Each guard taking a post along the perimeter was one more layer of protection wrapped around a woman who had spent two years with no protection at all.

I was not building a monument to my victory.

I was building a wall around my mother, brick by brick, in real time, and the deep quiet satisfaction I felt watching it go up was not the satisfaction of revenge.

It was the far older and steadier satisfaction of a child who has finally, after too long, made her parent safe.

Chapter 22 — The House Is Clean