Reclaiming a Life

On the day that her life began again, Teressa Turner-Schaefer stood in a windowless Manassas courtroom and tried to remember the speech she had written in jail. "I'm really nervous and emotional right now," she began. She thanked everyone she could think of, including her prosecutor, then turned to face the waiting spectators, some weeping, others staring stonily ahead.

"To my husband's family, to my family, and to all affected by this tragedy, I apologize, and despite the problems, Erin and I love each other." Her dark eyes flooded, and her thin frame shook beneath the lavender sweater she wore.

"I loved him before I knew him," she went on. "I will continue to love him for all my days."

The court heard how Teressa had made good use of her 11 months in Prince William County jail. She had completed every life-skills class offered and aced her GED. She attended religious services and Bible study. She cooperated with counselors trying to help her overcome years of abuse, neglect and despair.

"I have come to find out that you are apparently a very decent person," Circuit Court Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. said at her sentencing that blustery November day last year. He accepted the plea bargain that suspended a 10-year prison sentence and placed Teressa on probation for five years. "I am giving you the benefit of the doubt," he admonished.

Outside, tornado winds began to howl and the skies opened up to a lashing rain. Teressa would later hear that those who believed she had just gotten away with murder considered the storm a sign of God's wrath.

Teressa herself would remember, though, how the rain stopped as suddenly as it began that day, how she looked up and saw what she needed to see.

Light.

* * *

Forge ahead or fall back. At 25, Teressa Turner-Schaefer finds herself at the same juncture as some 2,000 felons released each day in America, reclaiming life from the ruins. She is determined to find her footing on this shaky ground. Officially, society has forgiven her for taking a life. Teressa is unsure if she can do the same: "I'm working on it."

Bearing jail commissary gifts for her three small children -- cheap radios, little toothbrushes, plastic combs -- she forces herself to return to the Dale City split-level where she killed her husband, Erin, making the place where his life ended the one where hers is beginning again.

"It's all I have left of him," she rationalizes. Erin's family cleared out his belongings, save for the huge sectional sofa reeking of stale smoke, and the wide-screen TV that drones in the background. Teressa sorts through the paperwork underscoring Erin's absence, the insurance forms she must fill out, the lease she cannot pay, applications for jobs she won't get. He was always the decision-maker. Methodically she lists what she must do to build a stable life: Find work, regain custody of the kids, seek counseling, join a church, enroll in college, learn to drive, buy a house.