I wanted to win in a way that could never, by anyone, be reframed as my wrongdoing, because I had spent thirty-four years having my legitimate needs reframed as wrongdoing, and I was finished with it.

The law, done properly, was not just a tool for reclaiming my property.

It was a way of establishing, permanently and beyond argument, that I had been right all along.

And that, after a lifetime of being told I was wrong, was worth every slow and unglamorous week it cost.

Chapter 11 — You Signed This

“My mother already changed the deadbolt locks,” I told Adrian.

“Even better,” he said, making a note in the file.