It got me through some nights, that rage; I will not pretend it was useless.

But rage is a fire that needs constant feeding, and one day I looked at my children eating breakfast and understood that every hour I spent feeding my fire was an hour I was not spending on them, and that if I was not careful I would raise five people whose mother was defined entirely by the worst thing that had ever been done to her.

So I made a choice, slowly, over years.

I decided that the best revenge — the only one that would not poison the people I loved — was simply to build a good life and become a whole person and let the lie starve for lack of my attention.