The weeks after were chaos.

Lucienne posted a tearful video from her apartment about her “cold-hearted sister” abandoning her in a crisis — leaving out the dinner, the $18,400, the defaulted car in my name.

I didn’t answer it.

Thaddeus sent a formal cease-and-desist to her, with itemized statements attached and a plain warning: continue the defamation and we file suit for defamation and fraud.

The video was gone by that night.

For a few hours, though, before it vanished, that video did something to me that surprised me: it made me want to respond.

Not to argue — to explain, to reply with my own account, to lay the receipts out in public and let everyone judge.

It is a powerful pull, being lied about, the near-physical need to correct the record.

And Thaddeus, when I called him about it, gave me the single most useful piece of advice of the whole ordeal. Don’t, he said. You don’t win by telling a better story than she does.

You win by having the documents.