Each charge that came through was a small, precise measurement of exactly how little I had ever meant to them — and I made myself watch every one, not out of masochism, but because I needed to finish grieving the family I had thought I had before I faced the family I actually did.

By the time the last frivolous charge cleared, there was nothing left in me to break.

They had spent my money and, without knowing it, spent the last of my illusions about them too, and both turned out to be things I could survive losing.

What they could not spend, what they could not touch, what they did not even know to look for, was the part of me that had spent twenty years learning to build an unbreakable case.

That part was awake in a hospital bed, watching the ledger fill, and it was not grieving at all.

It was counting.