I had never once looked at money of my own and asked what I wanted, because wanting had not been part of my job description.
The job had been providing.
But this eleven thousand was different.
This was money I had reclaimed, not earned to give away, and for the first time I let myself sit with the strange, almost frightening question of what I might do with something that was purely mine.
I did not have an answer yet.
That was the point.
For the first time in my adult life, the answer to what do you want was not automatically whatever you need from me — it was a blank space, waiting, and the blankness of it was not empty but open, the way a held breath is different from a sigh.
I rolled the window down and let the warm, salt Florida air pour over my face.
For thirty-three years I had believed love was a thing you earned — through sacrifice, through obedience, through an endless series of checks — and that if I only gave enough and fixed enough and carried enough, my family would finally open the door and wave me inside.
I had been wrong about all of it.