She tossed the cash envelope at my feet before I could say hello.

“If you mention my name again, I promise you’ll be going straight back to prison.”

The words were the same ones I had been hearing in my head all week, but hearing them in daylight made them sound smaller.

Ugly, yes.

Powerful only if I helped her make them powerful.

“Pick up your money,” I said.

“You already took four years of my life.

You’re not buying the ones I have left.”