The proceeds were not an enormous windfall.

Legal expenses and remaining obligations reduced what I received.

Still, the money gave me something I had not had since prison: options.

A local paper ran a story about the corrected records.

People who had once avoided me at the grocery store began recognizing me in line, saying they were glad things had worked out.

Sometimes I thanked them.

Sometimes I just nodded.

I had learned that public sympathy could be as shallow and unpredictable as public suspicion.