Sycamore Hill Pt. 02

Now Lara's whole body was shaking and she was hyperventilating, looking wildly back and forth between the judge and the jury and the prosecutor, who was beginning his question again.

"Tell us Ms. Foster, tell us why we should think that you believed..."

And then suddenly, Lara half rose out of her seat and in a shrill, strong voice, a near scream, answered.

"Because...because when your heart wants something to be true, even if it's something horrible, even if it makes no sense at all, your mind will believe it. Your mind has to believe it, because it's nothing, nothing at all without the heart."

The courtroom became suddenly silent and the prosecutor, who for the first time in the trial was taken aback, waited for a few moments before asking his last set of questions. It wasn't long after that the prosecution rested.

The jury came back within a few hours, finding Lara guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and kidnapping in the second degree, the judge sentencing her to 10 years in prison, well under half the time Danielle eventually got.

I remember watching the bailiff leading her out of the court, shuffling with her head down, her shoulders lurching from poorly controlled sobs. I watched her carefully, looking for my wife, looking for the woman I loved, but I couldn't find her. The truth was, if I'd been paying attention, I wouldn't have been able to find her for quite some time.

She was the one being led off into prison, but somehow, I felt like I'd received a sentence too. I'd loved her fiercely and had given her and our marriage my best, but it wasn't enough, I wasn't enough. My mind could rationalize that it wasn't my fault, but that's not the way I felt and, as Lara had said in her outburst, the heart calls the shots.

I was standing in the courtroom, looking blankly at the wall, considering my unfortunate past and my uncertain future when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see Virgil giving me a somewhat tentative grin.

"Hey Kevin, nightmare's over, right? The bad guys are in jail and the good guys are alive."

I sniffed dismissively and shrugged my shoulders.

"Yea, I guess. I don't mean to be maudlin, but somehow I feel like I've gotten a prison sentence too. I see a lot of lonely times coming down the pike, starting with tonight."

Virgil began shaking his head in emphatic disagreement.

"No...no...no...no, Kevin. No lonely nights for you. From here we are going to the nearest bar to start the therapy Dr. Virgil has prescribed for you."

"What, get drunk every night? I don't think that's going to work bud."

Virgil cocked his head and broadened his smile.

"Nah, that's not what I have planned. A bunch of booze won't help, I know you well enough to understand that. What you need is a girl, a girl that you can rescue, a damsel in distress. Someone pretty, but one who's not loony toons. And I'm going to help you find it."

He clapped me on the shoulder s, raised his eyebrows ridiculously and nodded his head looking for agreement. I couldn't help but chuckle, my first genuine laugh in months, realizing he was almost certainly right. The only way to quiet the memories of my turbulent past with Lara was to create new ones with a new woman. My head new it, but more importantly, my heart felt it.

I nodded to Virgil, slapped him on the shoulder and followed him out the courtroom door.