# HE JUST WANTED TO GO HOME [Intro | quiet judicial chambers, distant rain, restrained piano] [Spoken | elderly Southern woman, weathered rasp, thick Alabama drawl] "Thomas?" "You got that paperwork for me?" "Well, bring it on over, then." "What's this? New evidence?" "DNA? And camera footage?" "Well, what'd they find?" "Oh..." "Oh, Lord." "They let him go?" "Eighteen years." "That man spent eighteen years in prison." [Spoken | remembering, subdued] "I remember that courtroom, Thomas. Like it was yesterday." "His wife was sittin' in the second row. Right behind him." "Kept reachin' out to touch his shoulder." "And every time she did, he'd turn around and tell her everything was gonna be all right." "He believed that." "Lord help me, he really believed it." [Spoken | weary reflection] "I was twenty-nine. First case they ever let me lead." "Those partners of mine wanted that conviction." "Said we had enough. Said we couldn't afford to lose." "But somethin' wasn't right." "Something in my gut kept tellin' me..." "And I went ahead anyway." [Instrumental | restrained cello enters beneath piano] [Spoken | haunted, deliberate] "I remember his face when they read that verdict." "Wasn't the anger. Wasn't even the tears." "It was his eyes." "The way he looked right at me." "Like he was waitin' for me to say somethin'." "Like I was the one person in that whole room who could stop it." [Spoken | quiet confession] "I've carried that look with me every day since." "Every case. Every verdict." "Every time I sat down to look at the evidence." "I'd go through it twice. Three times, sometimes." "Stay here long after everybody else went home." "Missed birthdays. Put off vacations." "Never did find time for much of a life outside this place." "Kept tellin' myself I was makin' sure nobody else got hurt." "But I suppose I was still tryin' to answer him." [Spoken | tired, intimate] "You know, Thomas..." "I've put some guilty people away." "I've seen innocent people walk free." "Done some good along the way, I reckon." "But eighteen years..." "Ain't a thing I can do to give that back." [Spoken | hesitant, vulnerable] "Thomas?" "Do you think he remembers me?" "Yeah... I suppose he would." "Did he..." "Did he say anythin' about me?" [Music withdraws] "No?" "He just wanted to go home?" "Well..." "Of course he did." [Outro | soft piano fades, distant rain] [End]
