There was a version of the scene, she knew, in which the wronged woman embraces the repentant witness, in which four years of hell dissolve into forgiveness the instant the truth is finally told, and Mabel did not give Phoebe that version, because it would have been a lie, and because Phoebe had not earned it, and because the two of them both understood that the thanks Phoebe was fishing for, however unconsciously, was really a request to be relieved of her guilt — and Mabel was no longer in the business of relieving comfortable people of guilt they had earned.

What she did instead was harder and more honest.

She looked at Phoebe for a long moment, and said, evenly, “Then testify.

Not for me — I don’t need your feelings, and I don’t need your tears, and I have gotten this far without either.

Testify because it is true, and because it is four years late, and because a person who finally does the right thing does not also get to be comforted for how hard it was to do it.

You’ll go to that courtroom, and you’ll tell the truth, and it won’t make us even, and you’ll have to live the rest of your life knowing it didn’t.” And Phoebe, to her credit, did not flinch from it.