She had not survived those years by dreaming of vindication in the abstract, or of seeing Richard punished, or of clearing her name in the eyes of strangers.

She had survived them by holding onto one specific image, played over and over in the dark: the moment she would be allowed to hold her daughter again, freely, with no shackles and no guards and no clock counting down, as a mother and not as a condemned woman granted a final mercy.

That was the only thing she had ever really wanted back.

And now, across a courtroom filling with noise, it was standing there in a small denim jacket, looking at her.