Chapter Thirty-Six

 

Exactly twenty minutes passed before a buzzer sounded and the bailiff stuck his head into the holding room door. “We’ve got a verdict,” he said.

Kendra and Bryce locked gazes.

“We’ve called Judge Shapiro,” the bailiff continued. “He slipped home—guess he didn’t expect anything so soon.”

The courtroom filled rapidly and there were more spectators than earlier in the day, more reporters and cameramen than the courtroom could contain. They pushed together in front of the door as Bryce was led to the defense table, his arms folded in front of him, his breath coming hard. He lowered his head and tried to regulate his air intake and prevent a panic attack.

Kendra’s father walked up to the defense table and stood in front of them. “You did a fine job with your closing,” he said, holding out his hand. “I never thought I’d say this to a public defender, but I’m proud, and your grandfather will be, too. You’re one of the best damn lawyers this family ever produced.”

Kendra gripped her father’s outstretched hand. “Thanks. Coming from you, that means something. And thanks for your help finding Dana’s surgeon and Henry Evans’ psychiatrist.”

He flashed another rendition of his daughter’s rich girl smile, then turned to Bryce. “Good luck to you, son.” He firmly shook Bryce’s hand, then took his seat behind them in the first row.

A few minutes later, Judge Shapiro entered. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” his booming voice echoed in the suddenly quiet courtroom. “I understand you have reached a verdict.”

“We have, Your Honor,” the foreman answered.

“Pass it to the bailiff, please.”

The bailiff crossed the courtroom to the jury box, took the folded piece of paper from the foreman, and delivered it to Judge Shapiro.

Judge Shapiro unfolded the paper, raised his eyebrows as he read the verdict, then handed it back to the bailiff who returned it to the jury foreman.

“Will the defendant please rise?” the judge said.

Bryce and Kendra rose, the rustle of papers on the defense table the only sound in the courtroom.

“Mr. Foreman,” Judge Shapiro said. “On the second count of the indictment, the child abuse of Scott Sterling, how does the jury find?”

“In the case of the state of Oregon versus Caleb R. Bryce, on one count of child abuse of four-year-old Scott Sterling, we find the defendant, not guilty.”

* * *

As cheers echoed through the courtroom, the words repeated themselves inside Bryce’s head. Not guilty. Not guilty. The room whirled around him.

His mother let out a cry and began to sob.

Bryce stopped breathing and didn’t move.

The courtroom broke into applause.

When the noise level decreased, Judge Shapiro turned his attention to the jury, thanked them for their swift administration of justice, then dismissed the jurors.

Before they could leave the courtroom, spectators nodded and smiled as Bryce, dumbfounded, drew in a breath.

It was finally over.

He stared in disbelief at the jury, some of whom wiped their faces with handkerchiefs as they filed out of the room. When he turned to Kendra to shake hands, she threw her arms around him. “We did it, Bryce.”

Stunned, he couldn’t quite follow the thread of what went on around him anymore. All Bryce knew was that he and Kendra Huntington Palmer, IV, were standing at the front of a courtroom where people he didn’t even know applauded his innocence.

Judge Shapiro stood and, without precedent, came down from his throne. He shook Bryce’s hand. “You’re free to go, Mr. Bryce. I’m sorry, truly sorry, for what you went through here. But the system worked. And justice has been done. May the rest of your life be filled with happiness.” He turned and left the room.

A free man. God, what did it mean to be a free man? He looked at Kendra. “What do I do now?”

“Well, you could check back into the prison hotel for the night, have a few drinks and a quiet dinner with Poncho and your other intimate friends, or go home. Take your pick.”

“I think I’ll go home.”

She smiled. “You can pick up your things tomorrow or next week. Or never.”

“I don’t have anything in that jail I want, except my watch and ring. And the photos of Jason and his family.”

Kendra took his arm. “I’ll make sure you get them,” she said as they left the courtroom.

Reporters flocked around them, and camera flashes exploded in their faces. A young reporter thrust a video camera in front of Bryce. “How does it feel to be exonerated of all charges?”

“I don’t know,” Bryce said. “I haven’t had time to feel anything yet.”

