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Jessa

February 2022

I stared blankly at the list of interrogatories I was supposed to be editing. It wasn’t even lunchtime yet, but the sky outside my office window was dark gray, filled with ominous rain clouds that added to the malaise I was already feeling. It had been four weeks since the managing attorneys announced new partners. Although the list included thirteen new partners worldwide, the New York office of Dillney, Forsythe 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 I reread 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 of visitation 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.

“Just hit the call button when you’re finished,”

the male guard said, pointing to a small box mounted on the wall near the door. He then glanced at the inmate and told her sternly, “Make sure you’re back for count.”

She gave him the kind of small nod that is only marginally more polite than an eye roll. Then she moved to one of the seats at the rectangular metal table.

After the door clicked closed behind the guard, Isobel spoke first.

“Welcome to my humble abode,”

she said in perfect English as she lowered herself into her seat. “You’re from Legal Aid?”

I should have known the woman wouldn’t have a Spanish accent. I was embarrassed to have expected otherwise, as the case file had been clear about Isobel’s history. She’d been only three years old when she arrived in the US from Mexico and had lived nearly her whole conscious life here. Even so, the simple fact that the case involved a client in an immigration detention center somehow led me to expect a foreigner, not someone who sounded like she’d been raised in the Bronx. Looking across the table at Isobel now—at a woman so close to my own age who’d grown up in New York, attending American schools, watching American TV, hearing American music—I felt my nerves suddenly stand at attention. I’d never represented an immigrant before. Sure, I could call myself a talented attorney when it came to corporate litigation and negotiations. But, I realized with a start, there was no guarantee I’d be able to help this woman. Maybe this was just one more task I wasn’t fit to undertake.

The edges of my vision began to blur as a familiar sense of panic set in. How could I have thought I was capable of helping an immigration client when I knew nothing at all about US immigration law? What if this woman got deported simply because of my own incompetence? As my vision grew fuzzier, I fought the urge to vomit. I was well accustomed to these sensations, the beginning of the “freeze”

response, which my therapist had explained was a reaction to acute stress. I’d learned as a child that freezing was not an unusual phenomenon for young people who’d suffered severe trauma. But I couldn’t freeze here, not now, when someone else’s future was at stake. I pinched the inside of my wrist, grounding myself in the moment, just as I’d learned to do years earlier. Taking a deep breath in through my nose and sending a quick prayer up to my parents, I tried to force myself to a calmer state. An image of my dad flashed in my mind. I couldn’t say whether it was a dream or a memory. He was waving me on, telling me to get started, and thankfully, it was just what I needed. My vision began to normalize, and I was able to look my client in the face again, forcing a smile onto my own.

“No,”

I finally answered. “Not Legal Aid exactly. I work at a firm called Dillney, Forsythe am I right?”

Isobel asked. Her tone was kind, almost sympathetic.

“How did you know?”

I asked, finally finding my words.

“Well, first off, you got that baby face, but something tells me you’re older than you look. Still, someone around here gets a lawyer for free, either they got hooked up with a charity organization and lawyers who do cases like this all the time, or else it’s some fancy lawyer who wants to do some community service or whatever.”

She looked down at my right hand, where two delicate gold bracelets dangled off my wrist.

“I’m guessing,”

she continued, “that most lawyers who work for charity groups don’t have silver pens with their initials engraved on them. You got another eight just like those two at home, I’m betting. Right next to the jewelry box with more of those fancy bracelets.”

“Oh, I . . .”

I did own a whole set of the pens. She was so astute that I almost started explaining how I’d splurged on them after orchestrating a lucrative settlement for a client the year before. But then I realized how tone-deaf that would sound and how na?ve I’d been to bring them. I’d put on my mom’s gold charm bracelets for luck that morning, then tossed a couple of my favorite pens into my bag. But it was dawning on me that my choices had been callous and obtuse—simply more evidence that portended poorly for my instincts with this case.

Before I could come up with a proper response, maybe an apology, Isobel continued.

“I’m not trying to give you a hard time. Sometimes I just say too much too fast. Calling it like I see it and all that.”

She shrugged lightly and pulled her long braid around from her back to let it hang over her shoulder. As she fiddled with it, I saw that her fingernails were bitten down to the quick. “Don’t think I’m not grateful you’re here,”

she continued. “Everyone calls that same hotline, and usually nobody comes for them. Anyhow, you’re smart, right? Went to some fancy schools, I bet. You’ll figure it out. Then you’ll just tell me what I need to do. And trust me, I will do it because I have got to get out of this place.”

