They still wave when they pass my house, but their eyes linger a second longer now. They remember the sirens screaming up to Crestview, the red and blue lights painting the rain, the sight of a man they’d envied being led away with his wrists cuffed and his face swollen with outrage and disbelief. They remember my daughter on the porch weeks later, standing straighter, the bruise around her throat faded to yellow and then gone.

I didn’t need to kill him. I only needed to end the story he thought he was writing. The bat was never my weapon; the truth was. The reports. The photos. The voicemail. The fact that, for once, we didn’t look away or make excuses. I went back to my roses, my tomatoes, my quiet routines. But beneath the soft soil, they all understand now: peace is not weakness. It’s power, leashed and chosen.