Chapter 14 - The Trial Nobody Could Make Simple
Corinne did not go to trial for stealing babies.
That was the version strangers expected.
The actual charges were narrower.
Conspiracy to obstruct the current investigation.
Attempted destruction of records.
Unauthorized access and misuse of restricted charitable funds.
Related data and fraud offenses tied to current conduct.
Vane faced overlapping charges and professional disciplinary proceedings.
Lucinda pleaded guilty to a lesser assault offense related to Sage and admitted entering the room unlawfully. She received a suspended custodial sentence, community service, a substantial fine, and professional consequences.
Some people thought that was too little.
Gideon did not sentence people.
Corinne's defense emphasized the good St. Orla had done.
Hundreds of mothers received shelter.
Medical care.
Education.
Many adoptions were lawful.
All true.
The prosecution emphasized what Corinne did when Mara's evidence resurfaced.
She paid Lucinda from a care fund.
Sent Vane into Ashcombe.
Ordered records destroyed.
Tried to discredit a dead woman and a living child.
Also true.
Gideon testified only about what he knew personally.
His aunt's lawyer asked:
"Mr. Kessler, your emotions were heightened by discovering a six-year-old daughter, correct?"
"Yes."
"You were angry at my client."
"Yes."
"You wanted someone to blame for losing six years."
"Yes."
The lawyer seemed pleased.
Then Gideon added:
"That is why I brought records instead of asking the jury to use my anger."
The courtroom went quiet.
He explained the badge logs.
The archive destruction order.
The current fund payment to Lucinda.
The letters routed away from him.
He did not testify about what every historical mother wanted.
He did not know.
Rachel Wynn testified only about her own file.
No spectacle.
No parade of adoptees forced into public grief.
Corinne was convicted on most current counts.
Acquitted on one financial allegation prosecutors could not tie directly to her.
Vane accepted a plea after his records corroborated the scheme.
The professional regulator permanently removed him from medical practice.
Historical cases moved through civil review, record correction, and individual legal action where possible.
No single verdict solved St. Orla.
It should not have.
After sentencing, Marianne asked Gideon whether he felt closure.
He laughed.
"I don't think that's a legal remedy."
She smiled sadly.
Their relationship had changed.
Marianne no longer entered Ashcombe without calling.
Small.
Almost ridiculous.
Meaningful.
She saw Sage only when Sage agreed.
At first, one lunch a month.
Then more.
Marianne never asked to be called Grandmother.
Sage eventually chose Nana because Bernadette suggested it accidentally.
Nobody turned the moment into a ceremony.
The hardest repair remained Gideon's.
He had not hidden Sage.
He had not known.
But Mara's letters raised one question he could not hand to Corinne.
Why had he accepted Mara's disappearance so easily seven years earlier?
The answer was ugly.
Pride.
She stopped answering after one argument.
His family said she left.
He called for two weeks.
Then stopped.
He had resources ordinary people did not.
Investigators.
Travel.
Time if he made it.
He did not use them.
Because searching for someone who might have rejected him felt humiliating.
He chose dignity over certainty.
Mara paid more for that choice than he did.
Sage eventually would know that too.
Not yet.
But someday.
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