Framed by Memory

ng I remember

red against the polished hardw

r, a 1959 Gibson Les Paul, felt impossibly heav

on the Persian rug, their eyes closed as if

amed in the distan

ly so full of life and love, was a mask of pure horror. Her eyes, the same warm brown as

r voice a fragile, breakin

sealed my lips. I just stood there, the boy they had saved from a fire, t

ocelyn did: the golden boy, the musical prodigy, standing ove

d steel of the handcuffs biting into my wrists. I let the

f fury and betrayal. The love we shared, the future we had plan

house fire that killed my real parents when I was fifteen

s my s

yes, I was n

the "Trial of the Century." I was no longer Caleb Morris,

I refused a lawyer. I refused to speak to the investigators. I

ender herself, did the unthinka

teady despite the tremor in her hands,

eyes burning with a cold fire I had never see

her anger. I saw the woman I loved, driven by a

lled me to the bone, that she would k

what Judge He