Seven Years Of Votes And Always One Short Chapter 10

At the height of the public storm, I released a statement through my attorney, severing all ties with

the Shermans.

The public rallied behind it.

[A family like that? Better off without it.]

[Let Professor Linley start a family Bible of her own.]

[Jo Linley is the pride of this country. Keep going.]

No matter how the Shermans apologized or offered compensation, I remained unmoved.

Later, I heard scattered news of what followed.

Pearl was struck from the family Bible, stripped of the Shermans’ protection for good.

The family’s stock price

amid the scandal.

Miles, who had once devoted

ed himself to

business.

himself to design, was forced home to prop up the failing family

But none of it concerned me anymore.

Mathematics held countless mysteries waiting for me to uncover.

I stood at the lectern, facing rows of students hungry for knowledge.

I wrote an equation on the chalkboard and turned to speak to them.

“The most wonderful thing about mathematics is that it never lies. One is one, two is two.”

“It won’t turn one into two or two into one just because you’re having a good day.”

The whole room laughed.

One student asked, curious, whether I ever got lonely, alone in a foreign country.

I thought it over, and I told them the truth.

“I grew up in mountainous rural areas. My adoptive parents were the kidnappers who took me. My birth parents chose to keep me locked out of their home. For years, that grief sat on my chest. But

one day I realized something. My family is mathematics.”

“Mathematics will not abandon you for being poor. It will not disown you for lacking papers.

Mathematics is my only family.”

The hall shook with applause.

Later still, I put my prize money toward classrooms in the mountain towns back home.

I hoped those children could fly free of those mountains, one after another.

Because knowledge is the one thing no one can ever take from you.

Another Fourth of July rolled around, and the Shermans threw their reunion banquet once more

The invitations came again and again. I sent every single one back.

They kept one seat empty at the head table.

My name sat on it.

But I would never turn back.

Because I had already found the homecoming that belonged to me.