Chapter 60 2025
“So all this started when they were children?” Grace asks.
The sheriff’s hand is twined in hers as they wait for the oncologist to arrive to tell them the most important news of their lives.
Grace had her PET scan yesterday, and they’re here, in the doctor’s office, to learn the results.
Plain and simple, if the chemo worked, she is one of the lucky ones. If it didn’t . . .
“Focus on the case,” Grace says, pulling him back from his doomful thoughts.
“Yes,” he says. “They all went to Gaines—Vivien, Heddy, the reverend, and the major.”
“And the hole in the wall was there all that time?”
“Yep. Apparently, it’s been there since Meryl Fairbanks was a girl. Though it seems very few people knew about it. Ms. Bamford’s already ordered for it to be repaired.”
“Which led to the rabbit’s foot?”
The sheriff feels a current of anger prickle his skin.
When he heard the story of where the rabbit foot came from, told to him by a cook who worked at the school when Vivien and the reverend were students, his blood boiled.
The more he learns about the reverend, the more he understands why so many are indifferent to his death.
To torture a little girl for something her grandfather did by killing an animal she loved takes a certain kind of cruelty.
“Imagine if Patch had never found that hole and crawled through,” Grace says. “She never would have met Meryl Fairbanks.” She tilts her head. “And her life wouldn’t have turned out as it did. And all the things that happened because of her might never have happened.”
“Sliding-door moment,” the sheriff agrees.
Vivien Kendall has undeniably shaped the world.
He doesn’t think she set out with that intention.
But sometimes those are the people who end up having the greatest impact: remarkable individuals with no ulterior motives, only unassailable genuineness and goodness that inevitably affect those around them.
The sheriff’s father used to say, Morality is knowing what’s right.
Courage is what makes you choose it every time.
Vivien Kendall’s God-given talent and humble, steadfast decency along with the merest breath of circumstance created ripples of change across the globe.
Women’s sports changed because of her. Not just figure skating but other sports as well.
In gymnastics, athleticism became paramount, and with that, the competitors became as varied as the flags the athletes competed under.
Muscles became cool. Bodysuits for competitors in all sports came into fashion.
The governor of Minnesota lost his reelection bid the year Vivien Kendall marched in front of his house, and a more progressive governor was elected.
Immigration policies changed in the state and in the country.
And Vivien Kendall and her March for Freedom became indelible symbols for standing up against injustice.
Her Nike ad campaigns remain iconic. The fantastic images of her soaring with her birthmark on full display are still aired on television and plastered on billboards, each proving to kids who are different that they, too, can become superheroes and that anything is possible.
All of it because, when she was a little girl, she discovered a hole in a wall, and terrified of a bully, she crawled through.
And she’s only twenty-eight. Who knows what else she might do.
“I rewatched her 60 Minutes interview last night,” the sheriff says. “Did you know she was only seventeen when she gave that interview? Can you imagine being that young and being grilled by Lesley Stahl?”
“It’s so awful what happened because of that,” Grace says, shaking her head.
The sheriff feels another pulse of anger. The older Mrs. Reicher proudly boasted about her son’s role in the arrest of Vivien Kendall’s mentor, Andres Marcel. The reverend saw the interview, heard Vivien mention Andres’s name, and suspecting he was in the country illegally, reported him to Ice.
Grace says, “What kind of awful person goes after an old man who’s got nothing to do with him? It would certainly make me want to kill him.”
The sheriff’s about to make a wisecrack about adding Grace to his suspect list when the door opens and the doctor walks in.