Battles are never the end of war; for the dead must be buried and the cost of the conflict must be paid.

The dramatic part of any conflict is the shortest part. What follows is the long work nobody writes about: the burying, the bills, the households rearranged around an absence. The same shape holds for smaller conflicts, where the argument ends and the cost of it goes on being paid quietly for months by the people who were in the room.

Before you press a disagreement to its conclusion, count the clearing up as part of the price. And if a conflict in your life has already finished on paper, ask who is still carrying the cost, and whether you can take any of that weight.