Evelyn sat down on the edge of the sagging motel bed, in a room with a broken fan, in a country she had flown to on the assumption that I would pay for it, and she said nothing.

I like to think that something occurred to her, in that silence — some first, dim understanding of exactly whose back her comfortable life had been riding on.

But I may be giving her too much credit.

Some people never do learn it.

They only learn that the money stopped.

And I have made my peace with that, though it took me a while, because there is a version of me that wanted more — that wanted not just my freedom but their understanding, that wanted Evelyn to sit on that motel bed and truly comprehend what she had done to me across all those years, to feel the weight of it, to be sorry in a way that reached the bottom.