Others remained subjects of separate inquiry.

Grace warned me not to announce outcomes before orders were entered, and I obeyed.

I had seen what happened when people treated their preferred version of events as an established fact.

Eventually we reached a court-approved property settlement based on the records and the financial circumstances of our marriage.

It accounted for assets, obligations, and disputed marital expenditures.

The details mattered to us, but they were not the moral ending of the story.

No amount could buy back the mornings Noah wondered whether telling the truth would make his mother vanish.