Ending is done...

So this evening I wrote what I am 99% sure will be the ending of The Murder of a Quiet Man. As mentioned, I set it as a conversation between ReShawn and Dillon's father during the last inning of a Little League game. ReShawn's son is third base; Dillon's son is a pitcher. Both are 7 years-old, on opposing teams, and focused solely on the game.

That's when Arlon Walstead, Dillon's father, joins ReShawn on the bleachers and they talk about the boys' form and focus, noting how good sports is in preparing kids for life...

Without ever exchanging names, they know who each other is, and ReShawn understands this forced casualness was deliberate. It comes out, very obliquely at first, like in mere conversation, that Dillon is quitting the DA's office and going to work for his father's law firm.

Arlon thinks Dillon's stubbornness will serve him better in corporate law than in the system of justice. Because as ADA, he had lost sight of the fact that sometimes a case is better withdrawn than being forcibly taken to the end.

The DA is going to run for the state legislature, so he's gone. The judge who oversaw Simon's case is retiring. Nothing will officially be done about the cops who killed him except the case will remain open. And Arlon says that's how things have always been.

The universe will correct itself, a little, Arlon believes...but ReShawn is not so sure. They have reached the point where everything is out in the open, albeit still low-key...and that is when ReShawn says, "You're saying there's nothing left to be done..."

Arlon's reply? "Not true. Take care of yourself and your family. That's the best you can do. And accept that sometimes it takes a dead man to bring about more change than a live one."

"How did we let things get to this point?"

"We didn't. It's how the world has always been."

Then the game is over. They part ways. ReShawn takes his son to get an ice cream cone and they take a cup of it home to mom, with sprinkles...and that's how it ends.

I felt it clear to the center of my very being. Now I just need to write the rest of the story leading up to it.