Mentor

After leaving therapy, Eliza went to a very elaborate restaurant as was Victoria’s style. Victoria was a long-time friend of her parents, and a mentor to her when she was starting out in her career. It was Victoria who told her to always go for the highest goal and then higher.

But when she arrived there, Eliza was saw vulnerability about this very influential woman in her life.

“Is everything okay?” Eliza asked after she settled down, as she sipped her wine.

“Everything is fine,” Victoria said, but disbelief filled Eliza.

Eliza nodded anyway. They began talking, and things seemed okay until Eliza mentioned Jeanne. Victoria looked up at her with tear-filled eyes.

“Please tell me what is the matter Victoria.”

Taking a deep breath and putting her hands on her chest as a single tear fell down her face, Victoria sighed.

“This is hard for me to tell you Eliza. I have always thought of you like my own daughter.”

“Well if I did not have my mother, you would have been like a mother to me.”

Victoria reached over, and put her hand on top of Eliza’s.

“I love you, as if you were my own daughter…” Victoria closed her eyes, and the dam of tears in her eyes collapsed, and fell upon her cheeks. “I lost my own daughter, I was pregnant but I could not carry my little girl to term. I only had you left then, so I gave you everything I would have given her even though you were not my blood. But you are everything I imagined my own daughter would have been, and when you tell me about your life I feel so happy. I am glad you have a sister now you love…”

“I do love Jeanne,” Eliza admitted.

“This is hard as I said Eliza, but the daughter I lost was your sister as well.”

Eliza’s eyes widened.

“Your father and mother, and me and my husband at the time…we swapped. You father did not have an “affair,” we all knew. I loved your father, more than my own husband and my husband knew it—why he could not stay. I got pregnant and assured everyone it was my husband’s but it was not.” Victoria took both of Eliza’s hands in hers. “You could have had another sister.”

A smile broke out on Victoria’s face finally filled with tears as it was, but Eliza’s expression was frozen.

More Wicked Wednesday here: