Chapter 16
Three months later, Catherine visited Victoria by invitation.
First time.
She brought no jewelry.
No gift.
Good.
They sat in the garden suite for forty minutes.
I stayed outside.
When Catherine left, she looked as though she had aged.
“What happened?”
She stared at me.
“Your mother asked me what I want.”
Simple.
Apparently devastating.
“What did you say?”
“I didn’t know.”
That was the problem.
Catherine had spent decades wanting what other women possessed.
Position.
Attention.
Symbols.
Never asking what she actually wanted once comparison disappeared.
“Figure it out.”
She almost smiled.
“Your mother said the same.”
Of course.
Marcus and I remained separated.
Not divorced.
Not reconciled.
He lived outside the estate now.
Worked under his own name with no Romano authority.
No private guards borrowed from me.
No donor access.
No family ring.
He hated the first month.
Then, according to Thomas, he stopped trying to impress people who no longer cared whom he married.
Maybe that was useful.
Serena disappeared from our circle by choice.
Good.
Felix slowly rebuilt trust through work instead of dinners.
My mother regained weight.
Walked farther.
Argued more.
Excellent signs.
One afternoon she complained the reading room chairs were ugly.
I laughed.
“You nearly died in there and your complaint is upholstery?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She looked at me.
“Don’t turn me into tragedy.”
That sentence stayed.
She was not the restrained woman forever.
Not the neglected elder.
Not evidence of Marcus’s cruelty.
Victoria Romano.
Annoying.
Sharp.
Alive.
Recovery should return identity, not create a permanent victim role.
May you like
I understood that too late.
Still understood it.
