She arrived at the hospital before noon, and she did not comment on the fact that I had given birth the day before, because she understood, I think, that I needed to be a person with a mind and not only a body in a bed.

We cleared the rolling tray and spread it all out across the blanket over my knees — bank statements, printed emails, the notarized trust documents my grandmother’s estate lawyer had drawn up years before.

My daughter slept through all of it, and I worked with one hand resting on the edge of her bassinet, and Naomi walked me, page by page, into the thing that had actually been done to me.

Chapter 7 — Four Hundred Twenty Thousand