Part 2
The bailiff moved into the aisle as Nora started running. Evelyn lifted her hand before he could reach her.
“Leave her be.”
Daniel pushed his chair back so quickly it struck the table behind him. Nora reached him with both arms out, and he folded around her, one knee on the floor, his face buried against her neck.
She smelled of soap and Alma’s lavender hand cream.
“I kept asking,” she said into his shoulder. “Every day.”
“I know. I know, sweetheart.”
He pulled back far enough to see her face. Her cheeks had filled out again. There was no wheeze when she breathed.
“I did something wrong,” he whispered. “I’m sorry you had to be without me.”
Nora brushed the wetness from his cheek with her thumb.
“You were getting my medicine.”
Across the aisle, someone opened a purse and searched for a tissue. Marcus looked down at the papers he had already arranged.
Evelyn allowed them a moment. Then she touched the microphone.
“Mr. Reeves, you may hold your daughter. But we do have to finish.”
Daniel sat with Nora on his lap. Her fingers stayed hooked through his.
“The reason you took those items matters,” Evelyn said. “It doesn’t erase the taking. This court still has to address that.”
Nora turned toward the voice. From Daniel’s lap, she could see the wheelchair through the open space beside the bench. She studied the judge’s hands, the tight set of her mouth, the dark robe gathered over her knees.
Daniel had seen that look on Nora before. Even as a toddler, she had noticed the person standing apart at a gathering, the neighbor who said she was fine but hadn’t opened her curtains. She would carry over a toy or climb into an empty chair without waiting to be asked.
Now she slid to the floor.
“Nora,” he whispered, reaching after her.
She walked around the table toward the low side opening of the bench. Her borrowed shoes squeaked where the soles bent.
Evelyn turned her chair slightly.
“Did you want to tell me something?”
Nora nodded. “Daddy doesn’t take things. He was scared because of me.”
“I’ve heard that he loves you very much.”
“He does.” Nora rested her fingers on the edge of the desk. “You’re scared too.”
Evelyn’s expression tightened.
“Why would you say that?”
“Your legs won’t do what you want. And you keep your sad all tucked in.”
A small sound passed through the gallery. Evelyn didn’t look away from the child.
Nora reached across the narrow gap. When Evelyn lowered her hand, Nora covered it with both of hers.
“Daddy says hurting people sometimes can’t tell when somebody loves them.”
Evelyn’s hand remained beneath the child’s. She could feel the uneven little nails against her knuckles.
“I can help,” Nora said. “I have a way of helping hurt people. Send Daddy home, and I’ll get your legs going again.”
Someone in the back laughed before apparently thinking better of it. A second voice said, much too loudly, that the child didn’t understand. The room broke into competing whispers.
Marcus was on his feet.
“Your Honor, we cannot entertain this as part of a criminal proceeding.”
Evelyn struck the gavel once.
“Enough.”
Nora didn’t withdraw her hands.
Evelyn bent toward her. “I’ve seen specialists. More than one. They don’t expect me to walk again.”
“They can know lots and still not know everything.”
“This isn’t like making someone feel better after a bad day.”
“I know.” Nora looked at the covered knees, then back at her face. “You don’t have to say you believe me. Let me try.”
Evelyn glanced toward Daniel. He had risen halfway from his chair, helplessly caught between stopping his daughter and losing the few minutes he’d been given with her.
For three years, Evelyn had refused invitations that required explanations about steps or transportation. Eventually people had stopped asking. Her records stayed in their sleeves. Even alone, she no longer played music.
The child’s hands were warm.
“You understand what a promise means?” Evelyn asked.
Nora’s chin lifted. “You do it.”
“And if you can’t?”
“I can.”
Helen’s pencil stopped moving.
Evelyn drew her hand back and straightened the edge of her robe.
“Mr. Reeves, I’m deferring disposition of this case for thirty days. You will be released today and return on the date the clerk gives you.”
Daniel stared at her.
Evelyn continued before he could speak. “If your daughter accomplishes what she has promised, I will see that this prosecution is brought to an end.”
Marcus stepped out from behind his table.
“A defendant’s freedom cannot depend on a personal benefit to the presiding judge. There is no proper basis for that condition.”
“I’m aware of your objection.”
“With respect, this goes beyond irregular.”
Her fingers tightened on the gavel. For an instant she looked as though she might retreat. Then she addressed Daniel again.
“Thirty days. You are to understand that the case remains pending. If this has been a deliberate deception, the court will consider contempt as well. Do not mistake today’s release for permission to ignore your return date.”
Daniel’s relief faltered. He looked at Helen, but Nora had already returned to his side and taken his hand.
“We can go home now,” she whispered.
