I have thought, finally, about why I feel no triumph when I picture Derek on his bicycle, or Brenda in her small distant apartment, or Mason stripped of the career he abused — and I have decided that the absence of triumph is itself the truest measure of how completely we won.

Because a person who is still savoring the downfall of those who hurt them is a person who is still, in some quiet way, defined by them, still keeping score, still standing in relation to the enemy.

And I do not stand in relation to the Millers at all anymore.

They have become, to me and to my daughter both, simply irrelevant — not forgiven, not hated, not thought of, except on the rare occasion when a story like this one requires me to remember them.

That irrelevance is the victory that matters.