Chapter 21 - VICTORIA’S LETTERS
Victoria wrote from custody.
First letter:
I never intended Elena to die.
Stored.
Second:
I loved Sophia.
Stored.
Third:
I was trying to preserve what your father built.
Stored.
Then, five years later:
I used Sophia’s hunger because hunger made her easier to control. I told myself it was behavioral structure. It was punishment.
That one I read twice.
Then:
I told her you abandoned her because I needed her to stop asking for you.
Then:
I knew she had seen Elena fall. I told her she dreamed it because if she trusted her own memory, she might tell you.
Truth.
Ugly.
Specific.
Sophia was eleven.
Her therapist reviewed.
“Do you want to hear part of Grandma’s letter?”
Sophia asked:
“Does she say sorry?”
“Yes.”
“Does she say why?”
“Yes.”
“Then okay.”
I read selected lines.
Sophia listened.
Then:
“Do I answer?”
“No requirement.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Then don’t.”
She returned to homework.
No emotional performance.
May you like
Victoria had spent years trying to control what Sophia said.
Her silence now belonged to her.
