She is so thin. Her hair is hanging in tangled clumps and her gaze is dull and empty. She doesn’t look in our direction. Like everyone else, her eyes are on Presiding Judge G?ran Leijon.
“The court has deliberated,” he says, looking at the lay judges. “We are prepared to deliver the verdict.”
My heart stops. They have a verdict already? Although not even twenty minutes have passed?
Adam squeezes my hand and looks puzzled.
“They’ve decided already?”
I nod and lean forward.
The only thing that exists in my world is G?ran Leijon’s voice. I don’t hear everything that is said, but the important parts make it through. The essential words find their way through the roar and hit me like a blow to the face.
I can’t move. It’s as though my brain is registering the information but doesn’t want to accept it.
After a moment I turn to Adam. He’s staring at the floor.
This isn’t true. I can’t believe it’s true.
“Stella Sandell is exonerated of the charges, and with that the court lifts the detention requirement.”
A buzz goes through the courtroom. My brain is chaos. Can it be true?
“What’s going on?” Adam asks.
He looks at me, his eyes huge.
“The charges were exonerated.” It’s not until I say it out loud that it dawns on me what this means. “Stella is free!”
Meanwhile, Michael has stood up to embrace Stella. People in the gallery begin to move. Everyone is suddenly in a rush. A large guard puffs out his chest and readies his eagle eye. Only now can each part of my brain finally accept what is happening as real.
“Stella!” I cry, forcing my way between the chairs, passing under the sharp gaze of the guard, and butting my way past Michael’s teary smile.
As if on a bridge spanning the shit that has happened, through a tunnel of brilliant, streaming light, I dive right into Stella’s arms.
Behind us I hear Adam’s astonished voice.
“Is this real? What happened?”
“The chain of evidence broke,” Michael says with such pride in his voice that one might think this is primarily thanks to him. “After your testimony, and Amina’s, there was far too much doubt. They were forced to free Stella.”
Adam stares at Michael.
“I apologize for questioning your methods, but I didn’t know what was going on,” he says. “I understand now what you’ve done for my family.”
Michael looks almost overwhelmed. He nods at Adam and then, when he sneaks a look in my direction, I catch a glimpse of a smile. It looks like he’s enjoying this. Is that why he does it?
“I’m sorry, Stella,” I say, moving a lock of hair away from her pale cheek.
“For what?”
“For this. For everything.”
She looks at me for a long time.
My little girl. I stick to her trembling body like a Band-Aid. I tighten my arms around her; I never want to let go of her again. Her heart beats against my breast and the longing in our eyes calms, finding peace.
“Mom,” she whispers.
It doesn’t matter if she’s eighteen years or four weeks old. She is always my child.
I would do anything for her.
“I love you, Mom.”
I try to respond, but it all gets caught in my throat. Like a clot of emotions. Years of pent-up yearning forming a dam in my throat. And when it breaks, it feels as if my whole body turns to liquid.
Time doesn’t exist; space has no meaning. We flow together in eternity, my little girl and me. Slowly, she leans forward and whispers in my ear.
“I sure picked a good lawyer, didn’t I?”
My body goes hard and stiff. As Stella pulls away, I can see myself in her eyes. She turns to her father.
Adam looks wrecked. As if something fundamental has broken.
I have let him down one time too many. If Adam finds out about Michael and me … I would never be able to repair that.
Michael smiles at me again. I turn toward Stella.
“Thanks,” she whispers to her dad.
Adam is crying like a child. He just lets it all come out, absolutely uninhibited and stripped bare.
Stella extends a hand to touch him. Adam watches her hand move, sees the fingers stretching out and meeting his skin. The tiny hairs on his arm stand up.
“Does it feel good in your heart now?” Stella asks.
Epilogue
After I’d rung the bell at Chris’s place and pressed my ear to the door, I rushed back down the stairs. I got on my bike and pedaled around the neighborhood aimlessly as I tried to figure out what had happened. Had Linda Lokind really been following me, or was it all in my mind? Was I losing it?