Chapter 11 - Victoria’s cruelty had a shape
Victoria’s dislike of me had always focused on one thing.
My missing history.
I had told the Ashfords:
My mother died.
My birth father unknown.
No grandparents.
No extended family I knew well.
Delayed birth certificate.
Marian said family estrangement.
Victoria heard:
Inconsistency.
She asked me once:
“What hospital were you born in?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“How does someone not know?”
I laughed then.
“Apparently I managed.”
She did not laugh.
Later she hired a background investigator.
Ethan discovered that after the wedding.
Victoria admitted it.
I was furious.
The investigator found:
Delayed birth certificate.
No school records before preschool.
No identifiable Laura Monroe fitting Marian’s story.
That should have triggered compassion.
Instead it made Victoria suspicious.
She thought I might be hiding debt.
A criminal family.
A changed name.
Anything except the thing that was true.
I asked her later:
“Did the missing history remind you of Hannah?”
She went pale.
“I don’t know.”
“Really?”
“I think maybe it did.”
“Then why hate me?”
Her answer was ugly.
“Because uncertainty scares me.”
At least honest.
Then:
May you like
“And I turned fear into judgment.”
Yes.
