I walked into the kitchen. The bottle of wine Brenda had dropped was still sitting on the floor. I picked it up, set it on the counter, and began making myself a bowl of pasta.

The kitchen was quiet, save for the sound of the water boiling on the stove.

I took my plate out to the screened porch and sat on the swing my father had built. The chains creaked slightly as I rocked back and forth. The sun was starting to set over the lake, turning the sky a deep, bruised purple.

I won. I got the cabin back, and they are going to pay back every cent they took from my retirement. Greg is staying at a cheap motel near the highway, and Brenda’s firm is already conducting an internal review of her estate files. The legal hammer is falling, exactly the way it was supposed to.

But as I sat there in the dark, watching the pine trees fade into shadows, I realized that the win didn’t fix the empty space in my chest. You get your justice, you expose the lies, and then it’s just a Tuesday night again. I took another bite of my pasta and listened to the frogs singing by the water.