served as a table beside the couch.
But every object in that space had been chosen honestly.
No one could threaten to throw me out for asking where my own money had gone.
Daria once believed my dependence made me easy to control.
She mistook my patience for permission, my silence for ignorance, and my love for my brother as proof that I would absorb any humiliation to keep the family peaceful.
She was wrong about one thing that mattered.
I had not left with nothing.
I left with the records.
