I was not triumphant.

I was not even, particularly, satisfied in the hot way revenge is supposed to satisfy.

What I felt, sitting in the spray with a folder of foreclosure papers on my knees, was something quieter and much cleaner than any of that: the immense, level calm of a ledger that finally balances.

A bad account, carried too long, closed at last.

The books ruled off.

Nothing owed in either direction.