Her words helped, yanking me back from the abyss of self-doubt that had been pulling at me. Yes, exactly. I would figure this out, just like I’d mastered so many other areas of the law. And then we would work together to get Isobel back to her old life. There was no time to waste.

I launched into the interview questions I’d prepared and started to find my groove. Isobel answered one question after another, explaining that when she’d been sent to the United States from Mexico as a toddler, it was because her mother couldn’t afford to care for her back home. Isobel was raised by her grandparents in East Tremont, New York, where she’d made friends, gone to school, and met her long-term boyfriend, Iggy. She and Iggy had always planned to get married but never quite got around to it, and then Iggy drowned in a fishing accident shortly before Isobel was arrested by ICE for marijuana possession. Even though New York had since legalized marijuana, Isobel’s status as undocumented became known to the authorities from the arrest, and her immigration situation was a separate matter for which she could still be held.

“Our daughter, Sia, she’s about to turn eleven,”

Isobel said, all her features softening as she mentioned the girl. “She’s living with my grandparents now, and they’re raising her up just like they did me.”

I thought of mentioning that I, too, had been raised by a grandparent, having moved in with my grandmother immediately after my parents died. But this meeting was not about me.

“Money’s always been tight for us,”

Isobel continued. “My grandparents, their English isn’t so great. They work hard, for sure, but things have always been rough. They have enough expenses just looking after themselves and now Sia too. And my abuelo with his diabetes and the gout, and on and on it goes. They’ve got so much debt already.”

I wasn’t sure whether Isobel was trying to explain why she didn’t already have an attorney or why no one had posted a bond for her release. Maybe she was simply elucidating the fact that she hadn’t come from the easiest circumstances.

“I mean, what do they think I’m going to do back in Mexico?”

she asked. “I don’t know anyone there, or where anything is. I’ve been living in this country almost thirty years. Been here since before I could tie my own shoes.”

“Okay, well, the first step,”

I told her, “is to fight for cancelation of the removal order.”

I had more to say, but I was distracted from my next thought when Isobel suddenly started fanning herself furiously with her hand, as if we were sitting outside in oppressive summer heat.

“Oof, I’m sorry,”

she said, shaking her head at me. “I get these hot flashes.”

She rubbed her sleeve across her forehead, and it darkened with sweat.

“Hot flashes?”

I asked, turning back to the manila folder open on the table to look at Isobel’s data. “Aren’t you just thirty?”

Isobel nodded. “Premature menopause. Since a few months back. They had to remove my uterus.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry,”

I answered, processing how Isobel was already finished bearing children even though she was still a young woman. Nearly the same age as me. I wondered what that was like for Isobel, to know that even once she was outside the facility, she would never, under any circumstance, be pregnant again. “Were you sick? Oh!”

My hand shot to my mouth, as if to prevent more words from escaping unbidden. “That’s your private medical business. Please. You don’t need to answer that.”

“No, I don’t mind.”

Isobel shook her head. “Just had some cramping, see, and the doctor said I had a cyst on my ovary, said they could fix it . . .”

She trailed off, squinting her eyes like she was searching her mind for more information. “I don’t know. Once I woke up and they told me what they’d done, I guess there wasn’t anything else to ask, you know?”

I wasn’t sure I’d understood properly.

“Are you saying they removed your uterus and didn’t tell you until afterward? They didn’t explain everything to you in advance?”

Isobel hesitated a moment.

“I don’t . . .”

Her eyes shuttered for a moment. “I’ve been trying not to think about it too much, mostly.”

My mind jumped without warning to the baby I’d lost so many months before and the doctor’s promises that Vance and I would still have plenty of time to create our perfect family. I pushed away the thoughts, scribbling the words “adequate medical care”

onto my memo pad and putting three large question marks beside it.

Meanwhile, Isobel cocked her head and looked off to the side, like she was still trying to remember something.

“No one ever said it just like that,”

she finally answered. “There was a lot they talked about that day in the exam room, risks to my health if we didn’t deal with the cyst, issues with insurance. But then that was that.”

She wiped her hands together like she was ridding them of crumbs. “No use dwelling on it now. The important thing is that I find a way to stay in this country with my daughter.”

