It was something better.

It was justice, arriving late, but arriving.

I have thought a great deal about the difference between justice and revenge, in the years since, because people sometimes assume they are the same thing, and they are not, and Julian’s case taught me the distinction better than anything else in my life.

Revenge is personal; it wants the wrongdoer to suffer, and it is never satisfied, because no amount of suffering can undo the original wound.

Justice is something colder and larger and, in the end, far more healing.