That was the beginning of whatever honest relationship Marcus and I have now. Not close in the sentimental sense. But real. He had spent his whole life benefiting from a system he never examined because systems rarely ask the beneficiaries for moral review. To his credit, once he saw it, he did not spend very long pretending not to.
Olivia was different.
Her first instinct was sympathy. Her second was self-preservation. Her third, eventually, was resentment.
“This whole thing has been awful for me too,” she told me once, about a month later, after our parents’ attorneys had begun settlement talks. “I feel like now every time they do something for me, I have to wonder if it’s fair.”
I remember staring at her.
Not because she was evil.
Because she was telling the truth from inside her own limitation.
For Olivia, the worst part of injustice was often the discomfort of having to become conscious of it.
She had lived her whole life inside soft advantage. Of course clarity felt rude.
The Asset Review
Once my lawyers became involved, the case widened.