I turn the key every night.

And every night, the small ordinary click of that lock tells me the thing my grandmother’s letter promised: that no one can come in here who I do not choose to let in.

There is no wealth that compares to it.

Chapter 20 — It Felt Like Freedom

I returned to my accounting career, and in time I was promoted to lead a senior forensic auditing team — the skill my in-laws had spent ten years dismissing as a cute hobby now the thing I was paid, and respected, to do.

And I began volunteering with a legal-aid nonprofit, helping other women.