You are being provided with a book chapter by chapter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chapter. After reading the chapter, 1. shorten the chapter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any important nouns in the chapter. 3. Do not translate the original language. 4. Keep the same style as the original chapter, keep it consistent throughout the chapter. Your reply must comply with all four requirements, or it’s invalid.
I will provide the chapter now.

48
I had been lied to for the past thirteen years. The whole world knew I needed a
new lawyer, and nally I realized the same thing. It was time to take back control
of my own life.
I reached out to my social media team and to my friend Cade for help nding
one. This is when I got Mathew Rosengart on board, and he was amazing. A
prominent former federal prosecutor now with a major law rm, he had a
number of famous clients like Steven Spielberg and Keanu Reeves, and a lot of
experience with high-prole, challenging cases. We spoke several times on the
phone and then met in early July in my pool house. Once Mathew was in my
corner, I felt that I was getting closer to the end. Something had to happen. It
couldn’t stay at a standstill. But of course, because it was the legal system, we had
to do a lot of waiting and strategizing.
He was appalled that I’d been denied my own lawyer for so long. He said even
vicious criminals get to pick their own lawyers, and he said he hated bullying. I
was glad, because I saw my father and Lou and Robin as bullies and I wanted
them out of my life.
Mathew said he would go to court and le a motion to remove my dad as
conservator rst, and then, after that, it would be easier to try to terminate the
entire conservatorship. Just a few weeks later, on July 26, he led to eliminate my
father from that role. After a big court hearing on September 29, my father was
suspended as my conservator. It was all over the news before Mathew could even
call me after court.
I felt relief sweep over me. The man who had scared me as a child and ruled
over me as an adult, who had done more than anyone to undermine my self-
condence, was no longer in control of my life.
At that point, with my father eliminated, Mathew told me we had
momentum, and he petitioned for the end of the conservatorship altogether.
I was at a resort in Tahiti in November when Mathew called me with the
news that I was no longer under a conservatorship. He’d told me when I left for
the trip that one day soon I’d be able to wake up for the rst time in thirteen
years a free woman. Still, I couldn’t believe it when he called me as soon as he
came out of the court hearing and told me it was done. I was free.
Even though it was his strategy that had gotten us the victory, he told me that
I deserved the credit for what had happened. He said that by giving my
testimony, I’d freed myself and probably also helped other people in unfair
conservatorships. After having my father take credit for everything I did for so
long, it meant everything to have this man tell me that I’d made the dierence in
my own life.
And now, nally, it was my own life.
Being controlled made me so angry on behalf of anyone who doesn’t have the
right to determine their own fate.
“I’m just grateful, honestly, for each day… I’m not here to be a victim,” I said
on Instagram after the conservatorship was terminated. “I lived with victims my
whole life as a child. That’s why I got out of my house. And worked for twenty
years and worked my ass o… Hopefully, my story will make an impact and
make some changes in the corrupt system.”
In the months since that phone call, I’ve been trying to rebuild my life day by
day. I’m trying to learn how to take care of myself, and to have some fun, too.
On vacation in Cancún, I got to do something I’d loved years earlier—Jet
Skiing. The last time I’d Jet Skied before that had been in Miami with the boys,
when I went too fast because I was trying to keep up with them. Those kids are
borderline dangerous on a Jet Ski! They go extremely fast and do jumps. Riding
over the waves after them, I was hitting hard—boom, boom, boom—and falling
down, wiping out and hurting my arm.
Not wanting to repeat that experience, in May 2022 I got my assistant to
drive me instead. It’s way better when someone drives you, I’ve found. This time
I could feel the power of the engine, I could enjoy being out on the clear blue
water, and I could go exactly the speed I wanted to.
That’s the kind of thing I’m doing now—trying to have fun and trying to be
kind to myself, to take things at my own pace. And, for the rst time in a long
time, allowing myself to trust again.
Every day, I put music on. When I walk around my house singing, I feel
completely free, completely at ease, completely happy. Whether I sound perfect
or not, I don’t even care. Singing makes me feel condent and strong the same
way exercise does, or prayer. (Remember: your tongue is your sword.) Anything
that gets your heart rate up is good. Music is that, plus a connection to God.
That’s where my heart is.
When I had full-time access to a studio in Malibu, I loved going there
regularly. One day I created six songs. Music is at its purest for me when I’m
doing it for myself. I thought I might get a studio again someday and just play
around, but for some time I hadn’t been thinking about recording.
I changed my mind about that when I got invited to record a song with an
artist I’ve admired my entire life: Sir Elton John. He’s one of my all-time favorite
performers. I’d met him at an Oscars party about a decade ago and we got along
so well. And now here he was reaching out with the sweetest video message,
asking if I would be interested in collaborating on one of his most iconic songs.
“Hold Me Closer” would be a modernized duet version of his hit “Tiny
Dancer,” with bits of a couple of his other songs, too.
I was so honored. Like me, Elton John has been through so much, so
publicly. It’s given him incredible compassion. What a beautiful man on all
levels.
To make the collaboration even more meaningful: as a child, I listened to
“Tiny Dancer” in the car in Louisiana as I rode to and from my dance and
gymnastics classes.
Sir Elton was kind and made me feel so comfortable. Once we’d worked out a
date to record the song, I headed over to the producer’s home studio in Beverly
Hills.
The studio was in the basement of the house. I had never seen a setup like it:
it was a completely open studio with guitars, pianos, soundboards, and music
