WEBVTT

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"She knew when she
fell in love with him

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that she would be
in love forever,

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just as she knew
when she woke up

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in the backseat the next
morning, cramped and headachy,

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and looked at Dion
sleeping with his mouth

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open that she was no
longer in love with him

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and never would be.

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[LAUGHTER]

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She opened the door and stepped
out into the damp morning air.

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She began to think of
Ron's long fingers resting

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on the steering
wheel of his father's

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Mercury and his father's
air conditioning business.

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Dion stretched, scrunching
his eyes, his limbs snaking

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around the corners of the
seats up to the back dash.

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His T-shirt pulled up
to show his stomach.

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He opened his eyes and
watched her standing

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in the open doorway,
and he smiled.

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'We should go,' she said. 'I'm
afraid someone will find us

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here.'

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He shrugged.

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Obviously, he cared nothing
for what people thought.

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How had she miss this before?

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He moved like an
oaf, like her father,

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slowly opening the door as if
there was no hurry, digging

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the keys out of his pocket.

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'I'm not feeling
well,' she said,

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making a show suddenly
of holding her stomach.

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He leaned forward over the
wheel and shot her a glance.

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'What's wrong?' 'I don't know,'
she said irritably as if it was

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all his fault. He recoiled
a little against his door

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and leaned his elbow
out the window,

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steering with one thumb.

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As they neared her house,
he started to get nervous,

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leaning forward over the wheel.

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'When am I going
to see you again?'

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She looked at the dashboard
as if she hadn't heard.

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He pulled over to
the side of the road

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and turned to her, the words she
had been saying-- his own name

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and I love you, I love you--
playing through his head.

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He wasn't going to say them.

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They were her
words, and he didn't

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want to tell her to say them.

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But he needed her to say them.

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She put her hand on the door.

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He watched it resting there.

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'I can walk from here,' she
said and stepped out of the car.

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'Where are you going?' he
screamed so loudly she stumbled

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off the road.

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She could see her house
from here, across the road

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and down the field.

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'I don't love you
anymore,' she said.

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He was out of the car now with
his hands on the roof, just

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looking at her.

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It seemed that he
must have known

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all along what would happen.

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He could have made a noise
like the sudden roar of gravel

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pouring from a dump truck
at the construction site

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where his father worked.

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This much force and more
had built up in his chest.

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He could have crushed
her words with his own.

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He could have screamed so loudly
she would have ceased to exist,

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but he was silent.

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She sensed him stumbling
through the field after her.

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Her mother came to
the window, saw her,

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and called her father,
who arrived at the window

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with a shotgun.

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Seeing her father,
Natalie ran away

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from the house toward the woods.

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Her mother came out onto the
front steps and screamed,

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'Natalie!'

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Natalie tripped and vanished
into the blond straw.

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By the time she stood, her
father was on the phone,

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calling his friends.

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Dion tripped on a log
and twisted his ankle.

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She was out of sight.

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These were her woods.

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She had grown up playing here.

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He stood with his arms
apart, hunkered down,

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and screamed her name
as loudly as he could.

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She stopped running and
looked up at the sky

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washing over the treetops.

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They could probably hear her
name all the way in Bath,

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she thought.

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He loved her.

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He really did.

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She ran on but stopped when her
name sounded again and again,

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moaning through the
trees like a foghorn,

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his voice seeming more
desperate and distant.

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He was headed in
the wrong direction,

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and she almost
called out to him.

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And Mr. Dawson opened
his door and stepped out

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before putting
his truck in park.

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It lurched forward slightly
before he could hit the brake.

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No one was watching.

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His neighbor, Mr. Shumaker,
ran across the lawn,

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taking long, even strides.

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Their boots crunched over
the dried leaves and grass

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with the sound of falling
water, all of them

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headed toward Natalie's
father standing

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at the edge of the woods.

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'This way,' he called
and ran into the shadows.

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They all stopped running
when Dion's voice called

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for Natalie, his
voice, her name.

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They leaned over
their knees, listening

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to their own heavy breathing.

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The smell of their
own musty heat

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escaped from beneath
their shirt collars.

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Dion stopped calling her name.

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She turned at the
edge of Nason's field

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when she heard the silence.

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When she listened harder,
she heard the voices

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of her father, her
uncles, their friends,

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and the fathers of her friends
calling to one another.

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For a moment, she wanted
to take it all back.

