* * *
—
Like a moth drawn to flame, when Melissa read in the paper of the arraignment, which was open to the public, she drove to the county courthouse the morning that it was to occur. She wanted to see what would happen, and to see his face in person. She was fueled by anger and indignation as she drove to the courthouse on the appointed day. She was shocked when she saw the boy, led into the courtroom by sheriff’s deputies, in handcuffs, and shackles on his legs. He looked about fourteen years old, and there were tears streaming down his face.
His name was Luke Willoughby, and he was represented by the public defender. Other locals had come to see the proceedings as well, and how he would be dealt with. Melissa suspected that many of the people who filled the courtroom had lost their homes. She had less reason to be there, but curiosity about him and raw anger had impelled her to come.
The public defender requested that the judge remand him into the custody of the juvenile court system, which was denied, given the severity of the crime. He hadn’t graduated from high school, had dropped out of school that spring, and was turning eighteen in September, so technically he was not yet an adult. He pled not guilty, and the judge sent him to an adult psychiatric facility to determine if he was able to stand trial. The only words he spoke during the entire proceeding were “Not guilty, Your Honor.” He sounded respectful and looked broken, and the public defender confirmed that his parents were not in the courtroom. He explained that his father had disappeared when Luke was seven, and his mother had been sent to rehab by the court, and had been unable to come. He said that they had been homeless for several years, and he was living alone in a shack in his mother’s absence. The judge nodded and his face registered no emotion.
The deputies walked him past Melissa when they took him back to jail, and the anger she had felt for him suddenly ebbed away like sand through her fingers. He looked so tragic and so forlorn that it was hard to imagine him committing so heinous a crime that had cost several lives and caused so many people pain. She wanted to reach out and touch him, and as Norm had said, the idea of sending him to prison with adult men seemed suddenly wrong. He didn’t appear insane either, just desperately lost. She wanted to ask him why he had done it, but she didn’t know him, and there was no chance to talk.
His terrified face haunted her all the way home, and she was ashamed to have gone there at all. He was in a hell all his own, and no good would come of it, whatever they decided to do with him. He was precisely what Norm had guessed, a lost soul who had slipped through the system at an early age, and needed help. She might have felt differently if she’d lost her home as a result of his crime, but she hadn’t, and the steam had gone out of everything she had thought about him before. She couldn’t imagine a life like the one he had led as a child, and the punishment he had ahead of him now, either confined to a mental hospital or in prison. Either way, he had hard times ahead, little or no future, and had led a hard life until then. Seeing him had opened her heart to forgiveness.
It struck her again that the arsonist was only a year older than Robbie would have been, and the same age she was when her mother died and she became her sister’s surrogate mother and was fully responsible for her within a year. What if her own anger at her mother had expressed itself in a life of crime? Instead she had written about it and transformed it into a lucrative career. But this was a helpless, sick boy, unable to surmount his own pain except by starting fires, damaging property and causing people’s deaths. Her heart ached for the tragedy of his life, and it made her own anger at her mother’s coldness seem so small. The young arsonist’s life was sure to get worse now instead of better. It was truly tragic, and she felt only grief and compassion for him.
It made her think of her sister when she got home. Her worst crime, in Melissa’s eyes, had been joining a religious order, which Melissa had been deeply critical of at the time. But apparently it suited her, if she was still there eighteen years later. Her two years in Africa nursing orphans and life as a nurse in a hospital were admirable. Suddenly Melissa wanted to see her again. Even if they had nothing in common now, they had a shared history, and still loved each other, even though things had gone so wrong.
She sent her an email, and invited her to come up. Hattie’s response came through on Melissa’s computer in less than an hour. She accepted the invitation gratefully, said she wouldn’t spend the night, but would make the round trip the same day. It was a four-hour drive from New York, which meant they wouldn’t have too many hours together, which might be for the best for a first visit after so long. They were almost strangers to each other now.
Hattie wrote again later in the day, and said she could come up on a Saturday in ten days. She was working every day until then. Melissa responded that the date was fine with her. She sat thinking about it for a long time after she had sent Hattie her response. She was half excited to see her, and half afraid. Being with her would open so many doors of memory again, some of them so painful, but she suddenly longed to see her and Hattie had said the same.
She promised to arrive as early as she could. They were going to let her use one of the convent cars. Melissa thought about her almost constantly for the next ten days, and dreamed of her at night. In her dreams, they were both still children in New York, Hattie six or seven, and Melissa twelve and thirteen, always feeling responsible for her. And then, she thought about taking care of her when their mother was sick and after she died, and feeling so maternal toward her once they were alone after their father’s death. They had been so close, and then suddenly it was all broken when Hattie disappeared from her life, and gave up the world. Melissa had her own life then, with Carson, and then Robbie. And now so much time had passed. There was no one left of the people they had loved, just the two of them.
* * *
—
Melissa slept fitfully the night before Hattie came to see her. She woke up several times during the night, and lay wide awake for a long time before she fell asleep again. She got up early in the morning, went downstairs, and made coffee. It was a hot, beautiful July day, but not as warm as it had been before the fire. A slight breeze rippled through the trees. She had gone to the grocery store the day before to buy some things she thought Hattie might like to eat. She didn’t even know what she liked anymore.
Hattie had visited them a few times when Robbie was small, but Melissa had still been angry with her then. They didn’t let her leave the convent often in the first few years. They liked the younger nuns to stay within the community, and kept them busy with projects and chores. Melissa refused to visit her in the convent. She couldn’t bear the thought of it. So Hattie got permission to visit her, but it happened less and less frequently as they continued to drift apart. Her two years in Africa had created a real break in time, and Hattie seemed more certain than ever of her vocation when she got back. Melissa had seen more of her once Robbie got sick, and she came to sit with him to give Melissa and Carson a break. After he died, Melissa left New York, and cut all her ties with her previous life. Then Melissa was living in the Berkshires, she and Carson were divorced, and Melissa didn’t want to see anyone. The last time they had seen each other was at Robbie’s funeral, and Melissa had barely spoken to Hattie. She was in a daze. Melissa was afraid that seeing her would bring it all back.