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After the first night in the motel, we realized we couldn’t stay in Southern California.
The next morning, we really ended up leaving everything that we had behind, converting as much as we could to cash, and hitching as many rides as we could find until we ended up in Mexico.
Once down south, Lucien was able to take charge again, finding us a place to live and a restaurant to work at.
We didn't have much. But we had each other. And we were happy.
And knowing Lucien, it wasn’t long before he purchased the bar and restaurant outright. I continued to waitress and Lucien continued serving drinks, only now he did this from behind the bar as opposed to walking around with a serving tray.
Life has been good. I have the man I love standing next to me.
I peek into the back room and look at the bassinet as it sits quietly. I crane my neck to the side a bit.
“Babies can tell when you’re watching them, Kerri” Lucien says from behind me, startling me.
I turn around and stick my tongue out at him and he chuckles, walking over to stand behind me so we can both take a look at our beautiful little baby daughter, Miranda.
I feel Lucien place a hand on my shoulder and I reach up with my hand to grab his.
We could have maybe stood there all night, watching our little daughter as she slept, but we’re interrupted by one of the town boys who runs up to the bar.
“Senor Marshall!” the boy yells as he comes up to the open-air bar that Lucien owns. “Senior Marshall! You have a letter! From Estados Unidos!”
Lucien turns to me and I shrug. Neither of us have been expecting anything from the US. Lucien never had much to look forward to since he was in jail, and once I sent off the paperwork to the attorney regarding his case, I had stopped looking for mail as well.
So, it is with some haste that Lucien leaves my side and goes over to the boy, thanking him, and begins to read.
I look to Lucien’s face to see what kind of reaction he’s having as he continues to read. But then again, I realize that this is Lucien Stone we’re talking about here. Rock sometimes has more expression than you can find on the face of this man.
Bereft of an expression to tell me what Lucien is reading I go up to him, curious as to what he’s seeing. But he looks up at me as I arrive.
“They’re dismissing all charges against me,” Lucien says. “They’re even awarding me a summary judgment for all the time and suffering that I’ve already endured. But basically, when they re-examined my case, they found that I wasn’t the killer who they had thought of at first.”
“So, you're cleared?” I ask, clapping my hands.
Lucien shrugs. “Well, they say I got an additional one year for inciting a prison riot,” he says. “But they’ve said that it’s started retroactively from the date of the riot.
“But Lucien,” I say trying to figure out what’s happening. “That's….”
Lucien nods. “That’s right. Even that sentence ends today.”
The enormity of what is happening takes a minute to dawn. Lucien helps me along.
“You did it, Kerri!” He says, grabbing me by the waist. “You looked at my case and found the problems with it and you sent it in to the lawyer. I would be absolutely fucking nowhere without you.”
I blush to myself. I knew he couldn't have committed those crimes that he had been accused of and I remember myself thinking how amazing this man had been to me at the time. I think how amazing he really turned out to be. Like nothing I could have ever expected in any man.
And sure, I’m also happy and satisfied that the man I had held as mine had stayed this long and been this wonderful.
All this time, we stayed in Mexico because we could never go back home.
But now, with his sentence basically over and the state awarding him money for wrongful imprisonment, Lucien Stone has many options open to him.
I have become attached to the life we've built for ourselves. The bar on the beach. The sunsets over the Pacific Ocean. Moonlight strolls along the water as the tide rose. Sex on the beach every evening.
Was I ready to let this go?
“I don’t want to leave either, babe,” Lucien says, and I look up at him. I realize that he’s been staring at me.
