But she refused to let that legitimate grief bleed into a false one.

She did not regret the courthouse, the clerk, the frozen accounts, the deputy — did not, for one moment, second-guess the act of protecting herself and her husband’s legacy from a thief who happened to be her son.

She held the two things separately, cleanly, the way only a person of real clarity can: profound sorrow that it had come to this, and zero regret about how she had answered it.

Love for the boy with the toy hammer.