“Are you okay?” Anne asks.
I look at her from the corner of my eye. My hands are grasping the steering wheel so tightly, my fingers are white. “I will be.”
“Regardless of how this turns out, you did everything you could.”
“Thank you for saying that, Anne.” I give her a small smile. She returns it and nods.
I don’t get ten feet into the courthouse before I run right into D.A. Josh Peters. It’s almost as if he was anticipating my arrival.
“You ready for this?” he asks. I can tell by his demeanor that he’s not all that confident. I’m scared shitless. A quick deliberation can go either way in this case. I merely nod at him and head toward the courtroom. I pass Bob and we exchange sympathetic glances. He knows as well as I do what this could mean.
I walk to the front of the courtroom and take a seat. Matthew is already waiting in the first row behind my chair and he gently squeezes my shoulders when I sit down. He leans forward and whispers into my ear, “It’ll all be okay. No matter what happens.” I look back at Matthew, but my eyes meet Eleanor’s. She’s sitting right behind him. We haven’t spoken since the night I blocked her phone number, but we have been seeing each other in this courtroom. She never misses a trial day, and she’s always looking proudly at Adam as if she were attending his little league games. Eleanor gives me a brief glance and then refocuses her attention on the door her son will soon walk out of.
Adam is escorted into the courtroom and seated next to me. His expression is bleak. I know he wants me to tell him everything is going to be okay, but I can’t. I don’t know that everything is going to be okay. But I also won’t try and scare him unnecessarily. I simply rest my hand on his for a moment, offering the last little bit of comfort I’ll ever offer him, regardless of how this turns out.
Judge Dionne takes his seat. The jury enters the courtroom.
“Will the jury foreperson please stand? Has the jury reached a unanimous verdict?” the judge asks.
The foreperson stands and says, “Yes, Your Honor.”
Adam places his hand on mine and squeezes it.
The clerk retrieves the verdict from the foreperson and hands it to the judge. He reads it over silently to himself.
I can feel Adam’s heartbeat in his hand. It’s fast, loud, panicky.
Judge Dionne returns the verdict to the clerk. “Will the defendant please rise?”
Adam stands, letting go of my hand.
The foreperson clears her throat. “We the jury, find the defendant…”
62
Sarah Morgan
11 years later
I know what you’re thinking. Did I do everything in my power to save Adam? To try and save the man who ruined our love and our marriage. I ask myself the same question sometimes. And the only answer I have ever come up with is that I did what I had to do. To survive.
Today is the day of Adam’s execution. I stopped writing or visiting him over ten years ago, right around the time he went insane. Every visit became more explosive than the last, and I couldn’t do it anymore. He had lost all hope after his conviction, and a human without hope is a wild animal. I needed to move on, and I did. If Adam hasn’t, well, that choice will be made for him today.
I’ve come to say goodbye. I’ve come to give myself some closure, or at least I think I have. Adam may not have murdered Kelly Summers, but he is paying for his crimes.
I glance up at the large concrete and brick building in front of me, a maximum-security prison, but for Adam, it might as well be a coffin. The sun is shining bright today. There’s a clear blue sky, and I can hear the birds chirping. I walk up the steps to the building carefully in my white pencil skirt and white blazer. An angel of death descended upon this lowly place. My hair is a shimmery golden blond, long and down. I wear it down these days and let it be free. It’s how I try to live my life too, uninhibited and less rigid. I guess some things do change after all.
I enter the building and go through security. It takes nearly twenty minutes because this is a maximum-security facility, but I don’t mind, not in the least bit. I’m able to speak to Adam before he is executed, since I was the lawyer on his case, and I am still his wife. Yes, we’re still married. Adam refused to sign any divorce papers and I didn’t fight him on it. I figured giving him a shimmer of optimism was worth being married to him for longer than I cared for.
I plan to remarry tomorrow as I will be a widow by the end of the day. We’re having a wedding on the beach with close friends and family. It’s going to be beautiful. From now on, everything in my life is going to be beautiful.
After removing my jewelry, my purse, and cell phone, I’m escorted through the main lobby, down a small hallway and into a holding room. They will soon bring Adam in to speak with me. It’s a small concrete room with a table, two chairs, a clock on the wall, and a CCTV camera in the upper corner. There’s nothing else, not even a one-way mirror. I was told I would have ten minutes. Ten minutes is all I need. I tap my long red nails on the table, careful not to chip them as I just had them freshly done for the wedding.
The door swings open and Adam is standing there, filling most of the door frame. His beard is long and scruffy, but it doesn’t look bad. His hair is cut so short it flashes between visible and not, depending on the light. He appears to be a bit thicker, not in a fat way, more of a stocky way. But his eyes tell the real story. Prison has not been kind to him. While being known as the murderer of a cop’s wife didn’t hurt his “cred” inside, they still could see what he was, a soft artist. A broken man out of his element. Chum in the water as the sharks slowly circle and close in. I can’t imagine what he’s been through in here.
His face lights up when he sees me. He is completely devoid of his boyish charm. He is a man who has been beaten down for a decade. I give a partial smile back. I can’t say I’m happy to see him, but I’m also not sad to see him either.
“You came?” He takes a few more steps into the room. His arms and feet are shackled around his waist so his steps are quite small and more like a shuffle.
“Of course.”
The prison guard directs him to the chair. He removes most of the chains and cuffs, aside from one from his right wrist, which he hooks to the table. Adam takes a seat and smiles at me.
“Ten minutes and no funny business,” the prison guard says.
I nod at him and Adam thanks him. As soon as the door closes, Adam slides his free hand across the table, hoping that I’ll reciprocate. I pause for a moment, looking at his cracked, beaten hand and at his even more beaten face, and then I acquiesce. My hand encloses his, and he begins to cry. I can do nothing but stare back in wonder, like a spectator at the zoo, observing some foreign species.
“How have you been?” he finally says as he fights back all the emotions of a life stolen.
“I’ve been… good.”
“You stopped writing and visiting?”
I can’t tell if it’s a question or a statement, so I just nod. “I know… it became… too hard.”
“I understand.” He hangs his head.