Chapter 8 - THE WOMAN WHO KNEW MY NAME
Victoria requested to meet.
This time I agreed.
Neutral office.
Margaret present.
Victoria looked smaller without the Vance estate around her.
The house had been placed on the market because of liens tied to Julian’s debt.
She sat.
“I knew your surname before the wedding.”
“I know.”
“I didn't know your father was still protecting you financially.”
“He wasn’t supporting my life.”
“No.”
She smiled bitterly.
“He was supporting Julian’s.”
Unintentionally, through layered financial institutions.
“Yes.”
Victoria looked humiliated.
“Your father warned me once.”
I froze.
“What?”
“Before you married.”
“When?”
“Three weeks before.”
Alexander had called her.
Not to threaten.
To ask one thing:
Treat my daughter with dignity even if she refuses to speak to me.
Victoria told him she would.
Then spent six years doing the opposite.
“Why?”
I asked.
She looked toward the window.
“Because I resented you.”
“Why?”
“You could leave.”
There it was.
She continued.
“I never could.”
Victoria married Julian’s father at nineteen.
He controlled money.
Friends.
Clothes.
Her schedule.
When he died, she inherited enough to feel powerful for the first time.
Instead of rejecting his system—
she reproduced it.
On me.
On Julian.
Maybe even Genevieve.
Pain became tradition.
I understood.
Did not excuse.
She whispered:
“When you came into my house refusing to be impressed, I hated you.”
“I wasn't refusing.”
“I know now.”
“You thought independence was disrespect.”
“Yes.”
Then she looked at me.
“I made my son weak.”
“No.”
Her face tightened.
I continued:
“You influenced him.”
“Yes.”
“You normalized things.”
“Yes.”
“But he is forty-one years old.”
She lowered her eyes.
“He made choices.”
So had she.
So had I.
Responsibility could be shared without becoming diluted.
Victoria apologized.
Not perfectly.
No dramatic hug.
I accepted hearing it.
Not reconciliation.
Not yet.
Maybe never.
May you like
That was allowed.
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