“I spoke to my therapist about your mother,” he said. “About…after she died. About how I let Victoria take over. And I realized something.”
I waited, heart tight.
“I was so afraid of losing another person,” he said softly, “that I let Victoria rewrite our lives. I let her push you out because it was easier than confronting her. I chose comfort over courage.”
I closed my eyes. The waves crashed and retreated, constant.
“I’m not saying that to make you forgive me,” he continued. “I’m saying it because you deserve to hear the truth. And because…if we do this at the gala, I want you to know I’m with you. Even if it humiliates me.”
My throat tightened. “Dad,” I whispered, “it’s not about humiliating you.”
“I know,” he said. “It’s about stopping her.”
“Yes,” I said, voice steady. “It is.”
The last piece fell into place a week before the gala.
Patricia tracked a pattern: Victoria’s first husband, a businessman in Savannah, had filed a sealed civil suit years ago involving financial misrepresentation. The details were hard to access, but Patricia had a contact—someone who knew the story from the inside.
Her name was Helen Briggs.
Helen was the ex-wife of one of Victoria’s former husbands. She lived in Savannah, and when I called her, she answered like she’d been waiting for this moment for years.
“I wondered when she’d get bold enough to do it again,” Helen said. Her voice was tired, not bitter—like someone who’d already burned through anger and come out the other side with blunt truth.
“She did this to you?” I asked.
Helen laughed once, humorless. “She did it to any man who trusted her,” she said. “She’s not a wife. She’s a strategy.”
My stomach tightened. “Will you testify?” I asked.
Helen paused. “If it helps stop her,” she said slowly, “yes. But you need to understand—she will fight like a cornered animal. She will charm. She will cry. She will accuse.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve lived with her.”
Helen’s voice softened. “Then you already know the most important thing,” she said. “Don’t argue with her. Document her. Let her talk. Let her hang herself with her own words.”
When I hung up, I sat on my porch and stared at the ocean until the sun dipped low and turned the water copper.
I thought about my mother—about the way she’d loved quietly and steadily. About how she would’ve hated spectacle, but she would’ve hated injustice more.