Page 5 of Counting Backwards

“Yup, should have expected that,” he said, taking the box and holding it with considerably more ease than I had managed a moment before. “Give the new guy the grunt work.”

I rolled my eyes before I could stop myself.

“Who do you think was going to do that before you decided to pop by?” I moved back toward my desk and dropped into the chair. “These are the documents that were flagged for privilege. Stan wanted to review them over the weekend, but before we have them couriered to his country house tomorrow, they need to be checked again. And organized.” I turned back to my computer pointedly, dismissing him.

He made a noise in the back of his throat, indicating his annoyance at the task, my sharp tone, or both, but then he turned and disappeared back into the hallway.

With that interruption complete, I reopened the document I’d been working on but couldn’t focus. After reading the same line of text three times, I clicked on my internet browser instead. One upside of my stagnant career trajectory was that I had more time available for other research. In the past few weeks, I’d scoured articles, books, websites, and social media, seeking tips and tricks for trying to conceive—or TTC, as the great wide internet called it. I’d found suggestions that ranged from eating celery to taking vitamins to wearing wool socks during intercourse to even dancing under a full moon. No joke.

Earlier that morning, I’d used another ovulation test strip, one of the many commercial items for TTC support about which I’d recently learned. It functioned similarly to a pregnancy test, but the results would tell the user when she was most fertile. That morning, two lines had appeared on my test. After so many pregnancy tests showing only one stripe, it was a relief to see a second bar showing up onanytype of test I took. According to the package insert, the second line meant I was having a surge of luteinizing hormone, a chemical released by the pituitary gland that would trigger ovulation.

Focusing so intently on the science of it all was perhaps notthe most exciting way to look at baby-making, but I didn’t mind; I was tired of waiting. Vance, on the other hand, didn’t want to hear anything about timing or motility or hospitable testicular environments. He was already starting to complain about our sex feeling clinical. He grumbled about on-demand performances and got annoyed when I positioned my pelvis over a pillow, creating an angle to give the sperm their best chance of reaching their intended destination.

I wondered if I should prepare a romantic dinner at home to ease the tension we’d both been feeling. If we shared a bottle of wine, Vance would start to get handsy before long. Cabernet and candlelight always led us to the same place. I wouldn’t have to ask him for anything, and we could just allow the night to take its natural course.

In the meantime, law firm partner or not, I still had work sitting on my desk that required my attention. I let out a long breath and pressed a couple fingers to my forehead, trying to force myself to focus. Thanks to Dustin, I no longer had to sift through those painfully tedious binders. Still, I found myself procrastinating every way I could. I clicked over to my email, which I’d checked only minutes before. There was just one new message, an office-wide note from Don Halperin, the head of the pro bono committee. He was looking for attorneys to collaborate with Legal Aid in defending people being held at an ICE detention facility.

Long ago, I had expected I would do oodles of pro bono work during my legal career, using my success to help the less fortunate the way my great-grandfather had done with healthcare back in the day. But then I got so busy hustling to prove myself, to show the older partners at the firm that my dad wasn’t the only great attorney to come from the Gidney family, that I’d let other priorities fall by the wayside. With my intense caseload, I’d only taken on one non-billable case a year, and never anything time-consuming. But as Ireread Don’s email, I realized that being promoted wasn’t the only way I could have made my parents proud. I turned back to my screen and tapped out a message offering my help, immediately feeling better about myself than I had in weeks.

***

Twelve days later, I walked into the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention Center in Hydeford, New Jersey. The squat concrete building sat in the middle of a large open field, where it was surrounded by nothing but barbed wire and dry, yellowing grass. The stark flatness of the land and lack of trees and shrubbery gave the impression that I was somewhere more like Kansas than New Jersey. How amazing that a place this desolate could be located only ninety minutes from Manhattan. I didn’t know the exact size of the property, but from the looks of it, I’d have guessed the building sat on something like thirty acres. As I headed toward the main entrance, past a parking spot designated for the employee of the month, I noticed a smattering of outbuildings in the distance as well.

Having never previously visited an immigration detention center, I’d expected something akin to a state prison. There were certainly many similarities, like the bleak architectural style of the cream-colored building, the cameras mounted in every possible corner, the preponderance of armed guards, and the metal detector I had to pass through before entering the facility. I hoped that on the other side of that locked door, I might find some differences too.

