The legal part ground along in the background of all this, in offices and hearings I dressed up for, and I will tell it briefly, because it is the least important true thing in this story even though it is the part people always want to hear about.

Darla was held accountable.

The state did its work, thoroughly and lawfully, and she was removed from those children’s lives permanently and answered for what she’d done in a courtroom, and I sat through the parts I had to sit through and felt none of the triumph people expect you to feel.

I felt, mostly, tired, and sad for everyone including the person she might have been before grief and whatever else turned her into what she became.

There was no satisfaction in it.