I had to read it twice before it would hold still.

The number didn’t feel like money.

It felt like a measure of years — a running tally of everything that had quietly compounded in the dark while I limped through my thirties and forties believing I’d been born to a family with nothing to spare.

Every month that building had collected rent, and every month a little of what had been stolen from me had been handed back, without my knowing, into an account with my name on it.

I had spent all that time feeling poor, being careful, telling myself no.