33 Nora
At ten-thirty on Wednesday morning, Nora had her eyes focused on the ramrod-straight backbone of a free man.
Gus stepped ahead of her into Courtroom One.
She heard scattered applause.
Joining in, she followed him through the doorway. She slapped her palms together as loudly as she could.
She saw Quinn and Channing adding to the din.
The thunder got louder.
But it wasn’t enough noise to satisfy Gus’s older half-sister, Yvonne. The stout fifty-year-old pounded both brown fists on the defense table.
His white-haired mother Luisa, clapped, too, shouting, “Gracias a Dios!” in a voice thick with tears.
Slapping a palm onto the table, his priest added “Hallelujah.” Slapped again. “Praise the Lord.”
Twenty minutes earlier, Judge Bennett had heard Gus’s guilty plea.
Phil Anderson
