Chapter 47 - The Woman Who Kept Me Fourteen
Vivienne arrived at Camille’s office wearing pale blue.
It was an excellent color for appearing reasonable.
I noticed that and then reminded myself that clothes had never told me everything about anyone.
Her attorney carried the file.
Vivienne carried a small leather notebook.
She smiled when she saw me.
“Lena.”
I remained seated.
My ankle had tolerated the morning rehearsal. I did not intend to spend its patience demonstrating that I could stand when angry.
Camille began.
“We need the authority supporting Bellweather’s beneficiary administration and the recent acknowledgment.”
Vivienne folded her hands.
“These arrangements began when Elena was ill.”
“That explains a beginning,” Camille said. “We’re asking about the present.”
Vivienne glanced at me.
“Your mother wanted continuity.”
“My mother asked where the money was going.”
Her smile faded.
Camille placed Sofia’s letter on the table.
Elena’s question.
The account.
The person authorized to receive it.
Vivienne read it without touching the page.
“I remember concerns.”
“Did you answer?”
“Correspondence was handled through several offices.”
“Did you answer?” I repeated.
Her attorney intervened.
The conversation would proceed more efficiently if questions came through counsel.
Camille agreed.
I was grateful for the interruption.
My anger had begun asking questions faster than anyone could answer them.
Vivienne’s records included a limited administration agreement signed while my mother was undergoing treatment.
It allowed specified licensing income to be received, expenses accounted for, and distributions made according to a schedule.
The agreement did not simply give Vivienne ownership of everything Elena created.
It also did not appoint her permanent guardian of every dollar connected to me.
Camille read the succession provision aloud.
Vivienne’s attorney asked for a moment.
The room became very quiet.
Then Vivienne said, “The profile was never updated.”
I looked at her.
“A profile.”
“Yes.”
“Fourteen years of my life became a profile.”
“That is not what I mean.”
“It is what you used.”
She looked away.
The recent acknowledgment had been accepted from Vivienne’s management account.
Bellweather had treated her acceptance as confirmation that a beneficiary distribution had been completed.
Vivienne said she understood it as an internal accounting acknowledgment.
Not proof that the money reached my personal bank.
“Then why was it described as received?” Camille asked.
Vivienne’s attorney said the terminology required clarification.
I thought of every employer who had told me a deduction was only an administrative matter.
Every number that became smaller while someone explained why it was ordinary.
Camille requested the full transaction history and the correspondence supporting the description.
Then she asked about the balance.
Vivienne hesitated.
“There were outstanding expenses.”
“Whose?”
“Related to Elena’s work.”
“And the estate disputes?”
“Among other things.”
My hands went cold.
“You used money recorded as paid to me to fund arguments against me?”
Her attorney immediately qualified the premise.
We needed the ledger.
We needed dates.
We needed distinctions.
All true.
None prevented the question from filling the room.
The meeting ended with production commitments.
No apology.
No admission broad enough to resolve the dispute.
But one fact had become clear.
Vivienne had continued acting for a child who no longer existed because nobody had required her to stop.
Outside, I sat on the stairs.
Camille sat beside me.
Not elegant.
Useful.
“I want to call her every name I know.”
“Do you know several?”
“In two languages.”
“Save them.”
I laughed once.
Then I began crying.
Camille waited.
When I could breathe properly, she said, “The account description is not your identity.”
I looked at her.
“I know.”
“Today, you may need to hear it anyway.”
At the studio, Nadia was teaching the advanced class.
She had changed the order of exercises.
For half a second, irritation rose.
Then I stopped.
She was not replacing me.
She was doing the job we had hired her to do.
I stayed by the door and watched.
Anya’s photograph from the summer program was pinned above the desk.
They corrected my landing. They didn’t take away the turn.
I read the words again.
That evening, Camille sent one more document.
An older letter addressed to Bellweather.
My mother had instructed the administrator to send statements directly to our home and stop treating management approval as beneficiary receipt.
The letter bore a received stamp.
Below it was a handwritten routing note.
Hold pending clarification from Marchand.
I sat very still.
May you like
They had not merely forgotten to ask me.
My mother had already told them to stop.