equipment all set out. I was nervous because it would be the rst time the world
had heard my singing voice on something new in six years, but I believed in the
song and in myself, so I went for it.
I stood in front of the microphone, sped up the tempo, and began to sing.
After a few hours, we were done. I had recorded a duet with one of my favorite
artists on one of my favorite songs. I was excited, anxious, and emotional in the
weeks leading up to the release.
Before the conservatorship, I would go onstage and everyone would look to
me for the signal that it was time to start the show. I’d hold up my index nger to
say, “Let’s go.” Under the conservatorship, I always had to wait for everyone else.
I was told, “We’ll let you know when we’re ready.” I didn’t feel like they treated
me as if I had any value. I hated it.
I’d been taught through the conservatorship to feel almost too fragile, too
scared. That’s the price I paid under the conservatorship. They took a lot of my
womanhood, my sword, my core, my voice, the ability to say “Fuck you.” And I
know that sounds bad, but there is something crucial about this. Don’t
underestimate your power.
“Hold Me Closer” debuted on August 26, 2022. By August 27, we were number
one in forty countries. My rst number one and my longest-charting single in
almost ten years. And on my own terms. Fully in control. Fans said that on the
track I sounded amazing. Sharing your work with the world is terrifying. But in
my experience, it is always worthwhile. Recording “Hold Me Closer” and
putting it out into the world was a fantastic experience. It didn’t feel good—it
felt great.
Pushing forward in my music career is not my focus at the moment. Right
now it’s time for me to try to get my spiritual life in order, to pay attention to the
little things, to slow down. It’s time for me not to be someone who other people
want; it’s time to actually nd myself.
As I’ve gotten older, I like my alone time. Being an entertainer was great, but
over the last ve years my passion to entertain in front of a live audience has
lessened. I do it for myself now. I feel God more when I’m alone.
I’m no saint, but I do know God.
I have a lot of soul-searching to do. It’s going to be a process. I’m already
enjoying it. Change is good. Hesam and I always pray together. I look up to him
—his consistency with working out and being a good man and being healthy
and taking care of me and helping me learn how we can take care of each other.
He’s such an inspiration and I’m grateful. The timing of the end of the
conservatorship was perfect for our relationship; we were able to establish a new
life together, without limitations, and get married. Our wedding was a beautiful
celebration of how much we’d been through together and how deeply we wished
for each other’s happiness.
The day the conservatorship ended, I was left with so many emotions: shock,
relief, elation, sadness, joy.
I felt betrayed by my father and, sadly, by the rest of my family, too. My sister
and I should have found comfort in each other, but unfortunately that hasn’t
been the case. As I was ghting the conservatorship and receiving a lot of press
attention, she was writing a book capitalizing on it. She rushed out salacious
stories about me, many of them hurtful and outrageous. I was really let down.
Shouldn’t sisters be able to confess their fear or vulnerability to each other
without that later being used as evidence of instability?
I couldn’t help but feel that she wasn’t aware of what I’d been through. It
appeared that she thought it had been easy for me because so much fame had
come to me so young, and that she blamed me for my success and everything
that came with it.
Jamie Lynn clearly suered in our family home, too. She grew up a child of
divorce, which I did not. It seems that she didn’t get a lot of parenting, and I
know it was hard to try to sing and act and make her own way in the world in
the shadow of a sibling who got not only most of the family’s attention but a lot
of the world’s. My heart goes out to her for all those reasons.
But I don’t think she fully understands just how desperately poor we were
before she was born. Because of the money I brought to the family, she wasn’t
helpless in the face of our father, like my mother and I were back in the 1980s.
When you have nothing, that pain gets intensied by your inability to escape.
My mom and I had to witness the ugliness and the violence without believing
that there was anywhere else to go.
She will always be my sister, and I love her and her beautiful family. I wish the
absolute best for them. She’s been through a lot, including teen pregnancy,
divorce, and her daughter’s near-fatal accident. She’s spoken about the pain of
growing up in my shadow. I’m working to feel more compassion than anger
toward her and toward everyone who I feel has wronged me. It’s not easy.
I’ve had dreams in which June tells me he knows he hurt my father, who then
hurt me. I felt his love and that he’d changed on the other side. I hope that one
day I will be able to feel better about the rest of my family, too.
My anger has been manifesting itself physically, especially with migraine
headaches.
When I get them, I don’t want to go to the doctor because being sent to one
doctor after another all those years gave me a phobia about them. And so I take
care of things myself. When it comes to the migraines, I don’t like to talk about
them because I’m superstitious that if I do, they’ll bother me more.
When I have one, I can’t go into the light and I can’t move. I stay very still in
the dark. Any light makes my head throb and makes me feel like I’m going to
pass out—it’s that painful. I have to sleep for a day and a half. Until recently, I’d
never had a headache in my whole life. My brother used to complain about his
headaches and I thought he was exaggerating how bad they were. Now I’m sorry
I ever said anything to doubt him.
For me, a migraine is worse than a stomach virus. At least with a bug you can
still think straight. Your head can help you gure out what you want to do, what
movies you want to watch. But when you have a migraine you can’t do anything
because your brain is gone. Migraines are just one part of the physical and
emotional damage I have now that I’m out of the conservatorship. I don’t think
my family understands the real damage that they did.
For thirteen years, I wasn’t allowed to eat what I wanted, to drive, to spend
my money how I wanted, to drink alcohol or even coee.

