Chapter 23 - Victoria writes
Two years after the nursery incident, Victoria requested permission through counsel to send me a letter.
No contact with Leo.
I agreed to receive it.
Not because she was owed access.
Because I wanted to know whether anything had changed.
She wrote:
Ethan,
I spent a long time insisting I never intended to seriously hurt Leo.
That is true and also not enough.
Good start.
I intentionally made his care less reliable because I wanted you to believe his health was unstable.
There.
I changed bottles.
There.
I changed records.
There.
I hurt his hand to create crying that I could later describe as irritability.
There.
I used steam because I wanted him to cough.
There.
I knew those things were wrong while I was doing them.
There.
Then:
I told myself the goal was to make you reconsider an estate structure that treated me like a guest.
That was not Leo’s responsibility.
There.
She wrote about Katherine.
I resented a woman who was dead because I believed she still occupied more space in your life than I ever would.
I resented Sarah because she knew a version of you that existed before me.
I resented Leo because everyone could say he was Katherine’s without asking whether that hurt me.
Then:
None of those feelings made him unsafe. I did.
There.
About Richard:
My father gave me reasons to believe I was entitled to structural power if you loved me. Martin gave me language for turning medical uncertainty into leverage. I chose the acts.
Specific.
No absolution.
Then:
I am not asking to see Leo.
Good.
Please tell him only what is appropriate when he is old enough.
No request for forgiveness.
I put the letter in my legal archive.
Not Leo’s nursery.
Would he read it someday?
Maybe.
Not at three.
Not at ten necessarily.
A child’s right to truth is not an adult’s right to unload confession.
Timing can be ethical when it is not used to deceive.
May you like
That distinction took me years.
────────────────────
