We were sitting inside an empty courthouse hallway.
I looked at him for a long time.
“You know what destroyed us?”
“The lies.”
“No.”
He waited.
“The choices.”
I spoke quietly.
“A lie can happen in one frightened moment.
You made choices every day for eleven weeks.”
He looked down.
“I was scared.”
“So was I.”
“I didn’t know how to handle it.”
“Neither did I.”
“I thought I could control the situation.”
“That was your mistake.
You thought the children were a situation.”
He wiped his eyes.
“I love Caleb.”
“I know.”
“Does he know?”
I paused.
“He knows you love him.”
Darius looked relieved.
Then I added, “He also knows love doesn’t excuse what you did.”
That relief disappeared.
Good.
Caleb deserved better than adults rewriting reality to make themselves comfortable.
Almost two years after the flight, Caleb finally gave Darius the drawing.
Not because I asked him.
