Including failures.
Including improvement.
Three years later, she interviewed Marcus Hill.
He was twenty-one by then, studying electrical engineering at a community college while working nights.
The scar near his eye remained faintly visible.
Lena asked:
“Do you think justice happened?”
Marcus thought for a long time.
“Some.”
“What does that mean?”
“My record got cleared.”
“The officer admitted lying.”
“I got a settlement.”
“Mercer went to prison.”
“So yes.”
He shrugged.
“But I was still seventeen in that parking lot.”
“That doesn’t go backward.”
Lena nodded.
“What would justice look like now?”
Marcus smiled slightly.
“Some other seventeen-year-old gets to go home.”
The answer became the final line of her report.
Amara saw it that night.
She sat alone in chambers after everyone else left.
The television was muted.
Marcus’s face remained frozen on screen.
She looked toward the park through the tall windows.
Three years earlier, she had sat on a bench wearing burgundy and white, waiting for a young officer she did not know.
She touched her cheek unconsciously.
There was no scar.
Nothing physical remained.
The memory did.
Rebecca Lin, now preparing to leave chambers for a law firm, appeared at the door.
“You’re doing the dramatic window thing.”
Amara looked over.
“I do not do dramatic window things.”
“You absolutely do.”
Rebecca entered.
“Everyone’s gone.”
“I know.”
“You should too.”
Amara closed the file on her desk.
They walked downstairs together.
Outside, evening had settled across Atlanta.
The park was busy.
Joggers.
Office workers.
A father holding a toddler’s hand.
Two uniformed police officers stood near the fountain speaking with a street vendor.
Amara slowed.
Rebecca noticed.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
They continued.
Near the gray bench, a young Black woman sat reading.
For half a second Amara saw herself.
Not literally.
The stranger was perhaps twenty-three, wearing jeans and a university sweatshirt.
A backpack rested near her feet.
One of the patrol officers approached.
Amara’s attention sharpened automatically.
The officer pointed toward something on the ground.
The young woman looked confused.
Then laughed.
She had dropped a wallet.
The officer handed it back.
She thanked him.
He walked away.
Nothing happened.
Amara smiled.
Rebecca looked toward her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
They crossed the park.
At the sidewalk, Lena Morris was standing beside a food truck waiting for an order.
She noticed them.
“Judge.”
“Reporter.”
Rebecca laughed.
Lena joined them.
“You know they replaced the bench?”
Amara looked back.
“The old one was damaged.”
“When?”
“Last year.”