On Monday, I went to collect Finn from school and found Vivian speaking to another parent beside the crossing.
The parent looked from Vivian to me with obvious discomfort.
I heard Vivian say that the water leak had been exaggerated to attract sympathy.
She stopped when she saw me.
I wanted to challenge her in front of everybody.
Instead, I walked Finn across the pavement and waited until he was safely inside the car.
Then I returned and asked Vivian whether she wished to repeat the accusation directly to me.
“I said the situation is complicated,” she replied.
“Our plumber has inspected two deliberate breaks,
” I said.
“The second happened while you were holding the tool.”
Vivian’s companion stepped backward.
“I don’t want to be involved,” she murmured.
“You already are if you’re being asked to repeat false information,” I replied.
Vivian’s expression hardened.
“You’ve enjoyed humiliating me since the day those women came to your house.”
“I would have preferred never to know about your workers’ pay,” I answered.
“They came because they needed help, not because I went looking for you.”
Finn tapped on the car window, and I ended the conversation rather than keep him watching.
When we drove away, he asked why Mrs.
Price was angry.
“She’s facing questions she doesn’t like,” I told him.
“Does that mean she can break our pipes?”
“No, it does not.”
He thought about that for two blocks.
“Then I don’t want to be famous if it makes me act like her,” he said.
“You can be famous and still be kind,” I replied.
“But fame isn’t an excuse for hurting people.”
We drove home in silence while rain collected along the curb.
CHAPTER SEVEN: A BUYER ASKS A QUESTION
The first buyer to call me was not someone I knew.
Her name was June Ashcroft, and she had seen the neighborhood post accusing us of trying to ruin a designer.
“I’m attending the Fashion Exchange,” she said.
“I specialize in small-batch garments, and my company may place an order.”
“I can’t speak for the workers,” I replied.
“I’m not asking you to.”
She sounded exhausted.
“I’m asking whether those women can tell me how their work is being presented.”
I arranged a meeting at the community hall with Hawa and Rosa, but I told June not to bring cameras or colleagues.
When she arrived, she wore a raincoat with a button missing and carried a plain notebook.
Hawa laid one of her embroidered cuffs on the table.
“I designed the leaf pattern,
” she said.
“Vivian’s catalog says she designed it.”
June compared the sample with a picture on her phone.
“The pattern isn’t the only issue,” she replied.
“The catalog claims a supervised paid apprenticeship.”
Rosa described finishing dresses at home between midnight and dawn.
“Who supervised you?” June asked.
“Nobody,” Rosa said.
“If there was a mistake, they refused to pay for the piece.”
June set down her pen.
“Our purchasing team was offered a tour where the makers would demonstrate the work.”
“Which makers?” Hawa asked.
June hesitated.
“That’s what I came to find out.”
She showed us a schedule listing a demonstration by six studio artisans.
None of the names matched those in the room.
The women studied the page until Mina broke the silence.
“Those are the women who model the finished clothes,” she said.
“They aren’t the ones sewing them.”
June asked for permission to note that discrepancy, and each woman gave her an answer separately.
No one was pressured to agree.
After June left, Hawa folded the sample cuff into her bag.
“She might not believe us,” she said.
“She might believe you and still buy the clothes,” Rosa answered.
Neither woman sounded reassured.
That afternoon, Vivian posted a polished statement about honoring invisible labor.
It included a photograph of sewing hands and a promise that a portion of sales would support local families.
I recognized those hands immediately.
They belonged to Hawa, and the photograph had been taken without asking her during a fitting.
CHAPTER EIGHT: THE SECOND BREAK
The next attack came on Sunday morning while Adrian and Finn were visiting the hardware shop.
I was in the garage sorting receipts when a metallic thud sounded from the side passage.
A second thud followed, and then water began striking the concrete in hard, rapid bursts.
I ran through the gate and found Vivian standing beside the exposed supply section with a long-handled garden tool in her hands.
