I had stopped expecting to feel triumph somewhere under that overturned car six years earlier.

What I felt was something quieter and more durable: the satisfaction of a thing set right, of stolen good returned to the people it was stolen from, of a story that had been bent toward cruelty bent back, at last, toward its proper shape.

Chapter 21 — A Quieter Beach

Kelvin and I sold the apartment and bought a quiet house above a smaller, wilder beach.

Trust came back slowly, and we built it out of honesty rather than promises, which is the only material that holds.

It was not automatic.