DANIEL: "That is one of the questions the records may help clarify."
Helen stood abruptly.
HELEN: "This has gone far enough."
Thomas looked up, but he did not move.
HELEN: "You cannot sit here and suggest that your father was manipulated simply because you dislike the outcome of his decisions."
VICTORIA: "I haven't suggested anything."
HELEN: "You are looking at me as though I have done something wrong."
VICTORIA: "I'm looking at you because you seem determined to stop me from learning what happened."
HELEN: "I am trying to prevent you from being hurt by information you do not understand."
VICTORIA: "Then help me understand it."
Helen opened her mouth, but no answer came.
She slowly sat down again.
Daniel removed a document from the folder and placed it on the table, keeping the remaining papers beneath the cover.
DANIEL: "This is a letter from Frank to me. It was written several months before his death."
Victoria recognized her father's handwriting immediately.
The letters were narrow and slightly slanted, with a distinctive curve at the end of his capital F. She remembered seeing that handwriting on birthday cards, school reports, and the short notes he used to leave beside her breakfast when she was preparing for examinations.
For a moment, she was no longer sitting in a conference room beside a military officer and an attorney.
She was a young woman standing in the kitchen of her childhood home, reading a note from a father who rarely knew how to express his feelings aloud.
Daniel turned the letter so she could read it.
The opening lines were ordinary. Frank wrote about his health, the weather, and a recent visit from an old friend. He mentioned that he had been thinking about the years when Victoria first left home and how quickly the family seemed to change afterward.
Then the language became more serious.
Frank wrote that he regretted allowing silence to become the family's usual response to difficult questions.
He wrote that he had mistaken avoiding conflict for protecting his children.
And he wrote that there were things he should have explained to Victoria long before she became an adult.
Victoria read the paragraph twice.
VICTORIA: "Why didn't he send this to me?"
Daniel folded his hands.
DANIEL: "He intended to speak with you directly. He was waiting until he could do so without creating another confrontation."
VICTORIA: "With my mother?"
Daniel did not answer.
Victoria looked at the letter again.
The next paragraph referred to decisions that had been made on her behalf without her full knowledge. Frank wrote that he had initially believed those decisions were temporary, but he later became concerned that the situation had continued longer than he had intended.
The letter did not explain exactly what the decisions were.
It referred instead to supporting records that were to be preserved separately.
VICTORIA: "What decisions is he talking about?"
DANIEL: "The supporting records are in the folder."
VICTORIA: "Then let me see them."
Daniel glanced toward Helen.
HELEN: "No."
The answer came before Daniel could move.
Victoria slowly turned toward her mother.
VICTORIA: "Why not?"
HELEN: "Because your father wrote that letter during a difficult period. You cannot take a few sentences and build an entire story around them."
VICTORIA: "I'm not building anything. I'm asking to read the documents."
HELEN: "And I am telling you that you should wait."
VICTORIA: "Wait for what?"
Helen's voice became sharper.
HELEN: "For someone to explain the circumstances properly."
VICTORIA: "Who? You?"
Helen did not respond.
Victoria pushed the letter slightly toward the center of the table.
VICTORIA: "You have had years to explain the circumstances. You never did."
HELEN: "Because there was nothing you needed to know."
VICTORIA: "My father seems to have disagreed."
HELEN: "Your father changed his mind about many things."
DANIEL: "He did not change his mind about the existence of these records."
Helen turned toward him.
HELEN: "You have no idea what this will do to her."
DANIEL: "I have an idea of what keeping the information from her has already done."
For a moment, the only sound in the room was the faint hum of the ventilation system.
Victoria looked at Daniel, surprised by the emotion beneath his otherwise measured tone.
He had known her father for many years. Perhaps he had witnessed arguments she had never heard about. Perhaps he had seen the tension building long before Frank's death.
She wondered how many people had understood the situation while she remained outside it.
VICTORIA: "Mr. Cole, did my father believe that someone had taken something from me?"
Daniel removed his glasses.
DANIEL: "He believed that certain arrangements had not been carried out in the way he intended."
VICTORIA: "What arrangements?"
DANIEL: "I would rather show you the records than speculate."
VICTORIA: "Then show me."
Daniel nodded.
He reached for the folder, but Helen placed her hand over its cover.
HELEN: "I will not allow you to destroy this family."
Victoria stared at her mother's hand.