CHAPTER 41
THE PRESS, WITH NEWS VANS AND CAMERA CREWS, HAD BEEN CAMPED outside the Sebold residence since news broke of Grace’s exoneration.
They gathered the morning Grace made her appearance at the courthouse in St. Lucia and shouted questions at Gretchen and Glenn Sebold as they left for the airport.
The crowd of reporters grew throughout the day and into the next as they anxiously awaited Grace’s return, hoping to capture images of the girl from Sugar Beach.
They were hoping, despite such things seldom happening, that Grace would return home and stand proudly on the front lawn and field questions while cameras popped and live feeds streamed.
Instead, a neighbor tipped off Gretchen Sebold about the mob of reporters that had grown out of control, and suggested they avoid bringing Grace home just yet.
The neighbor then phoned the police to tell them about the public nuisance of vans and trucks parked illegally in the quiet neighborhood, and the group of reporters that was loitering in the streets and stomping down the grass of the common areas.
Soon the police arrived and set up barriers to keep the journalists sequestered in one corner of the neighborhood, their news trucks forced to park on the main road thirty yards away.
Despite their vigilance, which lasted through the weekend, Grace Sebold never showed.
* * *
Ellie Reiser’s apartment was located at Windsor Tower in Tudor City, a short walk from the hospital.
Many beat reporters, Sidney knew, were waiting lazily at the Sebold residence in Fayetteville, hoping for a sound bite.
Most had no ambition to perform real journalism, and certainly not of the investigative manner.
So when Sidney recommended that Grace ask her old friend Ellie for a place to stay until the media attention died down, the Sebolds thought it was a grand idea.
Grace would stay anonymous at Ellie Reiser’s Manhattan high-rise, at least until an ambitious reporter decided to get to work and do some digging.
Of course, their work had been done for them.
One of the first episodes of The Girl of Sugar Beach featured Ellie Reiser and her close relationship with Grace Sebold.
Had any of the beat reporters been paying attention, they’d know Ellie was a practicing physician at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan; and with Grace a no-show in Fayetteville for the past few days, Dr. Reiser’s apartment would be a good place to look.
But Sidney was betting none knew even this much. Grace was safe for a while.
On Monday evening after work, Sidney and Derrick rode the elevator to the twenty-sixth floor and found the corner apartment. She knocked and Ellie Reiser opened the door with a smile a moment later.
“Hi, Sidney. Come on in.”
Derrick stayed anonymous behind his camera. Ellie Reiser barely noticed his presence.
As soon as Sidney passed the entrance threshold, she heard the boisterous conversation of a family giddy to be reunited after so many years apart.
Sidney followed Ellie through the entrance foyer and into the sleek, modern living room, with tall windows that offered a beautiful view of the New York skyline, which Derrick captured as he settled into the corner.
The small group turned when she entered.
Grace came over and wrapped her arms around Sidney.
They hadn’t seen each other since Sidney dropped Grace at the small St. Lucian hotel near the airport a few days before.
Sidney had been in this position before—three other times, in fact—on the receiving end of praise and gratitude when the wrongly accused was finally reunited with his or her family.
Scores of people participated in and were responsible for exonerations—and in Grace’s case, elite officials inside the United States government did more for Grace than Sidney could ever have managed on her own—but still, Sidney was the one who received the recognition.
Grace took Sidney’s hand and led her into the room. “You all know Sidney Ryan.”
Despite having interviewed nearly everyone present, Grace made formal introductions. The only ones Sidney had not met were the couple that stood in the back of the group.
“Sidney,” Grace said, pulling the man forward by his hand. The woman with him carried a stoic look as she followed him. “This is Daniel and Charlotte Greaves, old and dear friends.”
Sidney recognized the names. Daniel and Charlotte’s wedding had brought the group to Sugar Beach so many years before. Sidney also knew that Daniel, along with Ellie, were the only friends registered in the Bordelais Correctional Facility books as having visited Grace during her incarceration.
Sidney shook Daniel’s hand. “Nice to meet you. It always inspires me to meet the people who stick by their friends in tough times.”
She reached for Charlotte’s hand. The woman offered a limp shake and curt smile.
