There was the notary.

There were the neighbors who’d seen Christopher’s truck, and a hardware store’s camera that had caught him buying supplies days in advance, and a drive in his glovebox full of my records and his searches about collecting on a death.

The truth, for once in my life, stood entirely on its own, and needed nothing from me but that I stop making excuses for it.

I cannot fully explain what that meant to me unless you understand what the seven years before it had been like.