I had not even needed to prove she knew.

She had announced it herself.

I felt no surge of triumph, watching it.

I want to be honest about that, because it surprised me at the time.

I had imagined this moment for a year, and I had expected it to feel like victory.

Instead it felt like something quieter and cleaner: the simple, settling relief of a true thing said out loud, at last, in a room where it could not be denied.

I have thought since about why that particular relief was so deep — why it was the truth being made official, rather than the money being awarded, that loosened the knot in my chest — and I think it comes down to what a private truth and a public truth really are, and how different they feel to carry.