Nothing came out.

“You forgot it by morning,” I said. “Victoria didn’t. She took it as gospel. For twelve years she didn’t live her own life — she spent it making sure mine fell apart, so she could win a house.” I turned and faced her directly.

“You seeded doubt in my husband for years. You built him an affair. You stole his money and pinned it on me. And you turned our own parents into your audience.”

I looked at my mother. “You didn’t just poison Julian, Victoria. You poisoned Mom. Every family dinner I missed for a twelve-hour shift, you were in her ear, telling her I was unstable.” I made myself keep going, because this was the part I had read on the drive at three in the morning and had not been able to breathe through.

“When I lost the baby, three years ago — you told Mom I hadn’t wanted it. You let her believe that about me. You let everyone believe that about me. And the truth was on your own drive, in your own records, the whole time.” I held Victoria’s eyes.

“It wasn’t nature. It wasn’t stress, or my terrible hours, or anything that was wrong with me. You tampered with my prescriptions. You did it, and you filed the proof, and then you told our mother I was the kind of woman who didn’t grieve her own child.”