Chapter 9 - The Verdict of the Volcanoes
The trial lasted three weeks, but Julien and Chloé didn't stay to watch the jury deliberate. They returned to their sanctuary in Lyon, leaving the legal battle to Captain Moreau and the state prosecutors. The news reports from Clermont-Ferrand were banned from the apartment, the television remaining off, the radio replaced by the soft, classical piano music Chloé had grown to love during her afternoon study sessions.
On a crisp, clear Friday afternoon in late November, the phone on the kitchen counter rang.
Julien picked it up, his breath catching as he recognized Captain Moreau’s voice. "We have the verdict, Julien," she said, her own voice holding a rare, emotional exhaustion.
"And?" Julien asked, his eyes tracking Chloé, who was sitting at the kitchen island, carefully practicing her spelling words for her new school class.
"Guilty on all counts," Moreau said.
"Marc Vasseur has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a mandatory thirty-year non-parole period. He is being transferred to a maximum-security isolation unit in the north. He will never see the sun from outside a concrete wall again. Sophie Laurent was sentenced to twelve years for complicity, but the judge noted her cooperation and her immediate surrender of custody. It’s over, Julien. The system failed her in the beginning, but the truth fixed it in the end."
Julien closed his eyes, a single, silent tear sliding down his cheek as he let out a breath he felt he had been holding since that terrible Friday afternoon in May. "Thank you, Captain," he whispered, before hanging up the phone.
He walked over to the kitchen island, sitting down on the stool next to Chloé. He looked at her workbook—she had just finished writing the word ‘Liberté’ in her neat, cursive script, decorating the margin with drawings of small, yellow wild flowers.
"Was that the captain, Dad?" she asked, without looking up from her coloring.
"Yes, sweetheart," Julien said, his hand gently rising to smooth a stray lock of blonde hair from her forehead. "The judge made his final decision. Marc is going to stay in his cage forever. He can never leave it. And your mommy is going to a place where people are going to help her learn how to be sorry."
Chloé set her green crayon down, looking at the window where the afternoon sun was pouring through the open curtains, casting long, golden squares across the clean wooden floorboards. She didn't look afraid of the light anymore. She looked like she belonged in it.
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"Can we go to the park now, Daddy?" she asked, a small, genuine smile finally breaking through her lips, erasing the last shadow of the silver scar on her lip. "The leaves are really pretty today. And I want to show the cat from the courtyard my new shoes."
"We can go anywhere you want, Chloé," Julien said, his voice thick with a profound, radiant happiness. "The whole city is open."