When they finally emerged from the wall of reporters, Bryce and Kendra stepped onto Oakdale Avenue. “I have a surprise for you, Bryce.”

“I don’t know how much more I can handle today.”

A sandy-haired man rose from his perch on a wooden bench just outside the courthouse. He stood in front of Bryce, his old white cane discarded in favor of a beautiful German Shepherd seeing-eye dog in a harness with a handle attached. “I got one question for you, Caleb Bryce.” Noah Morgan smiled. “How’s the sky look?”

“Dazzling,” Bryce said, staring into a blue-spun universe that suddenly swelled with hope. “Noah. Noah. Noah. I can’t believe it’s really you.”

Noah reached down and petted the dog. “This is the guy who took your place. He’s my eyes now. And besides that, he’s a chick magnet, and far more handsome than you ever were. His name is Vision. Go ahead. Shake his paw.”

Bryce squatted and held out his hand. Sure enough, Vision gave him his paw.

“I’m pleased to meet my replacement,” he said. “Looks like you’ve taken good care of him.”

“Let’s get moving,” Kendra said. “There’s a party waiting at your place. Tilly and your mother have been cooking for days.”

Bryce climbed into the front seat of Kendra’s car. Noah removed Vision’s handle before they both climbed into the back. Through the rearview mirror Bryce watched Noah pet the dog’s sleek coat.

On the short drive to Bryce’s house, Noah leaned forward and turned his face so Bryce could read his lips, then filled him in on the details of his life, told him he was married, lived in Salt Lake City, and had two young daughters. That he taught creative writing at the Lake Institute where they’d spent their boyhoods.

“I’m sorry I didn’t do a better job of staying in touch, but after Courtney died…” Bryce shook his head. “And now you’re a father.”

Noah grinned. “You were right. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Tell me about your job.”

“The Institute has over two hundred students and you wouldn’t believe what a difference technology makes. Our blind kids have talking computers. They actually tell the students what they’ve written. It’s fabulous.”

“Is Dr. Russ still headmaster?”

“He retires later this year. He sends his regards, says he wants to see you again. I was so sure you weren’t guilty I told him I’d bring you to his retirement party.”

Kendra pulled up in front of Bryce’s house. The driveway and all the parking places on the street were taken.

“I’ll drop you three off, find a parking place and be back.”

Bryce, Noah, and Vision got out of the car. Noah reattached the handle to Vision’s harness.

The front door flew open and Tilly hobbled out to greet them, making a gallant and hilarious effort to run. “I knew it would be all right, Bryce. I just knew it.” Her heavy feet crunched the gravel driveway as she enveloped Bryce in a bear hug and didn’t let go until he finally untangled her arms.

“Tilly, I’d like you to meet my other best friend in the world, Noah Morgan.”

“You’re the one from the school for the deaf and blind. The one Bryce named his baby daughter after.”

“That would be me.”

“I’ve heard many a tall tale about all the mischief you boys got into at that school. I feel like I’ve known you forever.” Tilly hugged him, too.

But when she spotted Kendra, she let go of Noah and stumbled down the driveway, then threw her arms around her. “I swear to God. You are smarter and more beautiful than that Perry Mason fella ever dreamed of bein’.” When she planted a big kiss on Kendra’s astonished face, Bryce burst out laughing.

Noah took Tilly’s arm and they walked up the steps. “I’m very happy to know that Bryce has you for a best friend now.”

Bryce took Vision’s handle and stepped into his house. The living room was decorated with crepe paper streamers and balloons and a long table filled with food. Above it, a hand-painted sign read Welcome Home, Bryce.

Neighbors, Kendra’s father, Radhauser and his wife, co-workers from Gilbert’s, his family, Jason and Katja, his niece Brianna, his mother, and his nephew, Caleb, cheered and applauded from the kitchen doorway.

Bryce hugged each one of them. And in that split second when he reached for his mother, he caught a glimpse of all the beauty and symmetry in the world, like the first glare of sunlight on newly-fallen leaves.

Tilly’s grandson, Lonnie, headed for the food table. “Can we eat now, Grandma? I’m starved.” He pointed at Bryce and grinned. “Or do we have to wait for him to stop huggin’ people?”

