The Woman In The Portrait Refused To Be Remembered Yet

I called Nina before opening the order a second time.

"Don't answer him," she said. "Save the message with its full details. I'll call the investigator."

"Should I call Nora?"

"Let them reach her safely."

I stood beneath the animal shelf and waited. The little mouse faced the door. I turned it toward my wheel, then hated myself for wanting a bit of clay to feel safer.

By noon, Dahlia told me Nora was with her sister. Officers had taken a report. They helped arrange a temporary place to stay and gave me instructions for reporting any urgent threat.

"Is someone watching my shop?" I asked.

"An officer will check in. I can't promise someone outside every minute."

I liked her honesty. I wished it had come with a stronger door.

Nina declined the portrait order in writing. No deposit had reached my account, and we did not accept the offer.

That afternoon, I saw Nora at the office. Her sister sat beside her with a paper cup she had crushed without noticing.

Nora held the printed order.

"That picture cost me $165," she said. "The photographer told me to think of something hopeful."

"You looked hopeful."

"I was. We had just paid off our second van."

She set the page down.

"Well. I haven't died of this yet."

Dahlia let us sit with that before she asked about the other collections.

Nora had paid six times: $2,100, $2,300, $2,400, $2,500, $2,600, and $2,800. She had bank slips for some and photographs for all.

"Fourteen thousand seven hundred dollars," she said. "I could have hired another driver."

"Where did you put it in the books?" Dahlia asked.

"Outside labor. I kept the cash demands behind the entries. I wanted the accountant to see why, even if I couldn't say it out loud."

"We'll need both. Your accountant can help correct the entries."

"Will I look stupid?"

Dahlia put her pen down.

"You can look frightened on a page. That's allowed."

Nora breathed through her mouth for a moment. Then she opened her purse and took out another envelope of slips.

On my way home, Keene called.

I let voicemail answer. Nina had told me to preserve contact without trying to draw him into more.

"Luca," he said, "a portrait for Nora's husband was entered under the wrong name. These things happen when young people assume the worst. Please consider the good name you're harming."

The order showed Nora's face. Her name. Her living face.

I sent the recording to Nina and Dahlia.

The next morning, a courier brought a demand letter.

Keene wanted $7,680 back within five days. He said my urns were incomplete without delivery certificates. He also demanded every image, clay sample, glaze record, and customer note tied to Lantern Road.

The letter claimed those materials belonged to him.

I sat down on the floor to read it again.

My mother had written my first glaze recipe on the back of a flour bag. I kept it in that drawer. Now some stranger with heavy stationery said the drawer was his client's property.

Nina came over with a sandwich cut into two unequal pieces.

"Which half costs less?" I asked.

"Both are included in my terrible lunch habits."

She spread my January order terms beside his letter.

Finished vessels transferred after payment. Shop records, photographs, and designs stayed mine. Extra services needed a separate signed agreement.

"You weren't hiding this clause," she said. "It's above his signature."

"Can he take the drawer anyway?"

"He can ask a court. A demand letter doesn't let him load your shop into a truck."

We answered with the signed terms. Nina also told him to preserve his dispatch records and all messages about my orders.

I made a list of everything in the drawer. Then I did something harder. I opened the shop.

A man from Beech Grove needed a small urn with a row of stars. His sister had loved looking at the sky from her porch.

"Not fancy stars," he said. "The kind a kid draws."

I showed him a sample.

"Those," he said, and cried quietly while I wrote the order.

There was still work I could do without lying for anyone.

At nine, I returned to Dahlia's office to finish checking photo dates. We ate rice and lentils at a shared table. I paid my half before she could reach for the receipt.

"Very fast," she said.

"I work with things that harden if you hesitate."

She laughed, and I wanted to hear that sound somewhere without file boxes.

Then my phone buzzed.

Nina had sent a court filing. Keene had sued for the payment and asked a judge to give him immediate possession of my production archive.