Page 263 of The Rules
The rep across the table drones on.
“—including financial compensation for wrongful imprisonment, emotional distress, loss of income—”
Numbers follow. Big ones. Generous, by legal standards.
Katherine feels her stomach turn. She knows what settlements mean. She understands the clean math of reparation. But here, now—
It feels obscene.
Pain shouldn’t have a price tag. Years shouldn’t be reduced to digits on a spreadsheet.
An official apology is slid across the table. Typed. Sanitized. Empty.
She doesn’t read it. She looks at her father. He doesn’t look back.
His eyes are fixed straight ahead, face unreadable. Not distant. Detached. Like he’s watching the ocean roll in behind glass—aware of it, but too far to feel the spray.
Because how do you monetize grief?
How do you invoice silence?
How do you bill a system for making you forget the sound of your daughter’s laugh?
You don’t.
You just sit in rooms like this and pretend numbers fix things.
Katherine’s fingers dig into the leather armrest.
Around her, the world moves. Pens scribble. Pages turn. Voices hum.
None of it matters.
Because the real justice already happened. It happened when he walked out. When he held Lisa. When he stood in the sun for the first time in a decade without checking the clock.
This? This is theater.
Her eyes drift sideways.
Ben sits two chairs down. Legs crossed. Suit crisp. A study in stillness.
But he’s not looking at the contract. He’s not watching the people with the power.
He’s watching her.
Their eyes meet.
And in his gaze, there’s no performance. Just understanding. Recognition. An acknowledgment of everything this moment is—and isn’t.
He knows.
That this isn’t closure.
It’s just paperwork.
Maybe that’s enough for the people in this room. Maybe that’s the most the system can offer.
But for them? For her?
