My Stepmom Smashed My Late Mom’s Pottery Collection—She Didn’t Expect What Was Coming

I felt like everything had fallen apart when I discovered my late mother’s priceless ceramic collection broken all over the floor of my living room.

However, I had been three steps ahead of my stepmother the entire time, so she was unaware that her nasty moment was about to turn into her worst nightmare.

My name is Bella, and I would do anything in the world to keep two things safe. My sanity comes first. The second is my mother’s ceramic collection, which she left me five years ago.

Mom worked as a ceramicist. She had saved for three years to purchase a kiln, which she kept in her studio in our garage. Each piece she created conveyed a narrative. The day following her first chemotherapy session, she created this sea-green vase.

Every morning, I wrapped my six-year-old fingers around the coffee mug with the small heart pressed into the handle. Her handprint is still apparent in the clay of the bowl.

After she passed away, I wrapped everything in tissue paper and bubble wrap and put it all in a big glass cabinet in our living room.

After Mom died, I returned to live with Dad, not because I couldn’t afford a place of my own, but more because I could not handle the silence in his home. We were dependent on one another.

It worked for a time.

Then, at a conference at work, Dad met Karen. She embodied everything that Mom did not. Imagine having professionally done hair, polished nails, and fashionable clothing. Two years after Mom’s passing, they were married.

I made an effort to adapt. But after a few weeks, I came to the conclusion that Karen and I would never be friends.

She detested Mom’s ceramics.

“It’s so cluttered,” she said morning. “You really should think about minimizing. Clean lines are so much more elegant.”

I glanced at the cabinet. “They’re not cluttered. They’re my mom’s memories.”

Her smile was tight and stopped short of her eyes. “Of course, sweetie. I just mean… they’re a bit rustic, aren’t they? Like something you’d find at a yard sale.”

“My mom made them.”

Karen responded, “I know that,” with a phony sense of patience. “I’m just saying, maybe you could put some in storage?”

She would make a remark about something every few days. “These really don’t match the aesthetic I’m going for.” Alternatively, “Don’t you think it’s time to let go of the past?”

Then one afternoon, while Dad was at work, Karen approached me in the kitchen.

I was shocked by what I had just heard. “What?”

“Just a few. You wouldn’t even miss them.”

“I have 23 pottery pieces. And no, you can’t have any of them.”

Her face changed quickly. The amiable mask broke. “Don’t be selfish, Bella. They’re just sitting there collecting dust.”

“They’re all I have left of Mom.”

Karen squinted her eyes. “Fine. Keep your precious little pots. But if you won’t share it nicely, you’re going to regret it.”

Her shoes clicked like gunshots as she left.

She called behind her. “You’ll see,” she said.

My supervisor sent me to Chicago for a three-day meeting three weeks later. I had little choice but to go, even if I didn’t want to.

After finishing it, I took a late Saturday night trip back. It was about 11 p.m. when I arrived home. The porch light was the only source of light in the house.

Silently, I unlocked the door and kicked off my shoes.

I realized then that the fragrance wasn’t right. The aroma of Dad’s coffee, Mom’s lavender soap that somehow persisted, and the earthy clay fragrance from the pottery were all constants in our home. The smell of clay, however, had vanished.

I felt sick to my stomach.

I made my way to the living area. My brain denied what my eyes were seeing when I turned the corner and saw the cabinet.

The door made of glass hung open. There was nothing on the shelves. And there were chunks of clay all over the floor. Like awful confetti, shards of pottery in every color Mom had ever used were all over the place.

I fell to my knees and said, “No, no, no…” as I was terrified to touch anything and my hands hovered over the debris.

The heels were then heard.

Click. Click. Click.

Karen, dressed in silk pajamas, emerged in the doorway. She had flawless hair. Even though it was almost late, she had makeup on her face. She grinned as she glanced at me and then at the ground.

“Oh!” she said in a soft, honey-like voice. “You’re home early.”

“What did you do, Karen?”

She looked at her freshly manicured, bright red nails. “I told you I didn’t like how cluttered they looked. I was dusting, and the shelf was unstable. Everything just… fell.”

She was telling lies. I could see it in the small flicker of satisfaction in her eyes and the way her mouth curled.

Her smile widened as she said, “Total accident!”

I felt a sudden realization: “You’re a monster.”

