The Forgery of a Life
I buried my true self, polishing every rough edge until I was flawless as jade. It was the only way, I thought, to stand beside my radiant, distant moon.
I believed if my performance was perfect, we could share a lifetime under that moon.
Then I saw my ever-calm husband publicly explode over a wild-haired coffee shop girl, destroying a billion-dollar deal.
I stayed to clean his mess at a gallery gala. But on the terrace, I overheard a world-shattering talk:
“Andrew, your ‘artist’ wife is quite dutiful, playing nice with the sharks for you.”
“She’s the perfect facade for my new-money mansion—a perfect fake.”
“A painter from the projects… thinks mixing colors can hide her poverty?”
Through the phone, Andrew’s lazy chuckle rang with amusement.
He knew. He’d always known.
He had been acting, too.
1
My heart felt like it had been plunged into ice water, the shock so cold it was numbing.
“I heard that old mentor of hers, the one she supposedly learned from, is desperate for cash. Telling everyone he has a ‘star pupil.’ I give it three months before the whole story blows up. Then Mrs. Burke’s ‘art prodigy’ halo is going to shatter into a million pieces.”
“I’ll bet a month!” That was Leo, Andrew’s childhood friend and a well-known gallery owner. “That forgery of Dusk Over Riverstone Ridge was damn good, I’ll give her that. But you can’t hide the soul of a craftsman. You see the way she pontificates about Rembrandt’s use of chiaroscuro? Like she’s cramming from a textbook, desperate to prove she’s read a book or two. It’s pathetic.”
Andrew let out another soft laugh, his tone casual. “I’ll bet… a year. Her pride is her weakness. She’ll do anything to keep that secret buried, probably pay the old man off. It won’t be a problem, not for a while.”
He sighed, a light, theatrical sound.
“Old Mr. Sterling was so insistent I marry his granddaughter, that girl who can’t paint anything but pretty little flowers. I wasn’t having it.”
“Then Hope showed up, right on cue. She’s a technician, not an artist, but her hands… her hands are magic. I needed a world-class forger to get Sterling’s Moonglow out of his vault. If she could paint me a flawless counterfeit, he’d be too distracted to meddle in my marriage ever again.”
He paused. “And watching her try so hard, every single day, to play the part of the ethereal, secluded artist… honestly, it’s been quite amusing.”
The blood froze in my veins.
So, Andrew had known from the start. My talent, my skill, was nothing more than a tool for his elaborate heist, a performance for his entertainment.
A burst of laughter echoed from the main hall.
Andrew suddenly shushed them.
Through a gap in a modern sculpture, I saw a young woman sitting on a bench in the lounge area, looking dejected. She was wrapped in Andrew’s cashmere coat, a piece that cost more than my first year of rent.
The moment she looked up, Andrew silenced his friends.
“Keep it down. Don’t bother her. She pulled three all-nighters for her graduation exhibit. She’s exhausted.”
Leo clicked his tongue. “Seriously, Andrew? She’s a student. Her work is… juvenile. What do you even see in her?”
Andrew propped his chin on his hand, his gaze fixed on the girl.
“Unlike Hope’s work, which is technically perfect but has no soul, Zoe’s is real. An ordinary piece of paper comes alive under her brush. It’s that raw, unmarketable honesty… that’s what draws me in.”
Just then, the girl, Zoe, stood up as if to leave.
She carefully slipped off the coat and handed it back to Andrew. “Mr. Burke, thank you again for buying my painting at the auction. I promise I’ll pay you back…”
“You don’t have to.”
“No, I insist,” she said, her lip trembling with a stubborn pride. “I don’t want my first sale to be… charity.”
A smile touched Andrew’s lips. He reached out, his finger lightly tracing a stroke of color on her canvas. It was a gesture of incredible tenderness.
“Alright, alright, you win. How about this? Host a solo exhibition at my gallery. I’ll give you the main hall.”
Zoe’s eyes widened. “But… I’m just a student. My work isn’t ready…”
“Forget about résumés. You have a gift, Zoe. You’ll stun them all.”
She hesitated for only a second before nodding.
A sharp pain, like the edge of a palette knife, twisted in my chest.
That main hall at Andrew’s gallery… it had been promised to me.
The minimum requirement for an artist to exhibit there was a major international award. My artistic identity was a sham, but the smaller awards I’d won, those were real. I’d entered countless competitions, building a believable history to bolster the lie of my heritage.
Andrew was often away on business for his art foundation in Italy. I was so afraid he’d find my knowledge lacking that I devoured books on art history, learned restoration techniques, and spent every spare moment haunting museums and libraries.
And now I knew. None of it had ever mattered to him.
I finally understood. You didn’t have to be perfect to earn his affection. You just had to be someone else.
Andrew gently helped Zoe pack her art supplies. “My gallery always has space for a genius.”
