Chapter 13: Granted

On Friday morning I gave my statement to three strangers at a long table.

The hearing room had no windows and a flag in the corner.

Darius sat in the second row behind me.

Cornelia sat across the aisle with a lawyer in a blue suit.

She had not looked at either of us since the dinner.

A side door opened, and Luka came in.

He wore a gray suit his mother had bought him.

An officer took the cuffs off at the table.

Luka rubbed his wrists, looked at me, and smiled with half his mouth.

I looked back until he was the one who turned away.

"The Foundation's sponsorship letter is missing its fourth signature," the chair of the board said. "Counsel, how does the applicant proceed?"

The lawyer rose.

"Mrs. Stafford will take her son into her own home, Madam Chair. A private residence. The Foundation is not required."

"Then housing is settled."

"It is."

Behind me Darius breathed out through his nose.

He had told me his mother would simply find another door.

The chair turned her eyes on me.

"Ms. Corwin, you may speak."

I stood up.

I had written nothing down.

"Nine years ago he put his hand over my mouth and raped me in an upstairs bathroom," I said.

"I was eighteen. I walked into a police station at two in the morning and told them, and nobody talked me out of it."

"At his sentencing he told the courtroom he'd be out in nine years and would know where I live."

"It has been nine years. I live in the same town."

Luka studied the table.

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