Immediately, her face hardened. “Watch your tone, Bella. Your father won’t appreciate you calling me names. And honestly, they were just pots. You’re being dramatic.”

“Just pots? My mother made those. Her hands shaped every single one. They had her fingerprints on the clay.”

Karen gave a shrug. After turning to go, she stopped and said, “Had being the key word.” “Oh, and you might want to clean that up before your father sees it. He’ll be so upset that you were careless with your storage.”

I was left alone with my mother’s broken remains as she left, humming something.

I sat on the floor, tears streaming down my cheeks, anger and sorrow tangled in my chest until I was unable to distinguish between the two.

However, something else was developing beneath it all. Something sharp, frigid, and blazingly obvious.

Because Karen had made one very important error.

She had thought I was a moron.

I said to the empty room, “You have no idea what you’ve done,” in a whisper.

This is what Karen was unaware of.

It was about two months ago when I became suspicious. She kept going around the cabinet like a shark, constantly finding reasons to dust close to it and complaining about how much room it took up. I’m not naturally paranoid, but I’m also not a fool.

I therefore took two actions.

I started by purchasing a covert camera. One of those plant cams that records everything in high definition while appearing to be a harmless little succulent.

I placed it at the ideal angle on the bookshelf opposite the cabinet and never spoke of it. No, Dad. Not my closest pal. No one.

Second, I changed out the ceramics, and this is the part that still makes me feel like a criminal mastermind.

All the items in that cabinet were false.

I spent three weekends searching estate sales and flea markets for inexpensive pottery that was sufficiently similar.

Not exactly, of course, but comparable hues and forms. I think I spent about $50 total. After that, I brought them home, aged them with dust and coffee grounds, and placed them just where Mom’s pieces had been.

Wrapped in the same tissue paper and bubble wrap I’d used five years prior, the actual collection was secured in a cabinet in my bedroom closet.

In other words, Karen had destroyed copies when she destroyed all that she believed to be my mother’s legacy.

However, I had no intention of telling her that. Not quite yet.

Still seated on the floor among the shards of false pottery, I took out my phone and opened the camera app. The time-stamped video from earlier that night was already there.

Around 7 p.m., I saw Karen enter the room. I suppose she looked around to make sure she was alone.

She then strode directly to the cabinet, ripped the door open, and began removing the parts from the shelf. She grabbed the imitation sea-green vase and threw it so hard toward the floor that I could hear it hit the speaker on my phone.

She tore each piece apart one by one. The plates, bowls, and mugs. To break the larger shards smaller, she even stamped on them with her heel.

The finest moment, my god, was when she exclaimed, “Let’s see how much you love your precious mommy now, you pathetic little girl!” while looking straight at the empty cupboard.

To make sure the movie had been stored correctly, I watched it three times. I then gave Dad a call.

“Hey, honey,” was his drowsy reply. “Everything okay?”

“I’m home. Can you come downstairs? We need to talk.”

“It’s almost midnight…”

“Now, Dad. Please.”

Karen followed him, appearing irritated, as he emerged in his bathrobe.

When they saw me on the floor among the pottery, they froze.

Dad turned pale and asked, “What happened?”

Karen jumped right in. “Oh, Dave, it’s awful. I came down for a glass of water and heard a crash. The cabinet must’ve been unstable… everything just fell.”

Adding, “That’s not what happened,”.

I gave my phone to Dad. “You should watch this.”

Karen’s expression wavered. “Watch what?”

Dad hit the play button.

I saw his face shift when he witnessed Karen methodically destroying each piece. She stepped on the fragments, and his jaw tensed. At her last sentence, he winced.

The hush seemed oppressive when it was over.

Karen began, “I can explain, Dave.”

“Explain what? Explain why you destroyed my late wife’s artwork on purpose and tried to blame Bella?”

She turned to face me and said, “This is fake. You edited this.” “I didn’t… it’s not…”

I chuckled. “You did this all by yourself.”

She twisted her face. “Fine. I’m sick of living in a shrine devoted to a dead woman. She’s gone, and you both need to move on.”

Dad’s hands trembled. “Get out.”

“What?”

“Get. Out. Pack a bag and leave. Tonight.”

Karen yelled, “You can’t be serious,”

“Actually,” I replied, “I have a better idea.”

