In April, the audit report came, and it was clean. The firm my attorney selected went through the trust line by line and found that after the return of the veil and the bracelet, the disbursements balanced. My mother had not taken money that the terms did not allow her to take. She had only taken things, which could be returned. The report was filed with the probate court, and that was the end of the legal matter. There was no scandal, no headline, no ruin. There was simply a document in a file that said what had happened.
I had expected to feel triumphant. I felt nothing in particular, which is, I think, what justice usually feels like. It is not a victory. It is a correction.
The rose garden passed back to me in May, through a short proceeding that Paul Okafor handled in three weeks. M
