Chapter 4
I asked Victoria how she met Marcus.
She stared at me.
“At your house.”
“No.”
Her face changed.
Good.
“Before that.”
Silence.
Marcus looked at her.
Too late.
Victoria had known him almost a year before she met me.
Not socially.
Deliberately.
Marcus had approached her at a charity dinner.
Why?
“She was suitable,” he said.
I almost smiled.
“For what?”
“You were alone.”
“My wife had been dead four months.”
“I know.”
My hands tightened.
“You were selecting women for me while I was grieving.”
“No.”
Marcus leaned back.
“I was introducing stability.”
There it was.
A fiancée chosen not because I would love her.
Because she could become manageable household influence.
I looked at Victoria.
“Did you know?”
“At first.”
The answer hurt more than I expected.
“What did he tell you?”
“That you were isolated.”
True.
“That Noah needed a mother.”
Dangerous.
“That the household was being run by staff instead of family.”
Maria stiffened.
I looked at Victoria.
“And you agreed.”
“Yes.”
At least truth had finally entered the room.
Victoria continued.
“At first I thought Marcus was arrogant.”
“What changed?”
“I met you.”
Her eyes filled.
“I fell in love with you.”
I believed her.
That complicated nothing.
Love can grow inside a manipulated introduction.
It does not clean the manipulation.
“And Noah?”
She looked away.
“I tried.”
“No.”
Maria spoke before I could.
“You tried to make him need you.”
Victoria turned sharply.
Maria continued.
She had begun controlling Noah’s hearing aids.
Not breaking them.
Before tonight.
Batteries.
Charging case.
When he wore the spare.
Which rooms he was allowed to enter.
Sometimes she told Maria Noah needed “quiet time” and removed his device for an hour.
My body went cold.
I looked at Victoria.
“You took away his hearing.”
“He can hear some without it.”
Wrong answer.
“He relies on it.”
“He gets overstimulated.”
“Did his specialist tell you to do that?”
Silence.
No.
Of course.
She had discovered something useful.
May you like
When Noah could not hear clearly, adults could talk around him.
And the three-year-old became easier to move through rooms like furniture.