Both of them turned to face me.

“You’re going to fix this.”

Karen squinted her eyes. “What?”

“You broke them, so you’re going to glue every single piece back together. Every shard, every fragment.”

She chuckled. “You’re insane.”

“Maybe. But you’ve got two choices. Either you spend however long it takes to repair what you destroyed, or I file a police report.

I’ve got video evidence of vandalism. Criminal charges. And I’ll make sure everyone in your book club and volunteer committee sees exactly what you did.”

Her face was devoid of color. “You wouldn’t.”

I opened my email, entered the address of the police department, and then held out my phone. “Try me.”

She opened and closed her mouth. “Fine!” she hissed at the end.

I spread all of the shards on the dining room table after bringing them down in boxes the following morning. Karen sat there for weeks. Her fingernails were damaged. She missed going to the spa, Pilates, her book group, and her salon.

I would pass by with my phone each time she attempted to stop. “Need me to call the police yet?”

Dad hardly spoke to her. He would respond to her pleas for him to stop me by saying, “You did this to yourself.”

Since the pottery came from a variety of sources, the pieces didn’t fit together properly. However, she persisted, being increasingly irritated and worn out.

She summoned me in after twenty-eight days.

“There,” she replied with trembling hands. “It’s done. Every piece is… glued. Are you satisfied?”

I looked over her work. The “vases” had lumps in them. The seams of the “mugs” were evident. Unsuitable colors were glued together in strange ways.

“Wow! You actually did it.”

“Now can we move on from this?”

I grinned. “Sure. Just one more thing.”

I took out the actual sea-green vase from the wooden cabinet in the corner. Whole and flawless.

Karen’s expression slackened. “What… how..?”

I took out another piece. And yet another. All twenty-three originals, undamaged.

“I switched them out two months ago. The pieces you destroyed were fakes from estate sales. Cost me about 50 bucks.”

She opened her mouth, but made no sound.

I put Mom’s actual pottery on new shelves and said, “So you just spent four weeks gluing together garbage that was never worth anything.” “Kind of poetic. You tried to destroy what mattered most to me, but all you destroyed was your own time and sanity.”

Red, purple, and white flashed across Karen’s face. “You set me up.”

“I protected what was mine. You chose to be cruel. I just made sure your cruelty cost you something.”

She reached for her handbag. “I’m leaving. I’m going to my sister’s, and I’m not coming back until you’re gone.”

“Have a safe trip!”

She bounded out. A week later, Dad informed me that she had requested a separation. She wanted him to make a decision.

I was his choice.

With his arm wrapped around my shoulders, Dad whispered, “Good riddance,”

Three months have passed since Karen’s departure.

Dad and I put in a new cabinet with strengthened glass and a lock. Inside, Mom’s actual pottery is arranged with each item in its proper place. Occasionally, the glazes catch the light and shimmer as the afternoon sun shines through.

Karen and her sister are still together. Dad informed her that the ship had sailed and sunk, but she made one attempt to return, saying she wanted to “repair our relationship.”

Next month, the divorce documents ought to be finished.

Karen’s book club friend brought over a dish last week. News of what transpired spread.

“I always thought something was off about her,” she stated. “Too perfect, like she was performing for the cameras.”

I showed her my mother’s ceramics. She sobbed for a long time while standing in front of the cabinet. “These are extraordinary. Your mother was an artist.”

“Yeah. She really was.”

Dad is doing well. He chuckles more. He invited me to join him at the community center for a pottery workshop last Sunday.

Yes, I replied.

I vividly remember that night, feeling as though my world had ended when I came home to shards on the floor. Even though the pottery wasn’t real, the anguish was.

The problem with attempting to erase someone’s memory, however, is that it is impossible. The love behind the items endures beyond the reach of any cabinet, even if you smash them.

Karen glued something that was never whole in the first place for a month. Unaware that the true harm was to herself, she spent all of her energy attempting to repair what she had damaged.

My stepmother believed that by destroying my mother’s artwork, she might eradicate her.

As the true treasures sat safely hidden away, she instead removed herself from our lives and spent her final days in our home gluing together garbage.

Mom’s ceramics are back in their proper place. Karen, too?

She is rightfully gone, forgotten, and living out the rest of her days knowing that she was outwitted by a daughter who loved her mother more than she could have ever imagined.