Chapter 48 of “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” by Anne Brontë, titled “Further Intelligence,” brings a mix of hope and concern for the characters involved. Mr. Lawrence pays a visit to share another letter from his sister, which allows Mr. Markham to disclose details he deems necessary about Helen, who wishes little to be said about her. She expresses hope for Markham’s well-being but insists that he must not think of her, underlining a poignant resignation to their separation.

The letter reveals Helen’s arduous care for her husband, who is recovering from a severe illness but is plagued by his past indulgences and stubbornness. Despite his improved health, Helen navigates the challenges of managing his dietary restrictions, fending off his unreasonable demands, and the emotional turmoil of his occasionally feigned affection, which she can neither believe nor reciprocate. Through diligent care and firm boundaries, Helen strives to balance her roles as a caretaker, mother, and overseer of household affairs, highlighting her gritty resolve and moral steadfastness.

Meanwhile, Helen’s narrative also touches on Esther Hargrave’s struggles with her own family’s pressure to marry a suitor she despises, showcasing the pervasive challenge women face in asserting their autonomy against societal and familial expectations.

Markham, on his part, finds solace in being able to vindicate Helen in the eyes of their community. He plans discreetly to spread the truth, with the dual aim of clearing her name and satisfying his own need for public vindication. The chapter closes on a note of quiet triumph as Markham anticipates the reversal of Helen’s and his own social standing through the revelation of her sacrifices and integrity.

The chapter subtly interweaves themes of duty, love, and social redemption, presenting characters who grapple with personal and societal expectations. Brontë uses their trials and internal conflicts to critique the rigid social norms of her time, especially regarding women’s roles and the sanctity of marriage. Amidst the personal dramas of her characters, Brontë offers a glimpse into the possibilities of moral courage and the high cost of personal integrity.