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She did love him.

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Then she wanted to take it all
the way back to never having

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loved him to begin with.

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She couldn't say now
how it had all started.

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Ron would never forgive her.

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No one would.

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They caught up with him, all
the men shouting at once,

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stumbling and waving.

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Dion couldn't hear what
any one of them said,

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only fragments of
words and phrases.

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Finally, Natalie's
father appeared,

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and Dion could see
the resemblance

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in the shape of his face, thin
but sagging near the jowls.

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Her father was the
only one not shouting

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as the rest formed
a circle around him,

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the ends of their waving
gun barrels like dark eyes.

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Dion raised his hands as
the police had told him

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to one night in Monmouth.

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He closed his eyes and pictured
the house he and Natalie were

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going to have, every room
smelling of her wrist,

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the bed with the
tent, and the red barn

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with the horse, the boat
with the captain taking them

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down the coast toward the sun.

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He could see it
all so clearly it

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seemed as if these things
had already happened,

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and he was looking back now
after a lifetime together.

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'David Dion.' It was her
father's voice rising above

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the others.

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The father had a right to speak.

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He was the one wronged.

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Anything he did might
be excused later.

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Dion looked briefly at
her father and the others.

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Her father's eyes
darted around the woods,

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skipping off Dion's
face every few seconds.

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Dion lowered his chin and
closed his eyes again,

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holding his arms out so they
would know he was unarmed.

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It seemed he had been
waiting his entire short life

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to accept blame.

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'David Dion.' His name again,
and the picture Dion had formed

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on the backs of his closed lids
of her father pointing a finger

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at him, eyes red with
anger, almost with tears,

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was more accurate
than the real thing.

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Dion waited for his name,
imagining her father's mouth

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opening, his jagged teeth bared.

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Instead, there was the deafening
crack of a shotgun blast,

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and in the total
silence that followed,

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Dion found himself
floating in the treetops,

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uncertain if he was
dreaming or dying.

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The maple and oak leaves
turned toward him and shivered.

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He saw the field beyond the
woods where a burst of wind

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sliced a path through the grass
like an invisible hand combing

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through hair.

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At the edge of the
field near the road,

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Natalie stood looking back.

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She made him so sad he had
to look away, into the sun.

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When he looked back
down, it was too late.

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The image of the sun was
burned into everything he saw.

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I was outside our house throwing
a tennis ball against the wall,

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pretending I was the star of
a baseball game with scouts

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ready to sign me
up, and was just

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winding up for
another pitch when

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I heard the crack of the
gunshot echo across town.

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My mother flew right
out of the back door

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and grabbed hold of me,
searching my arms and chest

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to see if I'd been hit.

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Mrs. Dawson dropped a sandwich
roll at Dawson's Variety

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and ran outside
with the customers

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and looked up at the sky.

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Natalie's mother fell to
the floor in her kitchen.

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In her mind, they were all
dead: her husband, her daughter,

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and Dion.

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The police chief
stood up from his desk

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and looked at the receptionist.

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He had been afraid of what
might happen if people took

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the law into their own hands.

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Well, this was the
consummation of our relief.

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When Dion opened his eyes,
though, he was still there,

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kneeling before his accusers,
handfuls of dirt and pebbles

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sprinkled over his shoulders.

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All the men's eyes searched
his body for wounds or blood,

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but there were none.

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Natalie's uncle had fired
a shotgun by accident,

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blowing a hole in the
ground and kicking up

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a cloud, nothing more.

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Now, gazing back across
the field to the woods

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where he lay dying,
Natalie found

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it impossible to accept at
first that they had shot him.

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But then it made
sense, and she decided

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she would bear the
mark of his death

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by never smiling again
for the rest of her life.

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[LAUGHTER]

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For her, the siren
approaching from across town

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was the sound of an
ambulance arriving

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too late, the second siren
which came a moment later,

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the sound of the
police coming for her.

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She raised her chin and
removed the strands of hair

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from her face to see if Dion's
soul was rising out of his body

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over the treetops
and into the sky.

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In court, as in
her prayers to him,

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she would beg for
mercy and for pardon.

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She would admit everything,
absolving everyone but herself.

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For a few moments
this morning, she

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had been a fool thinking
love was not real,

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thinking she could
live without him,

00:09:08.800 --> 00:09:11.440 align:middle line:84%
and now she had
lost everything."

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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