Chapter 19 - THE SENTENCES THAT DIDN’T FIX EVERYTHING
Grant Mercer received twenty-eight years in prison.
Judge Bell accepted a plea agreement requiring him to surrender his pension and cooperate in reviewing every guardianship he had approved.
Thirty-one cases were reopened.
Six families recovered properties. Others received compensation from seized assets. Two victims had died before anyone admitted they had been telling the truth.
Walter attended each restitution hearing he could.
“You don’t have to carry all of them,” Mara told him.
“I’m not carrying them,” he said. “I’m sitting where they can see someone believes them.”
Evan was sentenced to fourteen months for misusing client funds, with credit available for cooperation and restitution.
Before officers took him into custody, he faced Walter in the courthouse corridor.
“I’m sorry,” Evan said.
Walter nodded.
“I know.”
“I don’t expect you to visit.”
“I know.”
Evan waited.
Walter straightened his son’s collar, the way he had before Evan’s first job interview.
“Sunday visiting hours start at one,” Walter said. “Don’t make me wait.”
Evan’s face broke.
Walter hugged him once, firmly, then stepped back.
Mara drove her father home.
At the house, Walter stopped beside the hallway where Mercer had attacked Evan.
The damaged plaster had been repaired, but the new paint was slightly brighter.
“You can still see where it happened,” Mara said.
“That’s all right.”
“You don’t want it repainted?”
Walter shook his head.
“A repaired wall doesn’t have to pretend it was never broken.”
He walked into the kitchen and opened Margaret’s journal.
Inside the back cover, he wrote the date of Mercer’s conviction.
May you like
Then he added one sentence:
We did not win because we were unhurt. We won because the hurt stopped deciding who we became.
