Chapter 3 - MADISON GOT REWARDED FOR WHAT CAITLYN GOT PUNISHED FORThe next morning, Madison texted me.
Dad, Mom is freaking out.
I answered:
Good.
Then deleted it.
Anger made me childish.
I needed facts.
My attorney, Rachel Donovan, told me exactly that.
“You have a custody problem, a safety problem, and possibly a financial problem.”
“Financial?”
“We’ll get there.”
I had called her because Victoria and I shared legal custody.
Caitlyn lived with Victoria during the school week and with me most weekends.
That arrangement existed because my work involved frequent travel.
I owned a regional construction-management company.
Successful.
Demanding.
I had spent years telling myself the custody schedule was practical.
It was.
That did not mean it was good.
Rachel asked me to document everything.
Medical evaluation.
Door damage.
Photographs.
Caitlyn's account through appropriate professionals.
No interrogating her.
Good.
Then I started looking at ordinary records.
School.
Activities.
Childcare.
The favoritism appeared almost immediately.
Madison was twenty.
She attended a private university outside Boston.
Victoria paid part of tuition.
I paid none because Madison was not legally my daughter, though I had helped voluntarily since marrying Victoria.
She had a new SUV.
Spring-break travel.
Monthly spending money.
Nothing wrong with a parent supporting an older child.
Except Caitlyn was being treated completely differently inside the same house.
Caitlyn’s dance lessons had been canceled six months earlier.
Victoria told me:
“She needs to learn that privileges follow behavior.”
Madison had received a $7,000 vacation that same month.
Caitlyn lost her tablet for crying after I canceled a weekend due work.
Madison had crashed her car after ignoring Victoria's warning not to drive during a storm.
Victoria helped replace it.
I had noticed each event separately.
I never placed them side by side.
Then Caitlyn’s school counselor told Rachel something disturbing.
Victoria repeatedly described Caitlyn as:
Emotionally dysregulated.
Attention-seeking.
Prone to dishonesty.
Jealous of Madison.
The counselor had never observed serious behavior supporting those labels.
Caitlyn sometimes cried easily.
She sometimes argued.
She was seven.
Then I found out Madison had been paid to “babysit” Caitlyn.
How much?
$1,500 a month.
Even during months when Madison was living at school.
I called Victoria.
“What is the fifteen hundred dollars?”
Silence.
“What are you talking about?”
“Payments to Madison.”
“She helps with Caitlyn.”
“When?”
“Weekends. Breaks.”
“For fifteen hundred every month?”
“You pay professional childcare more.”
“That isn't the point.”
“Then what is?”
“You punish Caitlyn for needing attention and pay Madison for being around her.”
“That is ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
Victoria became cold.
“You have no idea what Caitlyn requires day to day.”
There it was again.
Requires.
As though my daughter were a service category.
Then Rachel obtained the account description.
Payments to Madison did not simply come from Victoria’s ordinary checking account.
They were listed as reimbursements connected to:
Caitlyn Monroe Minor Medical Settlement Account.
I stared at the words.
“What settlement?”
Rachel looked at me.
“You tell me.”
I couldn't.
I knew there had been litigation after Anna died.
I knew the hospital settled claims.
I knew Victoria handled most of the paperwork after our marriage began collapsing.
But I had believed the money involved Anna's wrongful-death claim.
I did not remember any separate account belonging to Caitlyn.
Rachel asked:
“Did Caitlyn suffer an injury too?”
I thought about the neonatal unit.
The specialists.
The follow-up appointments.
Then I remembered a settlement conference almost six years earlier.
A lawyer saying:
Part of this is for the surviving twin.
I had forgotten.
Or let Victoria handle it.
May you like
Either way, there was an account in my daughter's name.
And my adult stepdaughter was being paid from it.
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