A fresh split opened in the new pipe, and a white stream spattered her shoes.
For a moment neither of us moved.
“Put it down,” I said.
Vivian stared at the water as though the tool had acted on its own.
“I needed you to stop,” she whispered.
“You damaged our water line again.”
“You wouldn’t listen.”
I kept my distance and called the water utility, then Officer Morgan.
Vivian took one step toward me, and I moved backward toward the open driveway.
“Don’t make this public,” she said.
“My son is coming to town for the presentation.”
“You’ve put my children in danger of another flood.
”
“I made sure nobody was near the pipe.”
“You don’t get to decide what risk my family accepts.”
Vivian dropped the tool onto the gravel.
Her eyes filled with tears, but she did not deny what she had done.
When Officer Morgan arrived, Vivian admitted striking the pipe that morning.
She insisted the first break had been an accident, although she could not explain why her broken mallet had been found nearby.
Morgan took the tool and spoke to Vivian away from the crowd gathering across the street.
I did not hear every word of that conversation, and I would not later pretend that I had.
What I did hear was Vivian asking whether the officer could delay her statement until after Tuesday.
“The timeline isn’t yours to set,” Morgan told her.
Oscar returned to isolate the damaged section.
He was angry, not merely inconvenienced.
“A repair isn’t a prop in somebody else’s argument,” he said.
We had to shut off the water again while he worked.
Maisie brought the children from two neighboring houses to help us clear wet belongings out of the garage.
Hawa arrived with towels, and Rosa carried hot food in covered dishes.
Vivian watched from her porch as people came and went through our driveway.
She looked at the women she had tried to keep away.
None of them shouted at her.
They simply continued helping us repair what she had broken.
CHAPTER NINE: THE NAME ON THE CONTRACT
Officer Morgan could not tell us whether Vivian would be formally charged that day.
She could tell us to preserve repair invoices and avoid any private bargain about the damage.
By Monday morning, the kitchen was functional again, but the garage smelled of damp cardboard.
The workers refused to cancel their meeting.
They gathered around our living room table while Celia helped them understand which questions to put to an employment solicitor.
A lawyer named Anika Wells joined by speakerphone.
“We need clear instructions from each worker,” she said.
“A common problem doesn’t mean everybody has the same employment status or the same remedy.”
Rosa asked whether they could demand their work back from the showroom.
“You may be entitled to payment and other remedies,” Anika replied.
“Ownership of the garments and the designs may depend on the agreements and the circumstances.”
Hawa exhaled.
“I want people to know who made that embroidery.”
“Then let’s establish what you created without promising a court will decide it overnight.”
At noon, Mina arrived with a printed schedule showing a rehearsal at Vivian’s showroom.
Trevor had ordered six temporary models to demonstrate stitching techniques on garments already completed by the other women.
“He’s going to make them look like the makers,” she said.
“They’re being paid to act as craftspeople.”
Maisie sat upright.
“Could we ask the models whether they know?”
Mina nodded slowly.
“One of them is my niece.”
Her niece, twenty-one-year-old Keira, had been told she would be learning a craft on camera.
Nobody had explained that the promotional script claimed she had made pieces she had never touched.
Keira agreed to meet us after rehearsal, but she asked us not to contact her employer first.
When she arrived at the hall, she looked frightened and angry.
“They gave us fake biographies,” she said.
“Mine says I’ve spent ten years studying traditional embroidery.”
Hawa looked at the young woman’s hands.
“Do you know how to thread a tambour hook?” she asked.
“No,” Keira admitted.
Hawa pushed a spare hook across the table.
“Then you shouldn’t be asked to pretend you do.”
Keira stared at it before pulling the rehearsal script from her bag.
“They want us to say Vivian taught us everything,” she said.
“If I refuse, I lose my first paid modeling job.”
“You should be paid for your time,” Rosa replied.
“But you shouldn’t have to take somebody else’s life to earn it.”
