break my cake?”

“You didn’t do anything, baby. Not a single thing.” I held her tighter, staring out the truck window at the frozen lake, where a flock of mallards huddle together against the biting wind. “Some people are like defective glass, Sadie. You look through them, and everything seems fine. But on the inside, they have hidden flaws. Tension lines. And when they see something pure and good, something they could never make themselves, the pressure builds up until they just… break. And they try to cut everyone around them with their sharp edges.”

Sadie sniffled, wiping her nose with her sleeve. “Can you fix defective glass?”

“No,” I said, thinking of my mother, my father, Travis, and Vanessa. “You can’t fix it. You just have to clear the pieces out of the way before they hurt you.”

When we got home, the reality of the war was waiting on our front porch.

Sitting squarely on my welcome mat was a heavy cardboard box, sealed aggressively with packing tape. Taped to the top of the box was an envelope with my name scribbled in Travis’s bold, sloppy handwriting.

I carried the box inside, setting it on the kitchen island while Sadie went upstairs to wash her face and start her homework.

I tore open the envelope. Inside was a photocopy of an invoice from the Louis Vuitton boutique at the Mall of America in Minneapolis, dated eight months ago.

*Item: LV Monogram Canvas Speedy 30 Bandouliere.*

*Total: $2,145.00.*

Beneath the invoice was a handwritten note from my brother:

*Rebecca,*

*Here are the remains of Vanessa’s property. The attorney says you have seven days left to settle this outside of court. If you don’t wire the $2,145 to the account number written below by 5:00 PM next Monday, we are filing the civil lawsuit, and Vanessa is submitting her victim impact statement to the State’s Attorney. Mom and Dad agree with this. If you want to remain a part of this family, you will make this right. Otherwise, do not show up for Thanksgiving.*

*— Travis.*

I set the letter down.

My hands were perfectly steady now. The frantic anxiety that had plagued me for forty-eight hours had crystallized into something cold, heavy, and dangerous.

They were going to ruin me financially. They were poisoning my daughter’s school life. They were threatening me with court, estrangement, and police intervention, all over a bag that had cost an arrogant woman a momentary embarrassment.

I grabbed a utility knife from my toolbox and sliced open the packing tape on the box.

Inside, resting on a bed of cheap plastic grocery bags, was the charred, water-logged corpse of the Louis Vuitton purse.

Travis had shoveled the whole mess out of my fire pit and boxed it up like a severed head. The stench of burned plastic immediately filled my kitchen.

I reached into the box and pulled the ruined bag out, laying it on a layer of newspaper on the island.

I looked at it closely for the first time.

I had never owned a designer handbag in my life. I spent my money on sturdy work boots, diamond-tipped glass-cutting wheels, and warm winter coats for Sadie. But as a glazier, my entire career was built on material analysis. I spent eight hours a day scrutinizing stress fractures, laminates, polyvinyl interlayers, and metallic coatings. I could tell the difference between high-grade float glass and cheap Chinese import acrylic from twenty paces.

I leaned closer to the charred bag.

The fire had burned through the outer brown canvas, peeling it back from the inner lining.

I frowned.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out my high-intensity inspection flashlight, and clicked it on. A brilliant beam of white light illuminated the blistered edge of the purse.

Where the canvas had melted, it hadn’t burned like organic cotton or treated natural linen coated in resin—which is how authentic Louis Vuitton coated canvas is manufactured.

It had melted into a thick, gooey, chemical blob of pure, cheap polyvinyl chloride. It smelled strongly of scorched petroleum and cheap industrial glue.

I pulled out a pair of needle-nose pliers and gently pried open the gold-toned metal ring that connected the burned handle to the body of the bag.

Authentic Louis Vuitton hardware is solid brass. Brass does not blister, peel, or turn silvery-gray under low-temperature wood-ash heat.