Chapter 8 - VICTORIA'S BARGAIN
Victoria cried when Joshua confronted her.
That almost made him angrier.
“You bargained with a ten-year-old.”
“I was trying to keep the family together.”
“No. You were trying to keep the business together.”
“Those are not separate anymore.”
“That’s the problem.”
Victoria explained what she had promised.
One birthday shoot.
Then no prank filming for Lily for twelve months.
Lily had asked:
“Even if Uncle Caleb says it’s important?”
Victoria said yes.
Lily agreed reluctantly.
Joshua stared.
“She agreed to be filmed.”
Victoria nodded.
“Did she agree to eggs?”
“No.”
“Did she know messy prank?”
Victoria looked down.
“No.”
There it was.
Even the child-level bargain had been changed after agreement.
Why?
Caleb believed a simple birthday reaction clip would not perform strongly enough.
Nicholas agreed.
Victoria knew the plan shifted.
She did not tell Lily.
Her defense:
“She would have refused.”
Joshua almost laughed at the repetition.
Everyone in the family had learned the same shortcut.
When no was likely, remove the question.
Then Victoria admitted another motive.
The studio loan.
Nicholas’s guarantee.
If Rivas Rewind failed, their retirement savings could be exposed through the guarantee and additional loans they had made to Caleb.
“How much did you put in?” Joshua asked.
Victoria whispered:
“Another hundred and twenty thousand.”
Joshua stared.
His parents had almost their entire emotional identity tied into Caleb’s company.
Not all their money.
But enough to create fear.
Victoria said:
“We believed in him.”
“I know.”
“We still do.”
“I know.”
“We weren’t trying to hurt Lily.”
Joshua looked at her.
“That sentence is not enough.”
Victoria nodded.
For the first time, she did not argue.
Then she gave Joshua something Lily had handed her two months earlier.
A folded piece of notebook paper.
Victoria had kept it in her purse.
On it Lily had written:
VIDEOS I LIKE:
BAKING
DOGS
GRANDPA GAMES
VIDEOS I DON’T LIKE:
FOOD ON ME
SCARING ME
CRYING
WHEN PEOPLE LAUGH AT ME
Joshua stared at the childish handwriting.
A consent policy more precise than the adults’ contracts.
At the bottom Lily had written:
PLEASE SHOW UNCLE CALEB.
Joshua looked up.
“Did you?”
Victoria shook her head.
“Why?”
“I thought I could handle it.”
Again.
Handle it.
The family phrase that meant:
I will decide for everyone so nobody has to fight.
Joshua folded the paper carefully.
Then Victoria said:
“There’s one thing you need to know before you blame only Caleb.”
“What?”
“The egg idea wasn’t his.”
Joshua stared.
“Whose was it?”
Victoria whispered:
“Your father’s.”
May you like
Nicholas had designed the prank.
And he had done it after reading Lily’s list.
