Chapter 15 - My Life Is Mine
My father’s letter was short.
Maya,
You have always given people one more chance than they deserve. It is one of the things I love about you, and one of the things I fear may hurt you.
If keeping the peace ever costs you your voice, remember this:
Peace purchased with your silence is not peace.
Your life is yours.
Your money is yours.
Your mind is yours.
Your no is yours.
Do not hand any of them away because someone becomes angry when you use them.
Love,
Dad
I sat on the kitchen floor and cried until the sun went down.
Then I laughed.
Even dead, my father could still be irritatingly right.
Vance Strategic was renamed Morgan Transit Group.
I did not become CEO.
Several board members expected me to.
I hired someone qualified instead.
“I thought you wanted control,” Rachel said.
“I want ownership of my life. That’s different.”
The company survived.
Employees kept their jobs.
Northstar was dissolved and replaced with a fund controlled by an independent board.
Recovered money went first to families and creditors.
The estate sale covered more.
I kept enough to live safely.
No yacht.
No mansion.
No reason to impress anyone.
David sent two letters from prison.
I did not open them.
Rachel asked whether I wanted them returned.
“No.”
“Destroyed?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Put them away.”
Forgiveness had become another thing I refused to perform on demand.
One afternoon, a reporter called for a “where is she now?” profile.
I declined.
He asked, “Don’t you want people to know you won?”
I looked around my small kitchen.
Lily’s moon light on the shelf.
Her worksheet framed on the wall.
A stack of grant applications for sick children.
“I’m not interested in winning against David.”
“What are you interested in?”
“Living.”
I hung up.
That night, I slept eight straight hours for the first time since the ICU.
At 2:17 a.m., my body did not wake me.
I did not know until morning.
When I saw the clock, I cried again.
Not from pain.
May you like
From surprise.
My life had moved through the minute without asking permission from the past.
