My father threw me out on my eighteenth birthday, stole the $3,000 I’d saved from working after school, and used it for my stepbrother. Nine days later, while I was digging through a restaurant dumpster for something to eat, a stranger in an expensive suit called my name and told me my supposedly dead grandfather had left me everything. But there was one condition nobody had warned me about.

“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“Because I thought you should find the first truth before someone handed you the second.”

I almost laughed, though nothing about the situation was funny.

“Everyone in this family seems to believe I need to discover my own life like a scavenger hunt.”

“Your grandfather believed evidence mattered more than accusations.”

“And what do you believe?”

Eleanor met my eyes.

“I believe people can do wrong things for reasons they once thought were right. That doesn’t erase the harm. It only helps us understand what happened.”

I folded the note and placed it in my pocket.

“Did my father take the three thousand dollars from the trust?”

“I don’t know.”

“The bank receipt says it was withdrawn by him.”

“That tells you what happened to the money. It doesn’t tell you why.”

I stared at the photograph of my mother.