He chuckled. “Yes, Dr. Thorson.”
He pulled the door open again, peeking down the hall in both directions before tugging on my hand. It wasn’t like it was any secret we were married, and the most the college cared about was that he didn’t end up in any of my classes. That didn’t mean Doctor of Philosophy Helene Thorson exiting a darkened vacant lecture hall with local carpenter, part-time student, convicted felon Kane Thorson would be seen as appropriate.
“Where were you working today?” I asked him as we strolled down the hall slowly.
“Harry McAllister’s. His wife made him call me to finish that addition he started eight months ago, because apparently she expects it to get done sometime in her lifetime. Never mind the fact he hasn’t even gotten Tyvec up and we’re going into winter…” He looked at me, smirking. “That reminds me, Hilde wants us to take Hannah trick-or-treating with them.”
“She’s only a year and half old. Is trick-or-treating even appropriate at this age?”
“Well… I said we’d talk about it. But I’m not gonna lie. It’s Halloween, it’s trick-or-treating, and I’m siding with Hilde on this one.”
“You just want the candy.”
“Of course I want the candy.”
I laughed. “Maybe?”
He nodded. “We’ll talk about it later.” That meant he intended to get his way.
I paused outside the lecture hall, turning toward him and taking his hands in mine. “You ready?”
He smiled sweetly. “Yes.” He winked at me, and then he pulled the door open, waiting for me to enter first.
I walked to the front of the classroom, and Kane followed me, taking the seat behind my desk. He leaned back casually in the chair as I stepped in front of the desk and sat on the edge.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” I began. “We’re continuing our discussion on justice today, and we have a guest here to help facilitate some dialogue on the topic. This is Kane Thorson, my husband. He was also the subject of my dissertation—”
“Kane Thorson. I know who you are,” one kid in the front row remarked.
I was already forgotten. That tended to happen when I invited him into my classroom. We’d done this a number of times in my general philosophy classes, and I was used to being outshined by him on these days. It was a small town, after all, and it was no secret who he was at this point.
“You… You like killed a man.”
I glanced back at Kane who was staring blankly at the kid.
“I mean, dude, it’s totally cool. He deserved it. You’re like … vigilante justice in the flesh.”
When Kane pulled his attention from the kid, he met my eyes. I gave him a quick nod, and he stood, rounding the desk to me. He leaned against the desktop, resting his hand just behind my rear, and his thumb stroked gently above my tailbone. I shut up then, letting him take over.
“So let me start out by saying, I don’t for even one second condone my decisions. You should understand that about me,” he said adamantly. “I was seventeen, I’d been traumatized, and my actions that night nearly ended up destroying me.”
I let myself sink just a little closer to the crook of Kane’s shoulder as he spoke. I loved listening to him discuss this, which might be odd, but I did. There was this certain authority and conviction to his tone that was all the assurance I needed that he was now in an emotionally healthy place with this. He’d recovered from the trauma … finally.
He’d spent three years of a five year prison sentence focusing on this. And then, thanks to his stellar behavior, he’d been granted early release. He’d been fortunate enough to be sentenced to a medium security prison with a committed focus on intensive behavioral and emotional counseling—of course we had Ross Bernstein to thank for a lot of that, too. Kane needed the emphasis on emotional wellbeing, and he was also smart enough to know he needed that—a fact that went a long way in his recovery.
“As my lovely wife has undoubtedly mentioned before, justice is not an easy topic. Believing someone deserves to die doesn’t make it so. And handing out that judgment comes with a very heavy burden. Helene said she handed out the forward of her dissertation last week, so you’d all have a chance to read the background of my particular case, so we won’t spend time rehashing that.