2
Zoe beamed, a genuine, unburdened smile.
Hidden in the shadows, my limbs grew numb. I felt like I was about to collapse.
I stumbled back to the event organizer’s office. He was still hoping I could smooth things over.
“Mrs. Burke, this is a very awkward situation for us. You see…” He gave me a strained smile.
In the past, to expand Andrew’s network in the art world, I had endured so much. I’d sipped wine with greasy collectors, listening to their half-baked theories on art, and plastered a polite smile on my face.
Not anymore. I wasn't that fool any longer.
I stood up and grabbed my clutch. “Mr. Davies, your business with my husband is your own to solve. I have other matters to attend to. You’ll have to excuse me.”
I walked out of the gallery like a zombie, my body moving on autopilot, and returned to the Burke estate.
Andrew’s mother was in the living room, perched on a rosewood chair, sipping a rare single-origin tea.
She heard me enter but didn’t bother to look up. “The luncheon with the museum board tomorrow, have you confirmed the artist list for the dinner gala?” she asked, her voice crisp.
“And for the biennial in Europe next month, the butler has emailed you the itineraries for our family friends. I expect you to arrange everything personally.”
“Hope, we allowed you into this family to be its artistic face. You are expected to handle these duties flawlessly. Otherwise, what’s the difference between marrying you and some common craftsman from a print shop?”
Craftsman. The word stabbed into my heart again.
I stood silently at the entrance, then turned toward the staircase without a word.
“Stop! Are you deaf? Or is all that supposed culture you affect just an act?”
I paused on the first step, my back still to her. “Find someone else,” I said, my voice flat. “I’m tired.”
Her stream of venomous words followed me up the stairs, but I tuned them all out.
I slammed my bedroom door shut, the sound a welcome finality.
Memories rushed back, and I suddenly remembered the first time I saw Andrew Burke.
I was working my way through college as a dogsbody in a small gallery, restoring broken frames. It was my first glimpse into the world of high-end art, a world that made me feel small and crushingly poor.
One day, I accidentally smudged the packaging of a client’s painting. He exploded.
“Watch where you’re going, you clumsy little gutter rat!” he screamed, his finger jabbing at my face. “Do you have any idea what this is worth? More money than your kind will ever see in a lifetime!”
I just stood there, a prisoner in the dock, apologizing over and over, my face burning with a mixture of humiliation and shame.
Then Andrew stepped in, his voice as cool and smooth as silk.
“It’s a decorative piece, hardly a masterpiece. Is it really necessary to terrorize a young woman over it?”
The way he signed the check to cover the perceived damages—effortless, elegant, utterly dismissive—is burned into my memory.
My heart had hammered in my chest. For the first time, I felt the chasm between our worlds. I was an art student, just like the names on the gallery walls, but because I was born poor, I was destined to be trod into the mud, a nameless craftsman.
But I didn’t want to be a craftsman. I wanted to be an artist.
I wanted a life that glittered. And I wanted the man standing before me.
In that moment, a dangerous cocktail of desire and ambition gave birth to an audacious plan.
I forged paintings. I wove lies.
All for a ticket into the hallowed halls of the art world.
All to stand beside him.
And in the end, I succeeded.
Only to discover it was all a game to Andrew. He didn’t love my perfect technique; he was captivated by the clumsy, amateurish scrawls of an intern.
All because she was real.
How utterly laughable.
I picked up my phone and called my lawyer, telling him to draw up divorce papers.
It was time to end this.
I tossed and turned in bed for hours. Andrew didn’t come home until well after midnight. I could hear his mother’s muffled complaints from the living room before he came upstairs.
He still smelled faintly of turpentine. The scent of Zoe’s studio.
He unfastened his cufflinks as he spoke. “Mother said you were rude to her today. Go down and apologize later.”
I lay still, my back to him.
He gently patted my shoulder. “What’s wrong, darling? You seem upset.”
He leaned over and pressed a kiss to my forehead.
The same gentle touch, but this time, I felt nothing but cold.
I forced my voice to be steady. “It’s nothing. I just don’t feel well.”
“By the way, how did things go with the auction house?”
“They’re not resolved.”
Andrew paused for a second. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll cut ties with them if I have to. The last thing I want is for you to be upset.”
A bitter laugh almost escaped my lips.
I wanted to ask him, who was it he didn't want to be upset?
But in the end, I said nothing.
“Okay.”
3
I didn’t sleep a wink.
The next day when I went to the gallery, the girl was already there.
Zoe.
She was even prettier and more innocent-looking in person, like a wildflower that had never been tamed. She was also completely clueless about the business of art. At the exhibition planning meeting, she didn’t understand the basic principles of lighting design, and her curatorial proposal was a mess of incoherent thoughts.
Andrew was notoriously demanding with his staff.
