Penitence

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child death, illness, mental illness, child abuse, death, substance use, bullying, and child sexual abuse. 

At 13, Nora Sheehan is the youngest person to ever sit in the county jail in Lodgepole, Colorado. She was taken to the holding cell after fatally shooting her brother, Nico, and none of the officers know how to handle this unusual case. At home, her mother, Angie, acutely feels Nico’s absence in the house. Her father, David, seeks out Martine Dumont. She is a local defense attorney and the mother of his wife’s first love, Julian. Later that day, when news of the case breaks, Julian will read about it online. He, too, is an attorney, but he lives in New York and has not been home, or in contact with his mother, in many years.

David explains the situation to Martine. She thinks of Angie, spread thin caring for her mother with Alzheimer’s and Nico with juvenile Huntington’s disease. Martine is 72, tired of her work and about to retire, but she knows that the family cannot afford anyone else. David confirms this, noting that they’d taken out a second mortgage to pay for Nico’s treatment.