“It’s just,” Victoria shrugged, “the wheelchair doesn’t really fit the aesthetic, you know.”
I wasn’t even in the wheelchair anymore. I was standing with a cane, but I didn’t argue.
I had learned that arguing with Victoria only gave her ammunition.
So I smiled, nodded, and walked into the kitchen. Through the window, I watched my family pose without me. I heard the shutter click once, twice, three times.
I didn’t know then that my father had watched the whole thing.
And I didn’t know what he did the very next morning.
My parents died on a Tuesday in March. They were flying to California for an old college friend’s wedding—a private charter, six passengers, clear skies.
The plane went down somewhere over Nevada. They said it was mechanical failure. They said it was quick.
I was in the garden when the call came, pruning the roses my mother had planted fifteen years ago. The phone rang, and thirty seconds later, my entire world collapsed.
Victoria flew in for the funeral. She handled everything—the arrangements, the flowers, the guest list. I was too numb to fight her on it.
I sat in the front pew at the service and realized I didn’t recognize half the people there. Victoria’s friends. Victoria’s contacts. People who had never met my parents but wanted to be seen paying respects.
Three days after we buried them, Victoria asked to speak with me privately. She found me in the living room, surrounded by sympathy cards I couldn’t bring myself to open.
She didn’t sit down.
She stood in the doorway with her arms crossed, Derek hovering behind her like a shadow.
“I’ve spoken with the lawyer,” she said. “Everything goes to me—the house, the accounts, everything.”
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