“The face on every jar belongs to Sue Oberle.”

The vice president said my name, and the red cloth came down. There I was, smiling from the label of a jar taller than the grocery cart beside it. My blue-ribbon pepper jelly sat on shelves built into the display, rows of red lids catching the store lights.

People clapped. Someone in the high school band gave one last little tap on a drum, then stopped. I could see Dane over the heads in the crowd.

His grin was gone. His mouth was open a little, like he had a question but couldn’t decide which one to ask first.

I hadn’t pictured my face that large. On the old labels I had fished out of the trash, it had been small enough to cover with one hand. Now it looked back at me from every jar in the display.

The vice president held out the microphone. “Sue, would you like to say a few words?”

For a second, my fingers wouldn’t close around it. My eyes stung, and I was mad at myself for nearly crying when I had spent weeks getting ready to stand there. I took the microphone anyway.

“Thank you,” I said. My voice came out thinner than I wanted. “I made my first batch because my mother taught me how. I kept making it because people asked for more.”

A woman near the front nodded. A little boy beside her leaned toward the display to get a better look at the jars.

I glanced down at my own picture again, then back at the people who had come to shop and listen.

“I’m proud of this,” I said. “I’m glad Heartland wanted it.”

The vice president smiled and took the microphone back. “We are glad, too. Sue built this business herself, and we wanted the first jars here today to show the person who made them.”

I heard another round of applause. It was warm and ordinary. No one was clapping because I had won an argument with Dane. They were clapping because they liked the jelly, or wanted to try it, or had come out for the store opening. That helped me settle.

Then Dane pushed closer to the display.

“Hold on,” he said. His voice had the tight, polite sound he used when he wanted something from a buyer. “Sue and I should talk about this.”

The vice president looked at him. “You can speak with Sue if she wants to speak with you.”

He looked at me, then at the label. “You could have told me it was this big.”

I felt my temper rise, and I knew everybody around us could hear. A part of me wanted to ask how many times he would have had to hear about it before he believed me. I kept my hands around the microphone so I wouldn’t point at him.

“The contract was right in front of you,” I said. “You laughed and signed.”

“That was a divorce settlement,” he said. “I didn’t know this was happening.”

His face had turned stiff, and I saw his eyes keep moving back to the jars. The display had made the answer plain. He understood what the agreement had meant now.

Tawny stood close beside him. She wasn’t laughing anymore. Her bracelets clicked as she crossed her arms.

“You said you were coming to meet the vice president about Ozark Crunch,” she said.

“I am,” Dane told her. Then he turned to the vice president. “I’ve been trying to get a meeting with you for years. We have a good snack line. Sue and I could work out something together.”

There it was. He had come hoping for an opening with Heartland. A few minutes earlier, my presence had been a joke to him. Now my name was on the display, and he wanted to stand beside it.

The vice president kept her voice even. “The agreement we signed is with Sue. We aren’t discussing another arrangement at this event.”

Dane gave a short laugh. It sounded nothing like the one he’d used outside. “She wouldn’t have gotten to this point without me. I ran sales routes for fifty-two years.”

“I know what you did for your company,” the vice president said. “This agreement is for Sue’s jelly.”

He looked toward the crowd, as if he might find someone willing to agree with him. A man holding a paper cup looked down at it. One of the store employees was still standing behind the display, watching.

I felt my face warm. I hated having our marriage dragged into the store, in front of people who had come to buy groceries. I also knew I had kept my mouth shut for years to spare Dane embarrassment, and that had never made him careful with mine.

“You told me I was wasting money on labels,” I said. “You called it a hobby. You had the contract in front of you, and you chose the boat.”

Dane’s jaw moved. He looked at the label again. “I thought it was just a small business. I didn’t know it would be in every store.”

Tawny stared at him. “You said she was barely selling jars.”

“I said she had a little business,” he answered.

“You called it a hobby outside,” she said. “I heard you.”

He turned on her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She didn’t answer. Her arms stayed folded, and she stepped half a pace away from him. I could see her looking at the red lids, then at the sample case he had brought in. He had come with chips in his hand and a story about his own company. The jelly had changed the story he wanted to tell.

Jerold came to stand near the manager. He wasn’t smiling now. The manager looked at Dane, then at me.

“Mr. Oberle, we need you to leave the opening,” the manager said. “You grabbed her wrist and caused a scene outside. We saw what happened.”

Dane pointed toward me. “She came here to make me look like a fool.”

I was shaking a little. My wrist hurt where his hand had been, and I wanted to go home. I also wanted to finish the day I had worked for. I said, “I came here for the appointment I made. I want him to leave, and I want the tasting to go on.”

The manager nodded. “You heard her. You need to go.”

Dane looked at the vice president. “You’re going to let her do this?”

“She is the person we signed with,” the vice president said. “This is her event.”

For a few seconds, Dane looked as if he might argue again. Then he saw Jerold standing beside the manager and the shoppers watching. He picked up his sample case. Tawny started toward the entrance, then paused long enough to look back at me.

“I didn’t know he was going to grab you,” she said.

I believed that part. I couldn’t tell whether she was sorry for me or embarrassed to have been beside him. Maybe both.

“All right,” I said. It was all I had in me to say.

She went out after Dane. Jerold walked with them, leaving enough space between them that nobody could call it a scene. The doors shut behind the three of them. I stood there with the microphone in my hand, wishing my wrist would stop aching and my cheeks would cool down.

The vice president touched my shoulder. “Do you want a minute?”