I made my way past rows of nailed-down plastic chairs in the lobby area to a desk where two guards, a man and a woman, sat sorting through papers. After I presented my identification and explained that I’d come for a legal visit with Isobel Pérez, the guards showed me how to use quarters to store my belongings in a small locker. If not for the bulletin board announcing a set ofvisitation rules and an ad for Global Tel Link—a phone service to “connect you with your incarcerated loved one”—the little lockers would have brought to mind an ice-skating rink. After stowing everything other than my memo pad and two pens, I approached the male guard, whose plastic name tag read “Doherty.”

“Legal visitation is permitted until 4:00 p.m.,” he said as he punched a code into a rectangular device beside a heavily reinforced door. I already knew that visiting hours ended at four, even with the more generous visitation time frame provided for lawyers over family and friends. I’d be able to stay with my new client for as long as three hours that afternoon, if need be.

“You got lucky today,” he continued as a buzzing noise sounded and the door unlocked. He led me into a hallway of fluorescent lighting and gray concrete walls. The flooring was a dusty, epoxy-type material that might once have been white but now nearly matched the gray of the walls. Small piles of trash lined the edges of the floor, empty paper cups and gobs of tangled hair, the sight of which made me want to gag.

“The private meeting rooms are usually full long before lunchtime, but today’s been quiet. Can’t say why,” he added, glancing back at me over his shoulder.

I was surprised by the officer’s friendliness. The Legal Aid materials I’d been given in preparation for this case provided lengthy information about how difficult ICE facilities could make it for inmates to communicate with their lawyers. Unlike criminal defendants who were entitled to free legal counsel in the US, ICE detainees had no such right. They either had to pay for representation themselves or find lawyers willing to represent them pro bono, like I was doing. During the hour and a half I’d spent traveling from Manhattan to get here, I’d wondered if ICE had chosen the remote location strategically to make it harder for lawyers from the city to visit their clients in person. I hoped not,since detained people with counsel were ten times more likely to win their immigration cases than those without a lawyer, at least according to what I’d read.

“Where would we have been able to talk had the private rooms been full?” I asked, picturing myself sitting inside a jail cell with a woman I hadn’t even met yet.

“Multipurpose room,” the guard answered without looking back.

At the end of the hallway, we came to another locked door with another little keypad where the guard entered a code. Once we passed through, entering what seemed to be the main part of the facility, I was hit immediately by the strange smell of the place. The closest comparison I could draw in my mind was a school locker room, but not exactly. A moldy aroma mixed with scents of sweat, citrusy cleaning supplies, and something reminiscent of oatmeal. The air was thick and stale, and I felt a flutter of dread, wondering if I had the guts to stay in such a place even for the duration of a short visit.

Doherty led me past a room that looked like a cafeteria filled with plastic picnic-style tables but entirely enclosed with metal bars like one giant prison cell. At the only occupied table inside, a heavyset middle-aged woman in a pale blue jumpsuit sat opposite three people in street clothes, an older man and two teenagers.

“That’s multipurpose,” the guard said, pointing toward the room. “Bunks are down that way.” He gestured vaguely toward the right before adding, “Meeting rooms are down here.” As he talked, a thunderous whirring began in the ceiling above us. The guard paid it no heed, so I just followed behind him, turning left down another hallway. As we began passing the meeting rooms, each with one large window in the center of a closed door, I could see one-on-one meetings taking place between inmates and people dressed in business clothes.

“Why are the women in different-colored jumpsuits?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard above the loud machinery.

“Threat level,” the guard called back.

As we moved farther down the hall, the noise finally began to fade. He set to unlocking the door of the empty meeting room and explained over his shoulder, “Blue is for petty offenses or no criminal history, pink is for repeat offenders, and red is for serious threats. The color codes keep us safe in here when we need to make snap decisions.”

My heart jumped at the realization that I’d just walked myself into a place full of criminals. He must have noticed something change on my face.

“Most of them aren’t violent here. You’ll be fine.” He opened the door. “Go on in.” He glanced at the electronic tablet he was holding. “They’re bringing up 246 now.”

I knew 246 represented the last three digits of the A-Number, or alien registration number, for my client, Isobel Pérez, but I hadn’t known that was how people were referred to in here.

Before I had time to say anything else, a female guard appeared leading a petite young woman with a long dark braid. The prisoner was pretty, with a youthful smattering of freckles across her nose. I was glad to see that my new client was wearing powder-blue coveralls.