“I’m Norma Dishong, your morning case manager. If you’ll come along, I’ll take you around and show you where you get breakfast.”

He followed her as she showed him the TV room, the billiard room, the snack area. Through one set of double doors was a small cafeteria with one long table in the center and four square tables the size of card tables along the walls. At the far end was the serving counter.

“Get yourself a tray and some tableware, and you can help yourself.”

He took a tray and then reached for a fork, but when it came out of the canister and he saw it was a knife, he flung it away. It hit the wall and clattered to the floor. Everyone looked up. “What’s the matter?” Dishong asked.

“I—I’m afraid of knives. I don’t like ’em.”

She retrieved the knife, then pulled a fork for him and put it on his tray. “Go ahead,” she said, “get something to eat.” After breakfast she greeted him as he walked by the nurses’ station. “By the way, if you want to go for a walk through the building, just sign that piece of paper up on the wall there so that we’ll know you’re off the ward.”

He stared at her, dumfounded. “You mean I can go out of here?”

“This is an open ward. As long as you stay in the hospital, you’re free to come and go as you please. Eventually, when Dr. Caul feels you’re ready, you’ll be able to sign yourself out of the building to walk on the grounds.”

He looked at her in astonishment. “The grounds? But there are no walls or fences?”

She smiled. “That’s right. This is a hospital, not a prison.”

That afternoon Dr. Caul dropped in to visit Billy in his room. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine, but I didn’t think you let people like me come and go without being watched the way they watched me at Harding Hospital.”

“That was before your trial,” Caul said. “There’s one thing I want you to remember. You’ve had your day in court, and you were found not guilty. To us you’re not a criminal. No matter what you did in the past, or whatever anyone else inside you did, that’s over with. This is a new life. What you do here, how you progress, how you accept things—how you work with Billy, and bring yourself together in terms of yourself—that’s what’s going to make you get well. You’ve got to want to get well. Nobody here is going to look down on you.”

Later that day the Columbus Dispatch, carrying the story of Milligan’s transfer to Athens, summarized the case, including the evidence presented in court of Chalmer Milligan’s alleged abuses of his wife and children. It also published a sworn statement submitted to the Dispatch by Chalmer Milligan and his attorney:

I, Chalmer J. Milligan, married the mother of William Stanley Milligan in October of 1963. I adopted William, along with his brother and sister shortly thereafter.