something I owned should really belong to everyone.
At first, the quiet felt strange.
Then I realized something.
It wasn’t emptiness.
It was peace.
I walked through the living room and picked up the bank report.
Eleven months of theft reduced to columns of numbers.
For years, I believed protecting myself would make me selfish.
That saying no would make me difficult.
That asking questions meant I didn’t trust my husband.
That insisting on boundaries would destroy the family.
I had it backward.
The boundaries hadn’t destroyed anything.
The people
