And I sat at the head of my father’s table, in the company he built and I had saved, completely and finally at peace — the past buried, the legacy restored, the books, at long last, balanced, and the whole of the future belonging, without condition or apology, to me.

I keep, on the windowsill of that office, no trophy from any of it — no framed press clipping, no plaque, none of the things people expect.

What I keep there is a single thing: a marble soap dish, the one I used to break the bathroom window the night I climbed out into the storm.

I asked for it to be returned to me, afterward, and no one quite understood why.

But I understand.