He ignored the annoyed look on my face. “How are you holding up?” he asked.
It was such a loaded and simplistic question that I didn’t know how to answer it. How did you explain the overwhelming anger and grief and regret and sense of closure that came with a situation like this?
“I’m okay,” I said. “Considering.”
“You did the right thing,” he said. “Alexandria and Hazel deserved justice.”
“I know.” I took a deep breath. “So is he … okay?” I needed to ask but also didn’t want to know the answer. It felt like opening a drawer my mind had tried to lock.
“He’s …talking. He seems to have accepted what’s going on and is very cooperative. For Will’s sake.”
“That’s good, I guess.” I both did and didn’t want Tommy to suffer. It was hard to make sense of my feelings toward him anymore.
“Thank you for driving over,” Pullman said. “I brought you something, but it’s a little unorthodox.”
I raised an eyebrow as the door to his office opened. A uniformed officer was escorting someone behind them. Someone in a faded brown uniform. There were cuffs secured around his wrists. I stopped, unable to move or breathe.Will.
“Thank you, Officer Stevens. I’ve got him from here. I’ll bring him back to you in ten minutes, all right?” Pullman nodded at the officer, who went to stand outside the door.
Pullman took a key off of his ring, unlocking Will’s cuffs, as we exchanged excited looks. “I had to pull a lot of strings for this, so please don’t jump out the window, okay? Because it’s my ass on the line. I’m going to sit right there …” He gestured to a chair on the other side of the room.
“Will,” I said, unable to believe that he was here, unshackled. I had visited him in prison, but this felt different. For the first time in over a decade, I could hug him.
Will smiled, a sight I realized I’d forgotten. “Hey, Rosebud.”
I threw myself into his arms, burrowing my face into his shoulder as his arms wrapped around me. The feeling was overwhelming, a hug so wildly overdue.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, crying into his shoulder.
“Pullman thought you might need a pick-me-up,” Will said, chuckling. He dropped his voice. “He was concerned about you. I think he might, like,likeyou, Rosie,” he teased.
“Shut up,” I said, smacking Will playfully as we broke apart. Over his shoulder, Pullman was watching our interaction with a subtle smile. His eyes locked on mine.
I’d deal with that later. I turned back to my brother. It was like looking at a ghost. For eleven years, I hadn’t seen Will outside of the prison walls or a courtroom.
“I wish this reunion were under better circumstances,” I whispered.
“You and me both,” Will said bitterly.
“How are you holding up?” I asked. We’d talked on the phone since Tommy’s admission but it had been brief. We hadn’t gotten into any of the details. It was all too fresh.
“How do you think?” Will’s lip quivered as he fought tears. “I spent all those years in jail for something I didn’t do, after losing one of the people I cared about most in the world, just to find out my own brother did it?” I flinched, and Will reached out to hold my hand in his.
I looked down at his uniform, really seeing it for the first time. “You know we’re going to get you out, right? I’ve been on the phone with everyone from Tallahassee to DC all week.” It turned out getting the wrongfully convicted out of prison was a lengthy process, even when you had an alternate suspect.
Will looked a little sad. “These things can take years, Rosie. I’ll be lucky if you’re not in your thirties by the time I get out.”
I rolled my eyes. “The prison-industrial complex is so completely fucked.”
Will squeezed my hand. “It’s okay. Our good friend Pullman over here told me he’s going to help you work on my release.”
I looked back at Pullman with disbelief. I cocked an eyebrow. “Is he now?”
“Yes, I’m going to make it my mission to single-handedly restore Rose Dearling’s belief in the criminal justice system,” Pullman said.
Will and I laughed in tandem.
“Good luck with that,” I said.
