Chapter 6
I ended the engagement that night.
Quietly.
No broken glass.
No threats.
Camellia removed the ring herself.
Placed it beside the sketch.
She cried.
“I love you.”
“I believe you.”
That made it worse.
“Then why—”
“Because love doesn’t erase architecture.”
She stared.
“This relationship was built with hidden rooms.”
Her mother’s history.
Julian’s address.
Mavis’s paintings.
Eleanor’s archive.
My father’s letter.
Every time truth threatened her place, she chose concealment.
Maybe she loved me.
I loved parts of her too.
Not enough.
Marriage requires more than feeling.
It requires not being curated.
She nodded eventually.
Then looked at Mavis.
“I’m sorry.”
Mavis said nothing.
Good.
Apology is not a command.
Then Camellia asked:
“What happens to the paintings?”
Important.
Every work in the exhibition had buyers waiting.
Contracts.
Deposits.
Reputation.
I did not care about the market first.
I looked at Mavis.
“What do you want?”
She stared.
No one had asked.
“I want my name back.”
Simple.
Not money first.
Not fame.
Name.
We corrected the exhibition attribution immediately.
Privately to buyers.
Then publicly at the next showing.
No humiliation performance.
Just fact.
Every painting was by Mavis Fairbourne.
Camellia had falsely claimed authorship.
Some buyers walked.
Others stayed.
Good.
Art survived reputation shifts better than people expected.
Then Mavis said:
“And my mother’s work isn’t for sale.”
I nodded.
“Done.”
Camellia closed her eyes.
She had built herself using two women’s hands.
One dead.
May you like
One serving her.
Now both were being removed from her control.