I looked at the display, at my picture, at the people waiting to taste what I had made. “No. Let’s do the tasting.”

She handed me a jar from the table. I checked the lid with my thumb, the way I still check every jar before I set it down. Then I opened it and passed a spoon to the woman who had nodded during my little speech.

“Is it very hot?” she asked.

“It has a little kick,” I said. “Try it on a cracker before you decide.”

She tasted it. Her eyes widened just a bit, and she smiled. “That’s good.”

The people behind her moved forward. The manager brought more crackers. A store employee kept the jars lined up as folks picked them up and read the labels. Some people recognized my picture from the display. Others asked what was in the jelly or what they could serve it with.

I answered every question I could. My voice got steadier as the line moved. The first hour passed with little spoons, paper napkins and people asking for another taste. It was work, the sort of work I knew how to do. I could breathe again.

The vice president stayed with me until the crowd thinned. She said the opening was going well and asked whether I needed anything. I told her I was fine. I was not fine in every way, but I was fine enough to stand there and talk about pepper jelly.

“You handled that,” she said.

“I nearly cried on the microphone.”

“That isn’t what I saw.”

I looked down at the jar in my hand. “I didn’t want him to take the day away from me.”

“He didn’t,” she said.

I wanted to believe her. I looked across the store at the red display and the line of jars. He had made a mess of the entrance, but the tasting had gone on. People were buying the jelly. My name was printed on it. I had come to work, and I had done the work.

After I got home, I put my purse down on the kitchen chair and stood at the sink for a while. The house was quiet. I didn’t turn on the television. I was writing this part down in my head and feeling a little foolish, but I was afraid our daughter would think I had staged the whole thing to humiliate her father.

I called her. She picked up after a few rings.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“It went well. Your father was there.”

She was quiet for a moment. “What happened?”

I told her what had happened at the doors and what the vice president had said inside. I didn’t leave out the part where Tawny laughed. I didn’t make Dane sound kinder than he had been.

“Did he know about the contract before he signed?” she asked.

“It was stapled behind the settlement. His own lawyer pointed it out.”

“And he still signed?”

“He said I could keep my kitchen hobby.”

My daughter let out a long breath. “I told you not to tell him because I knew he would laugh. I didn’t want it to end like that.”

“I know. I didn’t want you caught in the middle, either.”

“I am sorry he did that to you, Mama.”

That was the first time all day I felt my shoulders drop. I had been waiting for her to ask whether I had wanted to embarrass him. She didn’t. I told her I hadn’t planned for him to be there, and I hadn’t gone to the store to make him look foolish. I had gone because Heartland had asked me to come.

She said she believed me. Then she asked whether my wrist was all right. I told her it was sore, but I was all right. She didn’t offer to confront Dane or make herself choose between us. I was grateful for that.

On Monday morning, I went through the papers from the divorce. I had been putting them off because they made my stomach tighten, but I wanted to see exactly what we had signed. The agreement named my pepper jelly business and the Heartland contract. They were mine. Dane had signed beside the part that left them with me.

I called the lawyer who had handled my side. I told him what had happened at the store and asked if Dane could now claim the business.

“He signed the agreement,” he said. “It identifies your business and the contract. If he has a question about what he signed, he can speak with his lawyer.”

I looked at the page as he spoke. There were Dane’s initials beside the section. The copy in my hand was the same one that had sat on the lawyer’s desk. He had not been tricked. His lawyer had told him to read it, and he had chosen not to.

That afternoon, Dane called me.

“You could have told me the deal was worth something,” he said.

“I didn’t know what it would be worth either. You had the contract.”

“You knew I was trying to get in with Heartland.”

“Yes. You had been trying for years.”

“And you couldn’t have brought me in with you?”

There was the question he should have asked before he laughed at me. I sat at the kitchen table with the divorce copy open in front of me.

“You never asked how the jelly was doing,” I said. “You didn’t ask about the deal. You told me to keep the business, and you signed.”

“I thought it was a side thing.”

“You thought it was worth making fun of.”

He didn’t answer right away. I heard him shift the phone. “I don’t want you telling people I gave it away.”

“I won’t tell them anything. The papers say what you agreed to.”

“I didn’t understand the contract.”

“Your lawyer pointed it out.”

He lowered his voice. “You know how this looks.”

I was tired of worrying about how things looked to him. “I know how it looks to me. I’m keeping the business. You have what you asked for in the divorce.”

He started to speak, then stopped. I could hear a television in the background at his end, low enough that I couldn’t make out what was on.

“That was my life, too,” he said.

“For fifty-two years, you called it my hobby.”

I regretted saying it as soon as I did. It was true, but I had said it to sting him. I held the phone tighter and waited.

He said, “Fine, Sue.”

Then he hung up.

I sat there for a few minutes with the papers in front of me. I was sad. I was angry. I was also relieved that I no longer had to wait for him to understand something he had never cared to ask about.

The next Heartland delivery went through under my name, just as the agreement said it would. I didn’t have to make a call to Dane or ask him to approve anything. I read the paperwork, signed where the buyer needed my signature and put it in the folder with the contract.

At the next tasting, I set out the jars myself. A woman picked one up and looked at the label.

“Is that you?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

She smiled and turned the jar around to read the ingredients. I opened another jar and put a spoonful on a cracker. My hand was steady.

That night, I placed one of the Heartland jars beside the school pictures on my fridge. The jelly-jar magnets held the pictures in place. My own face looked back at me from the label, bright and plain in the kitchen light.