I recently read a book where a “missing” character reappeared and the main characters had to confront her. Both knew/learnt during the books of her betraying them and being generally a shitty human being.

I was expecting a long speech, “my side of the story”, them finding closure with comprehension and maybe opening the door for a reconciliation, but was happy to see there was nothing like that, just “glad to see you’re alive, we don’t need you in our lives anymore, bye”.

The fact that one character was a talking cat with a tiara didn’t make it any less impactful.

The best for them would be to just have moved on and never found her, the second best would have been to not care anymore.