Penitence

Back in 2017, Julian and Martine meet with Gil, the DA. They rehash many of the same arguments they’ve made to one another and then finally arrive at a plea deal. Nora will plead guilty to second-degree murder. She will serve a 15-year sentence and will be incarcerated in a juvenile facility until she turns 21, but she will be eligible for parole in seven years. 

When Julian and Martine relate the news to Angie and David, David is upset. He does not feel that the deal is fair and accuses Julian of not working hard enough on the case. Julian is stunned. To him, the plea deal is further proof of bias in the justice system: He has worked many similar cases, almost all of which involved Black or brown perpetrators. Their sentences were not so lenient. He knows that Nora’s sentence is lenient, that she was given fewer years behind bars because of her race and because she was middle class. 

David is silent for a moment and then changes the direction of the conversation. He tells Julian that both he and Angie were tested to see if they were carriers for the Huntington’s gene. They are not. This mystified the doctors, who wanted to study Nico. They thought that his genes had mutated, which would have been incredibly rare. There is a strange gleam in his eye as he is speaking. Angie goes rigid. Julian remembers sending Angie a letter apologizing for his behavior after they broke up. He sent it to the restaurant. He wonders now if David intercepted it.

He also reflects on his strange symptoms as of late: He has had tremors and joint pain. He has felt depressed. He thought that he’d done the math and that Nico couldn’t have been his. He researches Huntington’s disease, now sure that his odd symptoms are signs that he is also a carrier. He learns that for people his age, there are medications and outcomes are better: Nico would have only had 10 to 15 years at most. Julian might live to be 75. Rage fills him, rage toward Angie but also toward David, who must have known for years that Nico was not his. Days later, Nora is sentenced. The judge accepts the plea deal, and she is transferred to a longer-term detention facility.

David moves out. He rents a small house down the valley that is closer to Nora and closer to a job he is interviewing for. The pay will be no better, but he will not have to carry a gun. 

David had intercepted Julian’s letter all those years ago, and he’d always known that Nico wasn’t his. He had no idea Angie had been seeing, let alone living with a man, but she’d kept her relationship with Julian a secret from everyone, so there was no reason for him to have known that. He stayed with her, and he loved Nico, but he had always loved Nora more. 

Neither partner is sure what the future holds for them. Angie moves into her gallery: She will have studio space, show her work, host other artists, and hopes to show the work of incarcerated juveniles. She has petitioned the state to allow her to teach art in the detention center. 

Years ago, Angie had been unable to go through with the abortion. She didn’t tell either man the truth, because she didn’t want to hurt them. She lied about the due date to David and then claimed to everyone else that the baby was premature. She’d sought out midwives instead of doctors, had limited the number of ultrasounds she’d gotten, and made sure that David wasn’t at the appointments. She avoided anyone who could have contradicted the due date she’d told David. She’d given birth in a birthing center, hoping to avoid the scrutiny of hospital staff and doctors. The doula remarked on the baby’s healthy weight, given Angie’s account of the due date. Angie was sure that the doula knew she was lying, but she didn’t care. 

After David leaves, she opens a gallery and café in the former DeLuca space. She has to re-mortgage the building, and there is no guarantee that she’ll succeed, but she’s hopeful. 

One day, Julian comes to see her. His hands are shaking. She asks why, and he tells her that he has late-onset Huntington’s disease. He is angry that she, knowing how badly he wanted children, kept Nico from him. He’s angry that she put him in the unethical position of defending his own son’s killer. He tells her that he’s always felt guilty about Diana’s death, but he no longer does. He says that they are “even,” and then he leaves. 

Martine is now officially retired and eagerly anticipating the birth of her grandchild. She can sense that something is wrong with Julian, but he does not open up to her even when she asks. He claims to still be upset about the tragedy of the Sheehan case, but Martine is sure that there is more to it than that. 

Nora’s motive remains a mystery. Martine’s best guess is that it was complicated: Nora was dealing with a mental health condition and had isolated herself from everyone in her friend group. She and Nico were close, and she might have thought that she was sparing him a terrible death, one of which he was particularly afraid. She might have had some kind of psychotic break. Ultimately, they may never know, and Martine realizes that much of life is unknown. People try to make sense of the unknowable, with only varying degrees of success.

It is Nora’s birthday. She is still incarcerated with Jacqueline. She does not truly understand why she shot Nico, even though Jacqueline tries to talk to her about it. She knows that she didn’t want him to go through the degenerative lead-up to death that he was so terrified about, but her feelings are so jumbled, and now it seems terrible that by shooting him, she took away the chance for him to live more of his life. 

Angie visits, but David is unable to: He has a final interview for the new position he hopes to obtain. Nora is disappointed but sits quietly with her mother and paints. Angie tells Nora that she knows Nora misses Nico and that she loved him. She also tells Nora that although she too misses Nico and loved him, she also loves and misses Nora. She tells her daughter that she forgives her.