I have been asked, by the few people who know the whole story, whether I regret not destroying them — whether, given everything the Abernathys did to me, I do not wish I had taken the evidence to the press and burned their name to the ground, publicly, permanently, the way a certain kind of justice would seem to demand.

And I understand the question.

There is an appetite in all of us for the clean satisfaction of a powerful family brought low in front of everyone, and I would be lying if I said I never felt it.

But I have come to believe that the appetite for spectacle and the appetite for justice are two different hungers, and that they are often at war, and that feeding the first one usually starves the second.

If I had gone to the press, I would have gotten the spectacle — the headlines, the ruined name, the satisfying image of Constance’s face on the evening news.