But with Zoe, he was a bottomless well of patience.
I held my tongue until the meeting was over, then followed Andrew to his office to discuss the next quarter’s exhibition schedule.
Zoe offered to pour me a glass of water.
Her wrist tilted, and icy water splashed all over my silk blouse, blooming into a dark stain. The documents on the table were soaked.
I finally snapped. “What is wrong with you?”
She slammed the glass down, her face a mask of defiance and stubborn pride, but said nothing.
“Don’t you think you owe me an apology?” I asked, my voice dangerously calm.
Her temper flared. “It was an accident! Why do you have to be so aggressive? Don’t think you can bully me just because you’re the boss’s wife.”
Beside us, Andrew watched with an expression of pure admiration.
So this was the raw authenticity he found so appealing.
I was about to let her have it when he grabbed my hand, running interference for her. “She’s just a kid, Hope. She doesn’t have much experience. Let me apologize to you on her behalf, alright?”
My heart stuttered. I pulled my hand away.
The matter was dropped, unresolved.
After we finished discussing work, I prepared to leave.
Andrew cleared his throat. “I have a dinner meeting tonight. You go on home, don’t wait up for me.”
I knew him too well. He had a tell—he always adjusted his cufflinks right before he lied.
“Alright.”
Back in my office, I got Zoe’s number from HR and sent her a friend request.
Sure enough, just after eight o’clock, she posted an update to her story.
Andrew was in the picture.
They had gone to a gritty night market near the art academy. The background was a chaotic jumble of street food stalls. This was a man who drank only one specific brand of imported water, now sitting on a plastic stool, eating spicy street-side noodles with her.
It was almost funny.
I scrolled through her feed.
The few posts she had were all about Andrew.
[Turned twenty today, and Mr. V. got me my first set of expensive art supplies! But I still love my old brushes best, hehe.]
[The big boss’s first time at the night market! He was frowning the whole time but still remembered to pick the cilantro out of my bowl for me!]
The more I read, the tighter the knot in my chest became.
Just then, my phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number. My heart seized when I read the message.
It was him… my old mentor, the one I’d cut all ties with.
[Hope. You need to help me. You think just because you’re famous now, you can pretend I don’t exist?]
[I’m rotting in a basement, and I swear I’ll drag you down from your pedestal with me!]
[Don’t forget where Dusk Over Riverstone Ridge came from. Five million dollars, and I’ll keep your secret safe.]
I didn’t reply. My hands trembled as I deleted the message.
I suddenly remembered the bet Andrew and his friends made that night at the gallery.
They were betting on how long it would take for me to be exposed.
My old mentor was a ticking time bomb.
Sooner or later, he would explode.
But I was done living in fear.
So I would be the one to light the match.
4
Andrew didn’t come home until the next morning.
He gave a vague excuse about a business dinner that ran all night.
But I’d already seen it on Zoe’s feed.
There was no dinner.
He had driven her out to her favorite spot for landscape painting.
They had watched the stars and painted the sunrise together.
At breakfast, my mother-in-law spoke up. “The Burke Foundation’s annual charity gala is approaching, Hope. It’s time you started the preparations.”
The gala was their family’s most important social event of the year, attended by a who’s who of politics, business, and the arts.
I listened as she droned on, then asked, “What date is the gala?”
“The twentieth.”
My phone was still vibrating.
One threatening text after another.
[You little bitch! If you don’t answer me, I’m coming to your house!]
I hesitated for a moment, then typed a reply:
[You want money? Meet me on the twentieth, at the venue for the charity gala.]
5
The days ticked by.
The twentieth drew closer.
For some, it was a date of dread. For others, a source of joy.
Zoe’s social media was a daily diary of her time with Andrew.
He skipped out of the office to help her find inspiration in the countryside.
He spent a weekend with her at an artist’s market, hawking her little paintings that no one was buying, just to “experience life.”
A picture showed the two of them squatting on a curb, sharing a single roasted sweet potato.
Every post, every photo, was a poisoned knife twisting in my heart.
The threatening texts from my mentor continued unabated.
The language grew more and more vile.
He called me a treacherous snake, a talentless copyist.
He said I was destined to rot in a basement, a ghost painter for the rest of my life.
The sealed-off memories broke open again.
Him, drunk, tearing up a piece I had spent two weeks on.
Locking me in a windowless cellar, forcing me to copy a painting for three days straight without sleep.
Beating my hands with the wooden stretcher of a canvas, screaming that I had no real talent.
My head felt like it was about to split open.
The pain in my chest was so intense I was shaking.
I had to dig my nails into my palms, breaking the skin, just to stay calm.
The twentieth was almost here.
Money couldn’t save me. The glittering dream couldn’t save me.
To pull myself out of this swamp of lies, I had to rely on myself.
And myself alone.
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