I watched her car turn the corner and felt no victory.

Two women had believed different versions of the same man, and neither version had survived contact with the truth.

I put the pearls back into their wooden box.

For a long moment I imagined wearing them to a court hearing as a declaration.

Instead, I decided to give them to Brielle one day, with the real story of her grandmother’s graduation.

They deserved to be remembered for ambition and effort, not for where I’d last seen them.