And it is why, with what little time and strength I have left, I am making sure the truth outlives me.

I also saw, Julian, how you treated Mabel.

While she bathed me, and fed me, and sat awake through my worst nights, you told your friends your own mother was a burden.

Mabel was the daughter that you, my son, proved wholly incapable of being to me.

I loved you even when I no longer recognized the man you had become — that is my grief, and my burden, and I take it with me.

But my final act in this life will not be the protection of your greed.