Epilogue
(Kieran)
I bought the ring three weeks before the trial.
Not because I had planned it that way. I had been thinking about it since the night Sloane told me about the baby and I sat on the couch afterward looking out at the lake. But the actual buying of it happened on a Tuesday afternoon between a board meeting and a patient consult when I walked past a jeweler on the street and went in without deciding to.
I had it in my drawer for weeks. Through the arrest. Through the courtroom. Through everything that came after.
I had told myself I would wait until it was all over. Until there was nothing left to manage or protect against. Until the day could belong entirely to the question and nothing else.
That day was today.
I had told Sloane we were going back to the trail. The one
