I had simply decided, at last, that the years of building in the dark had earned me the right to stand in the light and be seen exactly as I was — not the daughter they displayed, not the daughter they hid, but the person I had actually made of myself while no one in that family was watching.

I reached the microphone.

My father turned.

And I was not afraid of him, or of the room, or of being seen, for the first time in my life.

Chapter 25 — Get Off the Stage

My father, his back to me, felt the room’s gaze shift and turned.