My son froze my cards so I couldn’t even buy groceries. He thinks he controls our $42 million empire—but one call from the bank made me realize he has no idea what I’m about to do. First my credit card declined. Then my debit.

Sometimes people ask, usually in lowered voices and always with that voyeuristic respect scandal attracts, whether I regret not reconciling with Desmond. The question is almost always shaped as moral curiosity, but beneath it sits a simpler discomfort: people want stories like mine to end with repentance because repentance lets everyone else keep believing family is inherently safe. My answer is always the same.

I regret that my son became the kind of man who could do what he did.

I do not regret refusing to be destroyed by it.

Those are different things.