I corrected the record.
I don’t think I was wrong to feel some ambivalence about what I had. I think it was accurate, as far as it went. But ambivalence about the comfortable parts did not erase the substance of what the uncomfortable parts cost. Both things were true, and the accounting had to include both things.
Maya, who is blunter than I am and unencumbered by the specific guilt of having been in the house, said: “You had a roof. You didn’t have a life. Those are different things.”
She was being hyperbolic, because I had things that resembled a life. But the hyperbole was pointing at something real.
A NOTE ABOUT WHAT FAIRNESS ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE
The settlement we reached is not a vindication. I want to be clear about that.
I was reimbursed twenty-two thousand dollars from the house proceeds, per the agreement we signed with Patricia’s facilitation. I received a share of the estate proceeds equal to Daniel’s share, per the will. I did not receive payment for twelve years of caregiving labor, because that was never the claim and would not have been appropriate to claim without a prior agreement that hadn’t existed.
What I received was: the documented advance acknowledged and repaid. The invented debt erased. A fair process for the estate and a reasonable timeline for finding new housing.
What I did not receive: twelve years of income differential, unpaid labor compensation, the cost of opportunities not taken, the emotional accounting of what it actually cost.