My sister tore open my blouse in the middle of my father's retirement celebration and laughed, "Everyone, look at the scars she came back with after disappearing for five years!" As nearly two hundred stunned guests watched, my father sneered, "Leave before you humiliate us again."

A month after taking over the institute, I received a formal request from the Federal Correctional Institution in Pekin, Illinois.

Audrey had asked to see me.

I drove down to the facility on a quiet afternoon. The brick walls, barbed wire, and guard towers stood in stark contrast to the luxurious penthouses and yacht clubs where Audrey had spent her youth.

I sat in the small, sterile visiting room across a laminate table.

A door clicked open, and Audrey stepped in, wearing a plain khaki prison jumpsuit. Her hair was cut short and unstyled, her nails unpolished, her skin pale. She looked stripped of every layer of vanity that had defined her entire life.

She sat down across from me, looking down at her cuffed hands for a long moment before raising her eyes.

"You came," Audrey whispered, her voice lacking the screeching rage she had displayed during her arrest.

"You asked to see me," I said gently.

Audrey took a deep, shaky breath. "I wanted to... I wanted to give you this."

She reached into her pocket with her cuffed hands and pulled out a small, worn piece of paper, sliding it across the table toward me.

I picked it up. It was an old photograph from fifteen years ago.

It showed the two of us as young girls, standing on the deck of my father's first small boat, holding fishing rods, laughing under the summer sun before money, power, and greed had corrupted our family.

"I found it in my old luggage when they packed my things," Audrey said, a tear slipping down her cheek. "I remembered how much I used to look up to you before... before Father started telling me that you were weak because you cared about honesty."

I looked at the photograph, feeling a faint ache in my heart for the little girl my sister used to be.

"Father manipulated all of us, Audrey," I said softly. "He taught you that money was the only thing that gave you value."

"I was so jealous of you, Clarissa," Audrey confessed, her voice choking with genuine tears. "When you vanished, Father gave me everything I wanted, but he always spoke about you. He was terrified of you. And when you came back that night at the gala... I saw how strong you were. I saw that you didn't need his money or his approval. I hated you because I knew I was nothing compared to you."

She looked up into my eyes, her face filled with raw, unvarnished regret.

"I'm so sorry for what I did to you, Clarissa," Audrey wept. "I'm sorry for tearing your dress. I'm sorry for laughing at your scars. You saved lives... and I was just a cruel, spoiled brat."

I looked at my sister, seeing for the first time in ten years a real human being standing behind the mask of vanity.

"It takes courage to admit that, Audrey," I said quietly. "Your sentence is five years. You have a chance to rebuild your life when you get out. You can choose who you want to be."

Audrey wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, nodding slowly. "I'm going to finish my college degree while I'm in here. I want to work with charities when I get out... I want to try to fix some of the damage."

I reached across the table and placed my hand over her cuffed fingers.