I did not forgive him, and I have not, and I feel no obligation to.

But I discovered something better than forgiveness and better, even, than revenge, and it took me most of that first year of freedom to find it.

Revenge, once I had it, was strangely small.

The account freeze, the warrants, the nine-year sentence, the sight of him in handcuffs among the flowers — I had lived toward those moments for two years, and when they came they were satisfying for about a week, and then they were simply over, and I understood that if all I had built my recovery on was his destruction, then his destruction complete, I would have nothing left to stand on.

A life organized entirely around ruining a man ends the day the man is ruined.