HELEN: "You think I never loved you."
Victoria looked at her for a long moment.
VICTORIA: "I think you have spent years making me feel that your love depended on whether I agreed with you."
The sentence seemed to leave Helen without a response.
Daniel quietly gathered the loose pages and returned them to the folder. He did not close it completely this time.
DANIEL: "There is one more document I believe Victoria should see tonight."
Helen's head snapped toward him.
HELEN: "Absolutely not."
DANIEL: "It is a letter addressed to Victoria."
HELEN: "Not tonight."
DANIEL: "Frank specifically requested that it be delivered to her."
HELEN: "You have already shown her enough to confuse her."
DANIEL: "Then the letter may help clarify matters."
HELEN: "You do not understand what he was trying to do."
DANIEL: "I understand that he wanted his daughter to receive it."
Victoria held out her hand.
VICTORIA: "Please give it to me."
Daniel looked at Helen once more, then reached into the folder and removed a sealed envelope.
It was cream-colored, with Victoria's full name written across the front in her father's handwriting.
The envelope had been kept in a protective sleeve. Its edges were worn, but the seal remained intact.
Victoria took it carefully.
For a moment, she could not bring herself to open it.
She had received hundreds of letters throughout her life, from friends, colleagues, commanders, and family members. Some had brought welcome news. Others had delivered difficult information. A few had arrived at moments when she desperately needed to hear that someone believed in her.
This envelope was different.
Her father's handwriting had been the last familiar thing she had seen on the cards he sent during the final months of his life.
Now it was in her hands again.
She ran her thumb along the edge of the envelope.
VICTORIA: "When did he write this?"
DANIEL: "Approximately six months before he died."
VICTORIA: "Why didn't you give it to me then?"
DANIEL: "Because he gave me instructions to wait until the conditions specified in his letter had been met."
VICTORIA: "And you believe they have been met tonight?"
DANIEL: "I believe that continuing to withhold the information would contradict his final instructions."
Helen rose from her chair.
HELEN: "If you open that letter, you may never be able to look at this family the same way again."
Victoria looked up.
VICTORIA: "That decision belongs to me."
Helen took a step toward her.
HELEN: "You are making a terrible mistake."
Thomas stood quietly, not blocking Helen but making it clear that he was paying attention.
Victoria broke the seal.
Inside was a single sheet of paper, folded in half.
She opened it and began reading.
The first lines were addressed to her by name.
Her father apologized for not having spoken openly when she had needed him to. He wrote that he had made mistakes by allowing other people to speak for him, and that he had sometimes remained silent because he believed silence would prevent further conflict.
He admitted that he had underestimated the damage that silence could cause.
Victoria's eyes moved slowly down the page.
The letter referred to a promise he had made when she was young. It mentioned a sum of money that had been set aside for her future and an arrangement intended to ensure that she would have financial independence regardless of the choices other members of the family made.
She stopped reading.
VICTORIA: "What money?"
Daniel folded his hands.
DANIEL: "The letter refers to a separate financial arrangement. The supporting records are in the folder."
VICTORIA: "How much?"
DANIEL: "The amount is documented. I would prefer to show you the original records before giving you a figure from memory."
Victoria looked back at the letter.
The next lines explained that her father had intended the arrangement to remain separate from the family's ordinary finances. He wanted the funds protected until Victoria was ready to decide how they should be used.
The letter did not say that the money had disappeared.
It did not establish who, if anyone, had acted improperly.
But it made one fact clear.
Frank had intended Victoria to know that the arrangement existed.
And he believed she had not been told.
Victoria read the passage again, then lowered the letter.
VICTORIA: "Mother, did you know about this?"
Helen looked at the paper.
For several seconds, she seemed to be searching for a response that would satisfy everyone in the room.
HELEN: "Your father made many plans."
VICTORIA: "Did you know about this one?"
HELEN: "I knew he wanted to provide for both of you."
VICTORIA: "That is not what I asked."
HELEN: "He was trying to be fair."
VICTORIA: "Then why did he write that I had not been told?"
Helen's lips tightened.
HELEN: "Because he misunderstood what had happened."
DANIEL: "What did he misunderstand?"
HELEN: "You are not going to cross-examine me in front of my daughter."
DANIEL: "Then please answer her question."