I had heard judges say hard things to guilty people many times across my career, and I had usually felt, in those moments, a clean professional satisfaction — the case closed, the vulnerable protected, the machinery working as it should.

I felt none of that now.

I sat and listened to a good judge describe my son’s cruelty in the plainest possible terms, in front of a full gallery, and every accurate word landed on me as much as on Sheldon, because the calculated and cruel and arrogant man the judge was describing was the boy I had taught to ride a bicycle. You tried to liquidate a human life for profit. It was true.

It was exactly, precisely true, and I had assembled the evidence that made it undeniable, and I would do it again — and it was still my child he was talking about, and no vindication on earth makes that a comfortable thing to hear.

I have thought since that this is the part no one warns you about, in these fights that look so satisfying from the outside.

When you win against a stranger, you win.