“Leo put glitter on the dog’s nose again!” And I smiled, and I turned my back on the quiet street, and I walked back inside my home, where my children were laughing, and the dog had glitter on his nose, and no one, ever again, would make me small.

I want to end on that word, small, because it is the whole of what this story is actually about, underneath the money and the skyscraper and the dramatic reversal on the porch.

The fortune was real, and I will not pretend it did not change my life; twenty-four million dollars changes anyone’s life.

But the money was never the thing I actually got back that autumn.

The thing I got back was myself.