“I just pity him.” Margaret nodded slowly.

“That,” she said, “is the ultimate victory, Julian.

Living well.

Living with love.

And leaving the bitterness behind you where it belongs.” And she was right, though it took me a while to feel the full truth of it.

For a time I had wanted something from Arthur, some reckoning, some moment where he understood what he had thrown away and suffered for it in a way I could witness.

But sitting in that garden, I realized I did not want that anymore, and not because I had forgiven him, exactly, but because I had finally understood that his punishment was not something I needed to arrange or witness.