She was.”

Then I turned and looked at Lucy, who stood apart from all of them, near the door to the porch, exactly as far into the room as she was willing to come.

“I struck you, Lucy,” I said, and my voice broke in front of my entire family, and I let it.

“I humiliated you and I threw you out into the rain, and then three years later, when I found you in an alley collecting bottles to survive, I had the arrogance to throw money at your feet and laugh at you.

And the whole time I was congratulating myself on my success, you were keeping my dying father alive on the pennies you earned out of the garbage.