After Before and After

Phase 4: Chapter 25

December 9, 1992. 9:12 AM.

The opening proceedings brought court into session for the third day in a row that Wednesday morning at 9:00 on the dot, as it had every preceding day this week. Most families in the gallery returned to the same pews they sat in on Monday and Tuesday, with only a few flakey discrepancies. Ralph Langley sat anxiously between his two parents, as he did on Monday and Tuesday. His sweaty palms were also a continuing trend, as was the occasional short whisper between Laurie and Zoey between witnesses. What Ralph couldn't stop thinking about had nothing to do with what was being discussed in the third day of testimony from the rescue day's responding officers. What Ralph couldn't stop thinking about was Jack, and the tension that arose outside the courtroom about twenty minutes ago now when their eyes locked across the hall.

The distance between their two families and their respective attorneys as they stood outside Courtroom 4 earlier that morning wasn't as large as it had been after court adjourned the day before. Ralph couldn't make out what Evan was snapping at Jack about yesterday after court. Presently, there were maybe a dozen feet between them, which was not enough to prevent Ralph from overhearing the words that could've been spoken if there had been any. The first thing he noticed when his eyes found Jack Merridew, as he had practically trained them to do over the last year and a half, was that the bruise beside the blond boy's eye was gone. Ralph remembered how puffy and dark it was last night during their tense exchange in the hotel communal washroom. It would've been a medical marvel for it to have completely healed overnight. Jack must've found a way to make that makeup of his sister's work for him, Ralph guessed.

The next thing he noticed was that Evan Merridew was nowhere to be found. There was Paige, the attorney who sat with them on Monday and Tuesday, and there was Jack. Ralph was forced to turn his attention back to his own family pretty soon after he noticed Evan's absence, so he shrugged it off, assuming the man was using the washroom or off making the life of someone working in this courthouse miserable.

When the aisles were full and the bailiff was through the opening proceedings, Ralph glanced momentarily at where the Merridews had chosen to sit today. They were one of the few families who seemed to be one of those flakey discrepancies changing their seats everyday. Ralph knew better than to stare while the jury could be looking in his direction, but he couldn't help it when he noticed that still, Evan wasn't there. It was killing him to be robbed of the freedom to go over to Jack and ask him what on earth was going on. It was killing him to have spent the last year and a half glued to Jack like a parasite, only to be robbed of the ability to even look at him a moment too long now. It felt like the aisles in the gallery were prison bars, and court itself an early introduction to the punishment for a crime Ralph had yet to be convicted of.

Today, Dana Barnes continued to work her way down her witness list of first responders to the scene of the rescue. There were about a dozen more of them who testified that third day. They continued to speak to what they experienced and witnessed upon their arrival on the island, what their role was in evacuation, firefighting, search and recovery, evidence, or so on. Ralph was fighting off concerns about Evan's absence as he realized that the questions Dana was asking her witnesses started to shift toward the discovery of the cave rather than painting a general picture of what the first responders walked into when they arrived on the island. Just as this realization settled in, court was dismissed for its usual recess at 12:00 PM.

"Ralph, baby, what's goin' on with you?" Laurie pried her antsy son's mind away from whatever was costing him an attention span of more than twelve seconds.

"What?" Ralph turned to her abruptly. They stood together outside Courtroom 4 just after court was adjourned for recess. Jeffery had gone off to use the washroom, and Zoey had business to attend to someplace in the courthouse.

"Honey, what's up? You've been agitated since we got up this morning" his mother worriedly noted.

"Sorry" Ralph sighed, "I think this whole thing is starting to settle in my head now. It didn't really feel real at first, but it's starting to." It wasn't a lie because Ralph really was starting to feel that way, but it wasn't the thing presently on his mind.

"Oh Ralph" Laurie sighed in that loving, parental, and pitiful way only a mother does. She wrapped an arm around his shoulder and squeezed him for a moment. "I know this is probably the hardest thing you've ever had to do, and I'd take your place in a heartbeat, but unfortunately you gotta do this, baby. Dad and I are right here for you, okay? If you ever need to talk about any of it, we're here. You don't have to bottle it up, okay? We're in this together, as a family."

"It's not" Ralph said simply, in a tone that was unidentifiable by his mother, who had been sure she knew all his tones before now.

"What's not, baby?" she asked with confusion.

"It's not the hardest thing I've ever had to do" he clarified, staring ahead at nothing in particular as if he was zoned out, "living out there was."

It was one of those rare and painful mom moments for Laurie in which she had no idea how to make Ralph feel better. One of the two prior notable times she'd felt this way was when Ralph reunited with them at the airport the day of the rescue. Laurie spent months thinking up a million things she wanted to say to her boy if she ever got to see him again. But in that moment, her eyes fell on him, showing her what five months out there did to his appearance alone, and she was at a loss for words. The second time she felt this way was when Ralph shut down after Jack broke up with him, and she didn't have a clue how to reach him. Right now, standing in front of the double doors of the room that his future would be decided behind, she once again didn't know what to say. He was probably right, she so stupidly realized too late. Of course living on the island was harder than this. How could she say something so ignorant?

Court resumed at 1:00 PM on schedule. Jeremy Reynolds took to the front of the room to begin questioning the responding officer Dana left off with prior to the recess. It was more of the same kinds of counter questions, disputing Dana's insinuation that the fire was started with ill-intention. The rest of the day's testimony wrapped up most of the evidence in regards to how the fire may have been started, for what purpose, and the impact it had on the search and recovery efforts, the evacuation procedures, and the responding officers themselves. Ralph continued to pick up on the way testimony was subtly shifting toward discussing the cave Captain Benson was found in. It would eventually lead to a long series of testimonies focusing solely on the deceased captain's fate from his time as a navy pilot, a military school captain, and ultimately the plane crash and his time on the island leading up to his death. Even knowing he himself wasn't on the hook for Captain Benson's death in any way didn't make it easier to comprehend that he'd soon be forced to envision every gory, sad, and tragic detail surrounding the man's death; a picture that would surely taint the what was left of the good memories he had of his former captain and mentor.

After court was adjourned for the day, Ralph walked out of Courtroom 4 having completely forgotten about Jack's bruise and Evan's absence. All he could think about was how unprepared he was to not only relive the events of the island over and over again, but to learn things about it he would've liked to go his whole life without knowing. If the island itself wasn't traumatizing enough, this trial was certainly about to push it over the edge. And all Ralph could do was hope that he'd be strong enough not to fall with it.