Epilogue
Jessika
Six Months Later
Grant is in the barn when I come in from the pasture.
He's with Eli, who has been coming out on weekends, staying sometimes through Monday, is applying to an agricultural program at the state university with a recommendation letter that Grant wrote and that I may have read when Grant wasn't home and that was, objectively, one of the best recommendation letters I've ever read in my life.
Specific. Honest. Exactly what Eli needed said about him.
They're talking about a trailer hitch, which is something that needed attention three weeks ago and that I've been saying needed attention for three weeks and that Grant is now addressing in the unhurried way he addresses everything mechanical. In his own time. Correctly.
Eli sees me and raises a hand.
"Morning," he says. He's taller than he was in October. Still thin, still that unfinished quality, but something in his posture has changed. More settled. Like someone who has started to believe they have a right to the space they're occupying.
"Nova's up," I tell him.
He immediately becomes very interested in the trailer hitch.
Grant looks at me. His expression is absolutely neutral but I know him well enough now to know when he's amused.
"Fascinating component," Grant says to Eli. "Very important to understand this hitch."
"I am understanding it," Eli says, deeply focused.
I leave them to it.
Morgan calls at noon.
He's in the community housing near the treatment center now, a transitional step, working with his team on the next phase.
His voice is clear in the way it gets when the medication is calibrated right and the therapy is holding and he's sleeping, clear and a little slower than his manic register, the version of Morgan that can stay in one place for more than thirty seconds.
"Testimony is in three weeks," he says.
"I know." I've been his legal prep contact. I've spoken to the AG's office four times in the past two months, advocating for conditions that allow Morgan to testify without derailing his recovery. Brian has been good about it. Better than I expected.
"I'm not scared," Morgan says. Then: "Okay. I'm a little scared."
"That's appropriate," I say. "Holcomb is going to be in that room."
"Yeah." A pause. "You'll be there?"
"The whole time."
"And Grant?"
"He'll be in the hallway," I say. "He can't be in the room during testimony. But he'll be there."
Morgan is quiet for a moment.
"Jessie," he says.
"What?"
"I'm sorry I disappeared," he says. "I know what I cost everyone. The months I was gone, not answering—" He stops. "I didn't think there was a way back. I thought if I came home I'd bring it with me. All the Meridian stuff. The Blake stuff. I thought I was protecting you."
"I know," I say.
"I was wrong."
"I know that too." I sit down on the back porch steps, in the April sun. "Morgan. You're alive and you're getting better and in three weeks you're going to walk into that courtroom and tell the truth about what happened. That's not nothing. That's everything."
He's quiet.
"You know what Grant said to me?" he says. "When I got to the treatment center? He drove me up. He sat with me for the intake. And when they were ready to take me in he said—" He pauses. "He said: 'I'll be here when you come out.'"
My throat does something it didn't ask my permission to do.
"That's what he said."
"Yeah." Morgan's voice is soft. “He didn't promise it would be okay or that everything would work out. Just that he'd be there." A beat. "He's always been there. Every time. I didn't appreciate it right."
"You're appreciating it now," I say.
"Better late," he says.