Maybe this new plan of Stefan’s, this plan of renewal he was about to reveal, this plan of how to move forward, would become his new default. At least I could hope.
But first, we had questions:
What could this Healing Project achieve?
How would the process work?
Who would be involved?
Remorse was the inspiration. Hope and renewal would come through the project. The project plus the inspiration equaled healing. At least, it equaled the beginning of healing.
To participate, you had to have remorse. But you weren’t ready to move forward if you didn’t have a plan of action to make amends.
The plan you created to make amends had to be something real, something to act on or teach or try to change, Stefan said. Not everyone would succeed. But everyone would be required to commit to a plan of action and a way to make it happen. Some participants might get a financial subsidy—money enough to see their plan through, if they incorporated that into their strategy. So that for instance someone could run a bike repair shop for a year, or buy tools, or complete a year of the culinary course at a junior college, or buy a laptop, or get one’s teeth fixed or take driver’s ed. Money would never be directly given to a participant. It would flow through a sponsor who would help find a funding source, then document every transaction involving funds or services. The sponsor could be from AA or be a minister or a social worker, one of the tutors in prison, or a former supervisor. Just not a relative.
Each participant would receive a folder: Stefan and Julie had already created a prototype, two dozen of which were donated by a local printer. The illustration on the front was an arrow, half embossed in silver, half in gold, that arched like a rainbow from the word Healing to the word Project. Inside was a brief history of the program and its rules, which were very specific: The expression of remorse had to be one page or less, handwritten and hand-signed, although there could be help with revising it—no excuses, no exceptions, no evasions. This was key. Describe the nature of your offense or offenses in detail. Name and describe the person or people to whom you wish to express remorse. Suggest the manner by which you will express remorse. Describe in detail the plan for your renewal. The letter had to be written on the notepaper provided; each page was embossed with a wing. This was Stefan’s belief that making something beautiful of the letter would solemnize the effort. Other forms had to be filled out as well, including a brief history of the participant’s inspiration behind his or her project. Each would also make reference to Stefan and his crime: He had insisted.
Merry Betancourt, the youth minister at Julie’s church, had volunteered to be the clergy face of The Healing Project. For two weekends when we thought Stefan was busy with landscaping jobs out of town that Luck Sergenian arranged for him, Stefan and Merry had attended a training in Fox Lake, near the women’s prison at Taycheedah. It was for the nationwide Forgiveness Project, which gave victims and families the chance to initiate forgiveness of the bad guys; it was the only organized program that approximated what Stefan wanted to do. “One thing different from the familiar tradition of the Forgiveness Project,” Stefan said, “is there would be no scenes of families from both sides embracing and crying together. Volunteers would meet separately with the crime victims and their families and with perpetrators and their families. But the injured families would never have to lay eyes on the wrongdoer—at least under the auspices of the program.”
“This program you’ve come up with is damned impressive, son,” said Jep.
“A lot of it was with Julie’s help,” Stefan told him. “And we don’t know yet if it will work.” He added, “But it’s what I can do now. If it does gain momentum, we might get some publicity for it, newspapers and TV and stuff. They like so-called good news. My story could become good news.”
My antenna shot up. No news, I thought.
Stefan went on, “Like all I can do to protect myself—and also to redeem myself really—is to prove myself, my worth. What else can I do? Buy a gun illegally? Lock myself in the closet? I know probably a lot of people still have it in for me who aren’t going to text me to send a warning. Maybe they’ll come for me, like the guys at the lumberyard. Like the marchers outside our house.”
Stefan’s words made it clear that even though the protests in front of our house were fewer after the lumberyard incident, and the hoodie guy had vanished for now, Stefan still felt a sense of personal threat. And so did I, on his behalf.