“Her heart is strong. She’s going to make a full recovery. She’s going to grow up.”

My legs simply stopped holding me. Bruce caught me before I reached the floor, and the two of us stood there in the waiting room and cried, and for once they were not the kind of tears that house had taught me.

Chapter 14 — Born to Live Free

The legal proceedings took eight long months. I had thought, going in, that winning would feel like triumph.

It didn’t, quite. It felt more like a long, slow exhale I hadn’t known I’d been holding for six years.

Month after month, in courtrooms and depositions, the true story was assembled in front of the people who had believed the false one — piece by piece, document by document, until it could not be argued with.

I sat through a great deal of it.