The gallery was funded by the court-ordered civil settlement from the liquidation of the Cross estate. The walls held vibrant paintings and photographs, all made by women who had survived domestic abuse and were rebuilding their lives.

My annulment had been final for months. The Cross mansion had gone to auction, bought by a tech billionaire who gutted the interior. The Cross Meridian name had vanished from the skyline, absorbed into a larger, better-run hospitality group.

For the first time since that afternoon, bright track lighting didn’t frighten me. It didn’t make me flinch or reach for my lenses. It felt warm on my skin.

It felt clean. It felt like mine.

My father stood beside me with a glass of sparkling water, watching the patrons admire the work.

“Do you ever regret it?” he asked quietly, not looking away from an oil painting of a sunrise. “Hiding who we were from him? Playing the poor archivist?”