Evelyn gave the clerk instructions, then dismissed the proceeding.
People stood slowly, reluctant to leave while something so extraordinary still seemed unfinished. Helen stayed to handle the release papers. Alma gathered Nora’s little coat from a bench.
Daniel crouched beside his daughter.
“You can’t promise things because you want them to happen,” he said. He tried to keep the fear out of his voice and failed. “She meant what she said, Nora. About making me come back.”
Nora tucked one hand beneath his collar, where she used to rest it when he carried her.
“You forgot Mom’s rule.”
He closed his eyes.
His wife had said it over ordinary troubles, when the car wouldn’t start or somebody needed help they couldn’t afford to give: Let love try before fear says no.
Daniel said it aloud, barely above a breath.
Nora nodded. “I love you bigger than I’m scared. She’s got love too. She just put it away.”
Alma held out the coat. Daniel helped Nora into it, fastening each button with fingers that still wouldn’t quite obey him.
They left together.
Evelyn remained after the clerk finished gathering the files. A forgotten tissue lay beside a gallery seat. Somewhere beyond the closed doors, a child laughed.
She wheeled to the tall window and watched Daniel and Nora emerge onto the courthouse walk. Nora stepped over a crack, pulling her father’s hand upward as though helping him over it too.
Evelyn stayed there until they passed out of view. Then she turned back and opened her calendar to the following month.
The next morning, she woke before the alarm.
For a while she lay listening to water moving through the old house’s heating pipes. Usually she used those first minutes to organize the day’s work. This morning she wondered whether Nora had slept well.
She reached for her chair, set its brakes, and made the practiced transfer from bed. Her shoulder complained. She adjusted her position, muttered at the twisted hem of her nightshirt, and finally got herself settled.
At the dresser, she opened a drawer she seldom used and took out a pale scarf.
Across town, Daniel scraped oatmeal from the bottom of a saucepan.
Nora sat at the kitchen table swinging her feet. Alma had stocked the refrigerator while he was gone, and there was milk for the oatmeal, a small kindness that nearly undid him when he found it.
He set down two bowls and sat across from his daughter.
“Tell me about this helping you do.”
Nora blew across her spoon. “You’ve seen it.”
“I’ve seen you be kind. That’s different from what you told the judge.”
“Mrs. Dorsey’s back.”
Daniel looked toward the floor, as if Alma might hear them from below.
“She was hurt, remember? She couldn’t bend down for the cat’s bowl.” Nora pushed a soft lump of oatmeal around her dish. “I sat with her and told her about a greenhouse. All the little plants were reaching up through the sore places. She liked that part.”
Alma had indeed been moving about the next day, insisting the pain had eased more quickly than she expected.
“And Caleb,” Nora added. “When his bicycle fell over.”
“The doctors put his arm in a cast.”
“I made him the drawing. The strong man with the big elbows. I told Caleb he could borrow some strong.”
Daniel remembered the drawing taped to the boy’s door. He also remembered his surprise when the cast came off after three weeks instead of six.
He rubbed his mouth.
“Those things can happen on their own, sweetheart.”
Nora considered that without offense.
“But I was there.”
“Yes. You were.” He leaned forward. “The judge’s injury is much worse. It’s her spine. The messages don’t get through to her legs.”
Nora set down her spoon.
“When I held her hand, I could feel how lonely she was. All cold and shut.”
“An injury doesn’t happen because somebody’s sad.”
“I didn’t say that.” She frowned at him, impatient for him to understand. “But she got hurt everywhere. Even the parts you can’t see. I’m going to help those parts first.”
“How?”
Nora picked up her spoon again.
“We’ll find something she likes.”
At home, Evelyn had read the same paragraph of a legal brief four times. She finally moved it aside and called Walter Bennett.
He had been her physician for fifteen years, a specialist who had guided much of her care after the collision. When he answered, she heard concern before she heard any greeting.
“Tell me the account I heard was exaggerated.”
“Probably not by much.”
“Evelyn.”
She turned the pen between her fingers. “Is it possible we’ve missed something? Not in the scans. In the effects of the trauma. Something that’s kept me from recovering what I might have recovered?”
“We’ve investigated that.”
“And there’s nothing more?”
He was quiet for a moment.
“The scans showed a complete break in your spinal cord, Evelyn. After three years without movement, I have no medical basis for expecting recovery, however much I wish I did.”
“I’m not asking you to pretend.”
“I know how badly you want another answer.” His voice softened. “I care about you. Please don’t let wanting it make this promise into something it isn’t.”
She stopped turning the pen.
“Then you won’t help me try?”
“I’ll help you with anything medically sound. But no, Evelyn. I cannot endorse this…”
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