He nodded at the porch floor. “I’m trying.”

“Try in ways that benefit Sabina. Not me.”

“I understand.”

Perhaps he did. Perhaps he was only learning accountability because it was the language the court responded to. Either way, I no longer needed to know the difference right away.

After he left, I found Sabina asleep on the couch, the sea-turtle book open across her lap. I laid a blanket over her and stood a long while, watching her breathe in the safe, ordinary rhythm that had become the background sound of my life.

That was the reward no judge could award — not the mansion, not the sale price, not Beatrix’s face when her own words were read aloud, not Thatcher asking where he was supposed to live and realizing the question no longer controlled me.