that now.”
Afterward I remained on the porch, feeling the salty wind and watching a gull cross above the water. I’d once imagined justice as seeing Aaron hurt as deeply as he’d hurt me. Instead, it felt like waking in my own home without measuring the hour by his return. It was a ringing phone that no longer controlled my pulse. It was discovering that other people’s low opinion could define me only if I allowed it.
Two weeks before the final signatures, Aaron asked for a private meeting rather
