She sent it the next morning before her mother was awake, Because if her mother found out again that she had sent money to her father again, she would lecture her for it.
She sat at the kitchen counter with her laptop and her tea and moved another twenty thousand dollars across twelve thousand miles with the quiet efficiency of a woman who had grown up watching money move through shell accounts and had paid attention.
She closed the laptop.
And just sat there.
Her mother appeared at seven fifteen in her dressing gown, her hair not yet done, moving through the kitchen with the careful normality she maintained at all times. Kettle on. Two cups. The routine that had become theirs in eight months of this apartment.
"You're up early," her mother said.
"Couldn't sleep."
Patricia set a cup in front of her. Sat down across the counter. Looked at Victoria in the way she had....direct and patient and not asking anything out loud that Victoria wasn't ready to answer.
