to have it, someone who wouldn’t pawn the silver for a fix.”
That was the lie they had been cultivating for two years—a narrative carefully constructed to justify their theft. They had painted me as the unredeemable addict, the lost cause who had abandoned her family in their time of grief, while they played the roles of the grieving heirs.
In reality, Grandma Ruth had been my only true ally. When I hit rock bottom at twenty-four, she was the one who opened her doors and her heart. She didn’t
