Neither of us pretended the past was okay. But we were writing a new story together.

On the wall of my apartment, I hung my grandmother’s portrait—the same one that had watched over the boardroom for forty years.

Sometimes, when the evening light hit it just right, I could almost see her smiling at me.

“You did it, Grandma,” I thought to myself. “You gave me the tools. I just had to be brave enough to use them.”

Six months earlier, I’d been invisible. Now I was finally, fully myself.

Looking back, I understand something now that I couldn’t have understood at twenty-seven.