Reynolds froze. “That… I believe that record was sealed, Your Honor. It shouldn’t be admissible. A child cannot—”
“A child just did your job for you, Mr. Reynolds!” Callaghan’s voice rose, cracking like a whip across the room.
Callaghan looked down at Hope. “How did you get this?”
Hope swallowed hard. “I went to the library. Ms. Patel helped me find the names of people who used to work for Mr. Harlow. I called them. One of them… a lady named Sarah… she still had the papers from when she sued him. She gave them to me.”
Not magic. Not a hacker. Just a little girl who refused to accept that her father was a criminal, calling strangers until one of them answered.
The Rise
Callaghan stared at the papers. He looked at Darius, who was weeping silently, his face buried in his hands. He looked at Harlow, who was now texting furiously on his phone, trying to plan an escape.
And then he looked at his own legs.
For five years, Raymond Callaghan had sat. He sat because it hurt to stand. He sat because standing reminded him of the accident—the crunch of metal, the smell of gasoline, the realization that he would never dance with Martha again. He sat because he felt broken, and broken things belong in chairs.
But this girl. This seven-year-old girl had walked into a room of giants and slayed them with a piece of graph paper. She had walked through rain and fear and bureaucracy because she loved her father.
He realized now what she meant. She wasn’t talking about a physical jail. She was talking about the prison of apathy. The prison of just “getting through the day.” She was offering him a chance to be a judge again. Not a bureaucrat. A guardian of the truth.
Justice required presence. Justice required standing up.
Continue reading…
