Long before sentencing, they had turned on each other completely, each insisting the other had been the mastermind, until a judge finally silenced them both.
I sat through as much of it as the law allowed.
I listened to a prosecutor read Delphine’s old testimony aloud — the sworn words in which she’d called me delusional — and then read, right after, the messages in which she’d coordinated the theft, and I watched the room understand that the loyal friend had been the finance of the whole operation.
I heard the administrator describe, in a flat and frightened voice, how the summary pages had been changed and what he’d been paid.
I watched Weston’s lawyer stop making arguments and start making arrangements, the way a lawyer does when the case is no longer about innocence but about damage.
And I watched Weston himself, who had spent our entire marriage certain he was the smartest person in every room, slowly grasp that the rooms had changed and the rules with them.
I sat in that courtroom and watched two people who had once seemed so untouchable blame each other like children, and I felt no triumph.
I felt the specific, tired relief of a person setting down a weight she’d carried so long she’d forgotten it was optional.
I had spent that whole terrible year believing my victory, when it came, would be the sight of them losing everything — the money, the standing, the golden life.
And I did see it.