Chapter 7 - VICTORIA BLAMED CAITLYN FOR SURVIVINGI wanted that sentence to be too extreme.
So I verified.
Not through Caitlyn.
Through adults.
Victoria’s sister, Melissa, finally agreed to speak.
She remembered the neonatal period vividly.
“Victoria was not herself.”
“What does that mean?”
“She was grieving.”
“Yes.”
“And she said things.”
“What things?”
Melissa hesitated.
“Peter.”
“Tell me.”
After Anna died, Victoria refused to hold Caitlyn for almost two days.
Not because she hated her.
Because looking at one twin made her see the other.
A nurse encouraged skin-to-skin contact.
Victoria cried and said:
“Why does one get to go home?”
I had been there.
I remembered.
At the time it sounded like grief.
It was grief.
Then after Caitlyn came home:
“This should have been two.”
Also grief.
Months later:
“Everyone celebrates her milestones like I’m not supposed to remember somebody is missing.”
Grief again.
But years passed.
The language changed.
According to Melissa, Victoria once said:
“Caitlyn learned early that surviving makes everyone orbit around her.”
That was different.
A baby cannot learn that.
A grieving adult can project it.
Then Melissa told me:
“I begged her to go back to therapy.”
“Did she?”
“Briefly.”
“Why stop?”
“She said therapists wanted to make everything about Anna.”
Of course.
Erase pain.
Control environment.
Move forward.
That was Victoria's survival system.
Then I had married her while believing discipline was simply one of our differences.
No.
Her cruelty toward Caitlyn had roots in unresolved grief.
Context.
Not excuse.
I knew enough therapy language by then not to confuse the two.
The financial system made it worse.
Every annual statement.
Every reimbursement.
Every medical appointment.
Caitlyn's settlement account kept the neonatal tragedy administratively alive.
Victoria could erase photographs.
Avoid Anna’s name.
Never visit the cemetery.
But money still arrived attached to that history.
Then she used some of that money to benefit Madison.
Why?
Maybe partly to rebalance what she thought fate had made unfair.
Caitlyn gets the settlement.
Madison gets the car.
Caitlyn gets specialists.
Madison gets Europe.
One child receives because tragedy happened.
The other receives because Mother wants the world to feel even.
Except Caitlyn was not actually receiving freedom.
She was funding her own surveillance.
Then Rachel called.
The court-appointed settlement custodian had scheduled an annual review.
Three months away.
This review would be more detailed because Caitlyn's recent medical reports showed her physical needs had decreased.
That mattered.
If ongoing high behavioral and respite expenses continued, stronger documentation would be required.
Victoria knew.
She had known for months.
Then I remembered the annual memo.
Behavioral support needs: high.
Potential expanded structured services.
If Victoria could establish that Caitlyn had substantial behavioral needs, the account could continue funding services and caregiving.
Including payments to Madison.
Including household reimbursements.
Including Victoria’s preferred system.
We did not yet know whether that was deliberate financial manipulation.
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But the incentive existed.
And the timing was becoming impossible to ignore.
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