Three days after my twin sons were born, my husband brought twenty-two members of his family into a hospital room and offered me two hundred thousand dollars to sign away my marriage, my children, and my right to ever ask about their company's accounts. They expected me to cry. I read every page and signed all of them.

I work for a property management firm in Hadley Vale that is not Thackery Row. I run the trust accounts.

The reconciliation is signed by me on the third working day of every month and my employer has asked me twice whether I would consider being less thorough about it, both times as a joke, and both times I have said no.

Sign it. Everyone's here.

Adelaide Thackery said that to me with my own handbag in her hand and a leather folder on my lap, three days after surgery, in a hospital, in front of twenty-two members of her own family.

She said everyone's here as a threat. That is what she meant by it. Look at how many of us there are and look at how alone you are.

And she was right about the count.

Twenty-two witnesses, a nurse who would not leave, a social worker in the doorway with a lanyard, and a camera in the corner by the ceiling.