I take a deep breath. “Mine.”
Valentina’s lips stretch into a wide smile and she pumps a fist in the air. “I was right!” Her reaction is nothing like I expected.
“You knew?”
“I guessed. I know a little bit about hiding your creations because you’re not ready to take ownership of them out in the public eye.” She points to a wall with several nude paintings. “Those are mine.”
I can feel my eyebrows climb to my hairline. “Really?”
She nods. “Yes, and I didn’t think they were good enough to display here, but someone else took that choice out of my hands, and even though I wanted to strangle him at the time, he was right. How long have you been making stuff like this?”
Her question drags me out of present day, out of the gallery, and deposits me back in the past about fifteen years earlier.
* * *
“What the fuckdid you do with my soldering iron?”
I jumped as the door to the workshop slammed against the outside, shaking the entire building on its rickety foundation. I dropped the solder and the iron, then scooped up my little creation and tucked it behind my back, my eyes stinging with tears as the burning metal touched my arm.
“Nothing.”
“Lying little bitch. I need it. Now.” Dad’s words were already slurring, telling me he’d hit the sauce today already.
“It’s right here. Sorry. I’ll get out of here.”
His sneer, one of his three facial expressions—the cruel smirk or the thundercloud of anger completed the trio—revealed a wad of dip in his lip. “You been in my shit again? Is that why I’m missing parts, because you’re stealing from me? Is that what I taught you?”
I shook my head until I thought my eyeballs would bounce out of their sockets.
His hand swung out and the back of it caught my cheek, snapping my head sideways. “Told you not to lie to me, girl.”
I stumbled back and lost my grip on my creation. It fell to the plank floor with a clatter.
“The fuck is that?” Moving faster than I’d seen him move in ages, Dad swiped it up.
“I was just—”
He studied the two little people I’d made. A guy and a girl. They were holding hands.
He glanced up at me. “You took two fucking spark plugs and some fuses to make this piece of shit? First, the scrap metal that’d be better off in my pocket as some change, and now you’re using shit I actually need for your waste of time?” He sets it on the workbench and reaches for a hammer on its hook.
“Dad, no. I’ll buy new ones. That’s—”
I couldn’t even get out my explanation that it was a gift for Mama for her birthday before he swung and shattered it, spark plugs and all.
“Look what you made me do, girl! Look.” He shoved the broken metal and ceramic in my face, not caring that a sharp edge nicked me and I jumped back. I reached up to touch the smarting spot, and my fingers came away red.
“That should teach you to fuck with shit that ain’t yours again. If it scars, then you’ll never forget.”
He snatched up the soldering iron and tossed my people to the floor.
“Quit wasting your time on those pieces of shit. You got better things to do. Like get a job. No one’s ever gonna pay you for that junk except the scrap yard.”
Dad turned and left the shack of a workshop, leaving both my junk and me crushed.
* * *
The memory is depressingas hell, but something that feels a lot like vindication bubbles up in my gut. He said no one would ever pay for my stuff but the scrap yard, and he’s dead wrong.