The organizers knew about my business history and wanted someone to discuss what happens when power operates without accountability.

I didn’t want a platform for redemption, but after discussing it with counsel, I agreed to answer questions without pretending to be an expert on anyone else’s suffering.

I told the audience that I had once believed strength meant having the final word.

It had made me reckless with other people’s livelihoods and blind to my own wife’s pleas.

An older woman asked, “What changed you?”

I thought about the children, the audit reports, the anonymous envelope, the words Megan had spoken beside a Tennessee road.