Chapter 6 - THE PRICE OF BEING SELF-MADE
Victor stopped sleeping at the mansion.
He moved into a suite at a hotel in West Hollywood while attorneys sorted out the residential arrangement.
Vanessa stayed.
That surprised everyone.
“It’s my home too,” she told Eleanor through counsel.
Eleanor did not argue over language.
She let David handle it.
Victor came to Eleanor’s temporary apartment three days later and placed Thomas’s broken compass on the table.
He had taken it after the party.
“I had it repaired.”
The hinge had been reattached, but a thin crack remained across the brass.
Eleanor did not pick it up.
“That doesn’t repair Friday.”
“I know.”
Victor sat across from her.
“I’m trying to understand why I believed the house was mine.”
Eleanor could have blamed Vanessa.
That would have been satisfying.
It would also have been incomplete.
“Because I let you.”
Victor looked up.
“What?”
“Every time you said ‘my house,’ I knew it wasn’t true.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything?”
Eleanor thought of Thomas.
Her son grieving.
His failed funding round.
Vanessa’s constant insistence that Victor needed confidence.
“Because I thought correcting you would make you feel like a guest.”
“I was a guest.”
“You were my son.”
“Those aren’t opposites.”
Eleanor looked at him.
He was right.
Her own flaw sat inside the mess too.
She had used vagueness as kindness.
Thomas left clear documents.
Eleanor replaced them emotionally with unspoken promises.
That had allowed Victor to build entitlement without ever having to confront where support ended and ownership began.
None of it excused his fist.
Victor knew that.
“I’m enrolling in an intervention program,” he said.
Eleanor’s expression hardened.
“Don’t tell me because you want credit.”
“I’m telling you because my attorney says you may seek a restraining order, and I don’t want you to hear it from him.”
Eleanor appreciated that more than an apology.
“I haven’t decided what I’m doing.”
Victor nodded.
Then he asked:
“Do you want me out of the house?”
May you like
Eleanor answered honestly.
“I want you to understand I shouldn’t have to be afraid of my answer.”