“Through tough times, and for many years,” Grace said, putting her head on Daniel’s shoulder and patting his chest. “He’s my Superman.” Grace stared at Daniel for a moment before turning her attention to Charlotte.
Sensing the awkwardness, Grace pulled Charlotte forward.
“Sidney,” Grace said, “check out Charlotte’s shoes. She’s always had the best taste in shoes. Ungodly, hideously expensive shoes. But always beautiful. And nothing has changed in all these years.”
Sidney looked down at Charlotte’s Giuseppe Zanotti shoes. She nodded. “Beautiful shoes,” she said to fill the silence.
Mercifully, Grace pointed toward another person in the room. “And this,” Grace said, “is my brother, Marshall.”
Grace walked next to the wheelchair and placed her hand on her brother’s shoulder. “Marshall, this is Sidney.”
“Good to see you again, Marshall,” Sidney said.
“Thank you,” he said, offering a hand twisted by atrophy, “for bringing her home.”
Sidney took his hand and smiled. “You’re welcome. I’m glad you’ll have time together now.”
“I’ll teach her how to play chess again,” Marshall said.
Grace smiled. “Ellie has a summer home in Lake Placid. She’s offered it to us for as long as we need it. We’re thinking of heading there if the media doesn’t die down in a few days.” She glanced at Marshall. “I bought him a new chessboard as a bribe to get him to come with me.”
“Sounds like a nice vacation,” Sidney said. “And one that’s much needed.”
Ellie came over and draped her arm over Grace’s shoulder.
“It’s nice of you to offer your home,” Sidney said.
“Of course,” Ellie said. “They know they can stay here as long as they want. Or the lake house. I don’t get to use the house in Lake Placid as much as I’d like. It’s terrible that it sits empty. My apartment here is secluded, but no one will find them out at the lake.”
Grace smiled and looked at her friend. “Thank you.”
Sidney watched the two friends embrace and sensed something strange from their body language.
Maybe it was that Ellie stood so tall over Grace, who looked up into her friend’s eyes like a helpless child staring at a parent.
Maybe it was the aura of regret that Sidney felt between them.
An unspoken acknowledgment that suggested Grace, too, should be a successful surgeon.
To look at the two friends now, once brought together by their similarities, it was impossible to notice much now besides the things that separated them, which today, Sidney knew, was much more than inches.
Dr. Ellie Reiser, in her designer blouse and perfect-fitting jeans, standing in her chic Manhattan apartment and offering the use of her summer home, was the picture of success.
Grace, in her too-large clothing that sagged from her shoulders, skin and hair neglected for a decade, looking up at her old friend and without a dollar to her name, was the polar opposite.
“What am I missing?” Daniel came over to where Grace and Ellie were hugging.
Grace pulled Daniel in to create a three-person hug.
After a moment, Grace’s parents joined the group that huddled around Marshall’s wheelchair.
Sidney noticed Charlotte, standing off to the side.
The stoic look of indifference never left her face as she slowly approached the group and leaned in with a light hand on her husband’s shoulder.
Grace broke out of the group and wiped her eyes.
“Gone for ten years, and there’s not much left when you get back.”
Ellie put her arm around Grace again. “Stop talking like that. You are loved by many people.”
Grace wiped her cheeks again with the backs of her hands, a quick swipe meant to erase the vulnerability she had known to suppress for the past ten years of incarceration. But here, with people who loved her, she allowed it for just a moment.
“Maybe that was true one day,” Grace said. “But today, these are the people left in my life. And I’m so happy to have you.”
Ten years of bottled-up emotions—fear and regret and anger—suddenly flooded from Grace Sebold as she sobbed.
After an initial attempt at stifling it, she eventually gave in with no effort to disguise it.
Ellie and Daniel hugged her again, and her parents rushed to comfort her.
Charlotte patted her on the back. Marshall seemed lost to the circumstances, still studying the new chessboard in his lap.
Sidney took a quick glance to the corner of the room, where Derrick stood with his camera on his shoulder. She knew Grace’s homecoming would play well in one of the concluding episodes, and secure the audience’s sympathy for the girl America had once hated.