Victory did not show up the way Lynda had always pictured it. There was not that adrenaline rush she had half expected. No tidal wave of triumph, no cinematic pause where the universe turned to applaud her achievement. Instead, it arrived quietly. Almost with a kind of softness.

When Lynda woke up the morning after the agreement was signed, she did so at her usual hour. There were no urgent calls, nothing blowing up her phone, no pressing decisions lined up. Just a kind of deep, unfamiliar ...