Finch brought in other factors that could have had an impact on Jeremy. He played video games—something he managed to do without his mother’s approval—that might have made him unaware of the real consequences of reckless driving. His parents had recently split up and he was emotionally distraught. And, since they were throwing everything at the wall to see what might stick, the defense floated the idea that he had too much gluten in his diet.

The bottom line, though, was that Jeremy could not easily tell right from wrong after years of not being held responsible for his misdeeds. When he got into that car drunk, he would have had no idea that it could lead to something catastrophic.

Despite the humiliation it brought on her, Gloria Pilford went along with the defense strategy. But no one predicted how notorious it would become, or that Jeremy would end up being nicknamed the Big Baby.

Jeremy and his mother were mocked and ridiculed in TV news shows, even by the late-night comedians, as if there was anything about this story that was funny. Not that tragedy had ever stood in the way of comedy before. Back in the nineties, Jay Leno had his Judge Ito dancers during the O. J. Simpson trial, conveniently ignoring the fact that two people had been brutally murdered.

But the outrage didn’t kick in big-time until the judge waived a prison sentence for Jeremy and instead placed him on four years’ probation.

The fury was immeasurable. That part I was already up to speed on.

There were plenty of pictures accompanying the articles I’d found online. The accident itself; shots of Sian McFadden, who was a beautiful young girl and would have grown up to be a lovely woman; Jeremy dressed for his court appearances in a dark blue suit that always looked too big for him, and a matching tie.

There was always that same look in his eyes. Lost, and frightened.

When I looked at the pictures, I couldn’t help but be reminded of someone else. My son, Scott. Who, despite my wife Donna’s and my best intentions, went off the rails. And while the drugs he experimented with weren’t the reason for his death, he was headed down a road that could ultimately have killed him.

I sometimes envied my late wife, who no longer had to deal with the grief and the self-recrimination.

“A lot of it was just bullshit,” said a voice behind me.

I wondered how long Gloria had been standing there, watching me read the various news stories.

“Which parts?” I asked, shifting around on the cushion.

I extended a hand to the closest chair, inviting her to sit. She took me up on it, setting her refilled wine glass on the table next to it.

“A lot of it,” she said. “But there’s enough of it that’s true that people think the worst of me.”