I will not listen first to the family narrative, theirs or my own.

I will follow the money, and the paper, and the cold unbending record of what truly happened.

And then, knowing the truth at last, I will decide for myself, freely, what my own story is going to be.

I sat in the quiet gold light of my own home, a home no one could take from me, and I was not afraid of the envelope.

I had the strength, the facts, and the independence to face whatever was waiting inside it.