Tilly patted her grandson on the belly. “You don’t much look like you’re starvin’, boy. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll wait till our guest of honor fills up his plate.”

She gently nudged Bryce toward a table of the best looking and smelling food he’d seen in months.

* * *

After the party, as Noah and Vision snored peacefully in the room Scott and Skyler had once shared, Bryce stood in front of his bedroom window, staring out into the moonlit garden behind his house.

Like most everyone else, Bryce carried a whole community around inside his head—people like Isaiah Bryce, Valerie, Courtney, and Skyler, places like Wheatley, Utah, The Institute, and a way of life that had long ago disappeared. And he hoped no amount of time or pain would ever blot out his memories of Courtney and Skyler. Somehow, the shame and guilt for their deaths had been replaced with ordinary love and grief.

For the first time, he realized there were many other worlds that breathed side by side. The criminal world was only one. There were the soft, padded worlds of the insane; the hazy, hopeless, drug-filled worlds of the terminally ill; the waist-high, wheelchair worlds of the crippled. Perhaps even the dead inhabited a tufted, satin, haloed world of their own, somewhere just outside organic confines.

He slipped into his own bed and realized Tilly had washed his sheets and hung them outside to dry. That night, he slept in a bed that smelled like lemons and sunshine.

In the morning, he made a pot of coffee, fed Pickles and waited for Noah to shower.

After breakfast, they lingered over coffee and the warm sticky buns Tilly provided. On the way to the airport, they stopped by the cemetery. It was a magnificent Ashland day, the sky bright and clear, the sun warming the early December air to a balmy sixty degrees.

“No wonder you like it here so much,” Noah said. “I can smell the snow on the mountain tops.”

They sat on the ground in front of Skyler’s grave. The ragged edges of turf had knitted together into a thick blanket of soft green grass. Bryce traced Skyler’s name with his fingertip. “It’s so hard to let go, especially with little kids.”

“On the plane coming here,” Noah said. “I tried to imagine what it would be like if one of my girls died. I got choked up just thinking about it. When Courtney died, you nearly drowned in your own pain. You’ve got to let it out, Bryce. Let it break loose. Maybe you’re afraid there won’t be anything left if you do, but you’re wrong.” Noah said softly. “The heart is a silent river. But it keeps flowing and there is always more. We all die, my friend, and those who are left go on loving and remembering. You can’t hide the dead away or you’ll never heal.”

Bryce leaned forward, put both hands on Noah’s shoulders, and retold the story of his love for Courtney, of how, for a year, Skyler had filled the empty place. The words rose from some bottomless and essential place inside him and declared themselves as if they’d been there waiting all along.

Noah was right—they were both part of the same stream, as surely as they’d been as boys together in the Institute. It was sorrow and shared grief that ripped down the walls that divided people. In some strange way, Bryce’s imprisonment had been a gift, a way of finding his way back to his family and Noah.

He no longer believed himself responsible for Skyler’s death. It was a terrible tragedy. And Henry was as innocent as a seven-year-old who’d believed he could help Skyler stop screaming and reunite Dana and Reggie.

Sitting with his oldest friend on the cemetery grass, Bryce knew he had come there to weep, then rejoin the living. His entire life was the sum of all the other lives he touched, of the people, living and dead, he had loved. It was the accumulation of remembering that mattered.

“Well,” Bryce said, rising to his feet. “I better get you to the airport or you’re going to miss your flight.”

Bryce dropped his arm over Noah’s shoulders as they walked, Vision trotting alongside. A shower of happiness fell over him. And the sudden, unexpected extent of his joy at being reunited with his family and his childhood friend was as mysterious as love itself.

On the way to the airport, Noah made Bryce promise to come back to Utah for Dr. Russ’ retirement party and meet Noah’s wife and daughters. That he’d consider applying for a teaching position at The Lake Institute once he completed his degree.

As his friend’s plane lifted up and disappeared into the dazzling blue sky, Bryce glanced at his wristwatch. He needed to hurry. The Oregon Ducks were playing a home basketball game tonight and Kendra was picking him up in an hour for their drive to Eugene.