One evening after that first visit, Eli sat beside me on the couch and asked, “Mom, why do grown-ups fight so much about money if it makes them so unhappy?”
I kissed his forehead and answered with the truth he was old enough to begin learning.
“Money doesn’t create character, sweetheart. It reveals it. And when you learn how to read what’s real, people can’t trick you so easily.”
That night, after he went to bed, I opened the final court copy of the settlement and turned to page forty-seven.
Then I smiled, not because Brandon had lost, but because I had finally stopped losing myself.
