Because that torn document was not about the money.

It was about the one thing the Prescotts had tried hardest to take from her, and failed: the refusal to be silenced.

They had broken her body and could not break that.

Five million dollars could not buy it.

She threw it away without hesitation, because some things are not for sale, and my wife had already decided, somewhere in that hospital bed, which things those were.

I have thought about that torn document often, because five million dollars is not a small thing, and we were not wealthy people, and my wife was facing a long and expensive recovery, and no one would have blamed her for taking it.