CHAPTER SIXTEEN A — THE NIGHT BEFORE THE DECISION
The review coordinator announced that preliminary findings would be released on Friday.
By Thursday evening, local reporters were calling everyone whose name appeared in the hearing schedule.
I declined to speculate about the findings.
Ruth asked me to come over because Nora was nervous and did not want to admit it.
When I arrived, Nora was pacing between the kitchen and living room.
“What if they say it was still Ellis’s fault?” she asked.
“Then we’ll read the reasons and see what they relied on,” I answered.
“That’s not comforting.”
“I know.
”
She sat down heavily.
“What if they say nobody was responsible?”
Ruth placed a cup of tea in front of her.
“Then we’ll still know what people told us,” she said.
Nora shook her head.
“I want somebody to say what happened.”
“So do I,” Ruth replied.
“But you cannot make tomorrow happen faster by walking through the kitchen twenty times.”
Nora looked at the floor and laughed reluctantly.
We ate dinner together, though nobody seemed hungry.
Afterward, Ruth showed me a photograph of her husband holding the miniature carousel when Nora was five.
The painted horses were bright and undamaged.
Nora stood beside him wearing a paper crown.
“He used to tell me that machines should obey the people who used them,” she said.
“He said the first rule was knowing how to stop.”
Ruth touched the photograph.
“He would have been furious about what happened.”
Nora looked toward the dark window.
“I know,” she said.
“I wish he’d been here.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN B — WHAT THE FINDINGS SAID
The preliminary findings arrived shortly after nine on Friday morning.
The review identified failures in the original platform’s mechanical support and emergency-stop arrangement.
It found that warnings had been raised before Nora’s accident and that the rehearsal proceeded without adequate resolution of those concerns.
It also found that the original inquiry had relied on an incomplete account of the stage controls.
The review did not assign criminal intent to any individual.
It recommended further examination of project approvals and a correction to the official description of Ellis’s actions.
Nora read the summary twice before speaking.
“They believe he tried to stop it,” she said.
Ellis sat across from her with his hands folded.
“They say the evidence is consistent with that,” he answered.
“That’s more than they ever said before.”
Ruth began crying quietly.
Nobody tried to stop her.
At the press briefing, a reporter asked whether the findings meant Graham Kessler had knowingly endangered children.
The review chair declined to make a conclusion beyond the evidence.
Another reporter asked whether the new platform could open.
Celeste explained that the replacement installation remained out of service pending redesign and testing.
Vivian stood at the back of the room.
She did not approach the microphone.
After the briefing, Ellis stepped outside and called his employer.
He told his supervisor that he would be late returning to work.
Then he sat on a bench and looked at the trees across the street.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“I go back to fixing dishwashers,” he said.
He smiled faintly.
“And maybe I help with the school play.”
