Chapter 12
My mother wanted Catherine brought to her.
I objected once.
Victoria ignored me.
Of course.
They met in the sunroom.
No guards inside.
I stayed near the door.
Catherine wore a plain blouse.
No pearls.
No pendant.
Mother looked at her throat first.
“Did it feel good?”
Catherine started crying immediately.
Victoria did not soften.
“The pendant.”
“Yes.”
“What did it feel like?”
Catherine swallowed.
“Like people finally saw me.”
Same hunger as Serena.
Different age.
Interesting.
Mother nodded.
“And seeing me tied down?”
Catherine closed her eyes.
“Don’t.”
“No.”
Victoria’s voice remained weak but sharp.
“You wanted my place. You don’t get to skip the price you accepted.”
Catherine cried harder.
“I told myself Marcus knew what he was doing.”
“Yes.”
“I told myself you were confused.”
“Yes.”
“I told myself—”
“You told yourself enough.”
Silence.
Then Mother surprised me.
“My sister did the same thing to me once.”
I stared.
I had never heard this.
Not restraints.
Not theft.
But after my father died, Victoria’s older sister tried to take control of family dinners and staff because she believed widowhood weakened Mother’s authority.
Victoria fought her.
Won.
Then apparently forgot what fear of replacement felt like when she later treated Catherine as permanently secondary.
My mother looked at me.
“There is always an older wound.”
I understood.
Not excuse.
Pattern.
Catherine had spent years being treated as wife of an outsider branch.
Useful but never central.
Marcus’s marriage offered her a chance to reverse that ranking.
She took it at Victoria’s expense.
Mother looked back at her.
“You could have asked for respect.”
Catherine whispered:
“I didn’t think you’d give it.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t.”
That honesty landed.
“But you chose my suffering instead.”
Catherine nodded.
No forgiveness.
May you like
Not yet.
Just truth between two older women who had both learned too much about hierarchy and too little about asking directly for dignity.
