I called a lawyer — my own, not the family’s, a woman Marva knew — and I learned exactly what I already suspected, which was that the house was mine to do with as I pleased, that Gregor had no claim I couldn’t answer, that his notary and his gift deed were worth precisely nothing without my signature, and that I was under no obligation to provide it.

It is a strange and specific power, learning that the thing a man assumed he controlled was never his at all.

I did not gloat.

Gloating is for people who are still fighting, and I was done fighting; I had come, without a scene, into possession of my own life, forty years late, and I meant to use what was left of it well.

Chapter 8 — What I Did With It

I sold the house.