Victoria nods, looks down at her hands where they rest on the bar. “I think I was kind of mean to her,” she admits, and her voice is quieter now. “I wasn’t expecting to feel... jealous, I guess. Seeing you with someone else. Someone young and pretty who obviously adores you.” She shakes her head slightly. “It caught me completely off guard, and I made some catty comments, and I’ve been feeling terrible about it ever since.”
Emma didn’t give me specific details about the interaction, though part of me isn’t surprised Victoria had been rude. She’d seemed off after that day, quieter than usual, and I’d wondered if she was holding something back.
If anything, the most surprising thing here is that Victoria is owning up to it. That she’s remorseful at all.
“She seems really lovely,” Victoria continues before I can respond. “From everything Chloe says, she’s wonderful withher.” She meets my eyes. “And I had no right to be bitchy to her just because I wasn’t prepared for how much it would sting. That wasn’t fair to her.”
“I appreciate you telling me that,” I say carefully, because I don’t know what else to say. This is new territory for us. Victoria admitting fault. Victoria apologizing. “But you should tellherthat, not just me.”
She nods. “I will.” Her fingers are fidgeting with a cocktail napkin, tearing small strips from the edge. “But that’s actually not the only thing I wanted to talk about,” she says.
I wait.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking this week.” She speaks slowly, like she’s choosing each word with care. “Being back in Dark River. Spending actual time with Chloe instead of just the rushed handoffs we usually do. Seeing her in her element, at school, with her friends.” She pauses, and I can see her struggling with something, some internal battle playing out behind her eyes. “About what kind of mother I’ve been. Or more accurately, what kind of mother Ihaven’tbeen.”
Her voice gets thick, and I watch her eyes go bright with unshed tears. Victoria doesn’t cry. In all the years I’ve known her—through our entire marriage and divorce, through fights and betrayals and everything in between—I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen her actually cry.
“I abandoned her,” Victoria says, and the words come out rough, scraped raw. “I chose my own comfort, my own wants, over being a parent. I convinced myself that Chloe was better off without me around, that I’d just mess her up if I tried to be more involved. But that was bullshit. That was me being a coward. Being selfish.”
“Victoria...” I start, though I’m not entirely sure what to say. Part of me wants to say the kind thing, to comfort her. She’s the mother of my child, my co-parent. There’s that bond between us that will never fully break, no matter how much damage has been done.
But the other part of me—the part that’s held Chloe while she cried after Victoria canceled another visit, the part that’s watched my daughter’s face fall when her mother forgets to call—that part feels like it’s about damn time she feels bad for how she’s treated her.
“I can see how much damage I’ve done,” Victoria continues, her voice cracking. “How much Chloe craves my attention. How desperately she wants her mom to actually want her back.” A tear escapes, sliding down her cheek, and she wipes it away impatiently, almost angrily. “And I do want her. I love her so much, Theo. I’ve always loved her. I was just too afraid of failing as a mother to actually try being one. And I was too selfish when I was younger to put her needs before my own.”
The emotion in her voice is real. I’ve known Victoria for over a decade. I know what she sounds like when she’s performing, when she’s saying what she thinks people want to hear, when she’s manipulating a situation to get what she wants. This isn’t that. This is genuine. This is Victoria stripped of her usual armor.
“I’ve been seriously thinking about moving back to the area,” she says, and the words land like a weight in the quiet restaurant. “Not just visiting more. Actually relocating. Being closer to Chloe. Being a real presence in her life instead of the mom who shows up twice a month when it’s convenient and then disappears again.”
I feel multiple things at once, a complicated tangle of reactions I can’t quite sort through. Part of me wants to believe her, wants to think it could be genuinely good for Chloe if Victoria actually follows through on this. Chloe deserves a mother who shows up. A mother who’s consistent. A mother who makes her feel wanted and valued and loved.
But I’ve been here before. I’ve watched Victoria make promises and break them, get excited about being more involved and then fade back into her Seattle life when the novelty wears off or something shinier catches her attention.I’ve cleaned up too many messes, comforted Chloe through too many disappointments, to take any of this at face value.
“Chloe would love that,” I say carefully. “But you’ve been pretty absent, Victoria. For years. I can’t get her hopes up unless this is something that’s actually going to happen. Unless you’re really committed to following through.”
“I know,” Victoria says, nodding. “I know. That’s fair. That’s more than fair.”
“What does Derek think about all this?” I ask. Derek. Her husband. The man she left me for. The man with the money and the lifestyle and the complete disinterest in our child.
She chokes out a laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “Derek and I aren’t exactly talking much these days,” she says, her voice flat. “I’m thinking of leaving him, actually.”
I’m surprised, but only a little. That relationship was built on a foundation of cheating, and Victoria’s desire for someone more successful than the struggling restaurant owner she’d married too young. And Derek has always hated that Victoria was a mother. He made it clear from the start that Chloe was an inconvenience, a complication in the sophisticated life he wanted with Victoria. And Victoria let him feel that way. Let him push Chloe to the margins of her life.
I’ve hated him for years. Hated what he represented. Hated what Victoria chose when she chose him. Hated that my daughter had to spend time in a house where she clearly wasn’t wanted, where she felt like an afterthought.
“Well,” I say, “I’d say I’m sorry to hear that, but I’ve never liked him being around Chloe. Can’t pretend I’m heartbroken about it.”
Victoria laughs, a wet sound, wiping another tear from her cheek. “That’s fair. He was never good with her. I let that happen. I let a lot of things happen that I shouldn’t have.” She takes a shaky breath. “I made so many mistakes, Theo. With her. With you. With everything.”
She looks at me directly, her eyes red-rimmed but clear. “I’m sorry for what I did to you,” she says. “The affair. The way I left. How I made you feel like the failure in our marriage when really it was me running from responsibility. Running from adulthood. Running from anything that required me to be selfless.” She shakes her head slowly, something bitter in her expression. “I can see now what you’ve built. This restaurant. This life. How well you’ve raised Chloe, almost completely on your own. The man you’ve become.” Her voice drops. “I threw that away. I threw us away. And I regret it more than I can say.”
She pauses, and when she speaks again, her voice is a whisper. “Turns out the grass wasn’t greener on the other side. Not by a long shot.”
This is the first apology I’ve ever gotten from her for the affair. For years I wondered if she even felt bad about it, if she ever looked back and wished she’d made different choices. If she ever lay awake at night replaying the moment she told me she was leaving, the way my world crumbled around me while our daughter slept in the next room.
Apparently she does. Apparently she has for a while.
“I’m not going to say what you did was right,” I tell her honestly. “But I wasn’t the best husband at the time either. I know I was gone too much. I was so focused on building a future for us that I wasn’t present for the present.” I pause, choosing my words carefully. “I think I forgave you for the affair a long time ago. It’s not in my nature to hold a grudge. But I can’t let go of what you did to Chloe. Leaving her the way you did. Making her feel like she wasn’t enough to make you stay.”
