Chapter 15 - I Took Off The Laurel
Summer changed the courthouse.
More light.
Fewer coats.
The North Annex opened without a dedication ceremony.
No politician complained once the new courtrooms began reducing scheduling delays.
Buildings are less interested in legacy than the people naming them.
The final historical report was still pending.
Henry's portrait remained downstairs.
Some judges wanted an explanatory plaque.
Others wanted it moved.
Thomas thought both arguments were too interested in Dad.
I thought he was probably right.
We did not decide.
It wasn't ours alone.
Aaron had returned to regular investigations.
We were cordial.
Not comfortable.
Once he testified before me on an unrelated matter.
I disclosed our connection.
Neither side objected.
I watched him take the oath and wondered whether Samuel had ever imagined his son and Henry Carter's daughter would spend their careers trying to make certainty look cleaner than it was.
Probably.
Fathers enjoy optimism.
Thomas visited in August.
He called first.
That deserved documentation.
We met in Courtroom Four after hours.
Same room where Noah's box arrived.
The wooden box now belonged to the court evidence archive until the review closed.
Neither of us cared.
Thomas stood in front of the bench.
“You always wanted one of these.”
“The bench?”
“Yes.”
“When I was nine.”
“You made me play defendant.”
“You were convincing.”
“I was innocent.”
“Debatable.”
He smiled.
Then looked at my neck.
“You're still wearing it.”
The half laurel.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I started to answer automatically.
Mom.
Thomas.
Thirty-one years.
Then stopped.
“I don't know.”
He nodded.
No problem.
He reached into his pocket.
His own half rested in his palm.
Not mounted on a chain.
Just metal.
“Do you want mine?”
“No.”
He looked surprised.
“Why?”
“It's yours.”
“Very mature.”
“I resent your tone.”
He laughed.
Then:
“What do you want to do with hers?”
“Our mother's brooch.”
“Yes.”
I removed my chain.
For the first time in more than three decades, my neck felt strangely light.
I placed my half in my palm.
Thomas put his beside it.
Complete laurel.
The image from Noah's box.
The moment that had cracked open the courtroom.
Except now nobody was frightened of it.
I separated the pieces again.
Handed Thomas his.
Kept mine.
Then removed mine from the chain entirely.
He watched.
“You're getting rid of it?”
“No.”
“Then?”
I put it in my handbag.
“I don't want to wear an unresolved argument around my neck.”
Thomas considered that.
“Very judicial.”
“Go away.”
He smiled.
We walked toward the courtroom door.
Then I stopped.
“What did you mean that day?”
“What day?”
“Thirty-one years ago.”
“Dangerous category.”
“When you said the laurel wasn't a promise to come home.”
His face changed.
Thomas looked toward the empty gallery.
“I meant I wanted something that still belonged to us even if we didn't belong in the same house.”
My throat tightened.
“Did you already plan to leave?”
“Sometimes.”
“Before the Pike thing?”
“Yes.”
That was new.
“Why?”
Thomas thought.
“Dad.”
“Only Dad?”
“No.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
I absorbed it.
“How?”
“You were becoming him.”
“That’s cruel.”
“I was twenty-nine.”
“That isn't fourteen.”
“I know.”
“What did I do?”
Thomas looked toward the bench.
“You had started treating disagreement like cross-examination.”
My face tightened.
“Specific.”
“You would ask questions until the other person gave an answer you considered coherent.”
“I still do that.”
“Yes.”
He smiled.
“You're slightly less unbearable now.”
“So you wanted distance from me too.”
“Yes.”
That hurt.
It also relieved something.
Thomas had not spent thirty-one years exiled by one monstrous father.
He had left a family he found exhausting.
Then stayed gone because leaving became easier than negotiating a return.
I asked:
“Would you have come back if the Pike thing never happened?”
“I don't know.”
I laughed.
“What?”
“You flew across the country to disrupt a courthouse dedication and this is the answer?”
“Yes.”
“Terrible.”
“Still true.”
We reached the door.
He opened it.
Then:
“I'm going to Maine tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“I'll call Sunday.”
“You said Monday.”
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
He smiled.
“Monday.”
“What time?”
“You have become very needy.”
“Thomas.”
“Six.”
“Good.”
He started down the hallway.
I stayed at the courtroom door.
“Thomas.”
He turned.
“Do you regret leaving?”
He looked at me.
Long enough that I knew I was not getting something easy.
“Some days.”
“And other days?”
“No.”
There it was.
I wanted to argue.
I didn't.
Thomas raised one hand.
Not a wave exactly.
Then left.
I went back into Courtroom Four.
Sat in the gallery instead of behind the bench.
My phone buzzed.
Aaron.
The historical review had reached one unresolved issue.
Investigators had found evidence Henry drafted a second letter to Thomas years after the first.
No copy survived.
No one knew whether he sent it.
Aaron asked:
Want me to keep digging?
My first instinct was yes.
Find it.
Trace it.
Finish Dad.
Finish Thomas.
Finish the story.
I looked toward the judge's bench.
Then typed:
Ask Thomas first. It was addressed to him.
Aaron replied:
Right.
A minute later:
You want to know what it said?
I stared at the screen.
Of course I did.
That wasn't the same as owning the answer.
I wrote:
Yes.
Then added:
But not without him.
I put my phone away.
The laurel half sat inside my handbag.
My neck was bare.
Monday at six, my brother was supposed to call.
Maybe he would.
Maybe one day we would read whatever our father had tried to say.
May you like
Maybe Thomas would decide he did not want to.
For once, I was willing to let somebody else's unanswered question remain theirs.