I wanted to ask why cramping might lead so quickly to a hysterectomy, but I hadn’t been called to Hydeford to discuss Isobel’s medical history. I quickly crossed out the question in my notebook, drawing several dark lines through it. I had to respect my client’s wishes and stay on task, no matter the feeling of unease that was burgeoning in my gut.

“Let’s talk about your arrest,”

I said instead. “Can you tell me about what your job was at the time?”

Isobel let out a long sigh.

“I was working as a manicurist,”

she said. “I was good at it too. My customers learned they had to call ahead, by at least three days usually, if they wanted to get the seat across from me.”

I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for Isobel. Going to her job as a manicurist one day and being incarcerated in an immigration detention center the next.

As we talked more about Isobel’s circumstances and her daughter, Sia, I wondered whether I might be able to prove that Isobel’s case qualified for the “extremely unusual hardship to a child”

exception to removal orders. That avenue could potentially prevent a deportation. But I didn’t know what conditions would constitute an extremely unusual hardship. Thus far, I’d read only the file of materials Legal Aid had provided in advance of the meeting, and I was starting to realize that I needed to do much more research on my own.

I berated myself again for thinking I could waltz into an ICE facility and save someone’s entire future based on only a couple hours’ worth of reading. I’d have to learn so much more about immigration law, everything I could, in order to give this woman the best chance of success. In the meantime, I continued peppering her with questions, copying down notes furiously. It would have been so much easier had I been allowed to bring in my laptop.

I was startled from my focus when Isobel put her hand up to her throat and asked, “You think we could take a break for some water?”

“Oh.”

I halted midscribble and glanced at the wall clock behind her. “My goodness. I’ve had you talking for nearly two and a half hours. No wonder you’re parched. Yeah, you know what, I have enough. We should wrap up for the day. I’ll get to work on all of this, and then I’ll make another appointment so we can fill in any gaps if necessary.”

I began to push back my chair so I could ring the call button for the guard, but Isobel took hold of my wrist, stopping me.

“Thank you,”

she said, holding eye contact.

“Oh, you’re sweating,”

I responded without thinking.

“I’m telling you,”

Isobel said, laughing lightly, “these hot flashes are no joke.”

As I drove north on the Turnpike, heading back toward Manhattan, my mind raced.

I thought of the many legal sourcebooks and journals I wanted to review that evening, trying to keep a mental tally of what to tackle after I finished dinner with my grandmother.

I’d been meeting my mom’s mother for dinner at the Dreamland Diner on the Upper East Side once a month, religiously, ever since I started college.

In the past couple of years, I’d begun to feel that the monthly visits weren’t enough.

Gram was in her eighties, and her mortality suddenly felt glaring to me, even though she was still in relatively robust physical health.

Recently, I’d been asking for plans with increasing frequency; museum outings, weekend brunches, walks around the neighborhood.

I wanted to soak up all the time I could with her, especially since I’d begun to worry I might never have another blood relative.

As I approached the George Washington Bridge, I thought more about my new client, Isobel, wondering about her childhood and whether she and I might have had similar experiences growing up despite our different backgrounds.

It sounded like Isobel’s grandparents had sacrificed so much to raise her.

Having always been so focused on my own suffering, I hadn’t given much thought to what my grandmother might have sacrificed, becoming responsible for a child again in her midsixties.

When I moved in, newly orphaned at age twelve, she had showered me with hugs and attention, trying single-handedly to fill the void left by the car crash that killed my parents.

They’d been on their way home from parent-teacher conferences when they hit a patch of black ice.

For all the years that followed, Gram showed nothing but affection and pride in me, guiding me and loving me.

But maybe it hadn’t always been so easy to be pseudomother to her grandchild, to have to give up the freedoms of later adulthood.

Perhaps it was time I asked her these questions myself.

As I pulled into a spot in the parking garage, I felt a familiar gush between my legs.

But I prayed I’d mistaken the sensation.

It couldn’t be my period, not yet.

It was three days early.

Maybe it had just been my imagination, or random bladder leakage.

Or plain old sweat.

But in my heart, I knew.

It was the end of another cycle, another month of wasted effort and fruitless hope.

As I reset my imagined pregnancy timeline yet again, my thoughts flashed to Isobel and how that high-spirited woman’s body had been altered irrevocably, in a manner that would prevent her from ever having another child.

Even with the disappointment of passing time, at least I still had a chance.