Page 10 of Counting Backwards

Yet now, with partnership off the table, my plans to follow in my dad’s footsteps had been undeniably disrupted. Taking on additional pro bono work wouldn’t change that. And in fact, my father had often talked about wanting to build a pro bono program at his firm, well before boasting about charitable work was used as a recruiting tool. Even so, it irritated me that Gram was gloating from across the table.

“It was just a client meeting,” I said on a shrug. “The woman was around my age, and nice,” I added, even though that wasn’t really the point. “I feel sorry that she doesn’t have someone more experienced in immigration law to help her.” I glanced down at the menu without reading it. We’d eaten at Dreamland so many times that I could practically recite the options from memory.

“Nonsense,” Gram said. “You’ll do whatever needs to be done.” She motioned to a waiter so we could place our order.

We rattled off our usual requests: eggs over easy with sausage and toast for Gram, a Cobb salad for me. After the waiter left, Gram continued with her questions. The level of curiosity she displayed went well beyond the mild, polite interest she usually showed in my commercial cases. She wanted to know everything—from the layout of the detention center to the number of guards to my every last interaction on the property.

I replayed the long day in my mind’s eye. Everything I’d encountered at the client meeting had been new to me. “I didn’t get to see that much of the place. From what I could tell, it looked mostly how you’d picture a prison, like what they show in the movies. Lots of barbed wire and restricted areas, guards pacing the halls. Some loud machine blowing air. Maybe the biggest surprise was how dirty it was.” I thought of the trash that had lined the walls, and that was just in the places where visitors were permitted. I could only imagine that the interior portions of the facility were in worse condition. “I didn’t see sleeping quarters, but the parts I walked through were pretty dismal.”

“So you didn’t see any cages, like they talk about in the news? Children behind chain-link fences like a dog kennel?” The packet of saltines Gram had taken from the breadbasket earlier lay forgotten on the table as she waited for an answer.

I shook my head, remembering the horrible headlines we’d all seen about the centers closer to the Mexican border.

“No, not today, but this isn’t a facility in Texas. I can’t really speak to what’s going on down there.”

I reached for my glass and took a long sip of ice water, remembering the relief I’d felt when I stepped back into the parking lot after the visit. The biting February wind came as a welcome cleanse after the few hours I’d spent breathing the stagnant air inside the detention center. As I recalled the dispiriting atmosphere, an image of Isobel fanning herself came back to my mind.

“Actually,” I started casually, as if I hadn’t been perseverating during the entire drive home, “my client was hot even with how cold they keep the place. She’s going through premature menopause because of some procedure they did during her detention.”

“A young woman in menopause? What kind of procedure?” Gram asked, her gaze becoming more intense.

“I know,” I said, noticing the way her expression had darkened. “It looks like you’re having the same thought, maybe about some negligence or substandard care. But the client didn’t want to get into it, so I had to let it go.”

“No,” Gram said.

“No, what?”

“Just wait!” she snapped. “Why can’t you wait! Give me a moment.”

I was startled by her outburst, but I closed my mouth and went quiet. It wasn’t the first time my grandmother had displayed excitable behavior recently. I figured this was a “senior moment” taking hold of her, and given her age, I shouldn’t have been surprised to see them happening more frequently these days. Gram turned her eyes up toward the ceiling, as if searching for a thought or maybe just the right words for what she wanted to say, so I waited.

As the silence stretched, my eyes drifted around the room, taking in the other groups of patrons at the kitschy restaurant. I saw a teenaged couple sitting side by side, an elderly man alone, and a table full of middle-aged women in business suits beforemy gaze settled on a young family at a table across the way. Five of them were crammed into a booth: a mom squirting ketchup onto the plate of a toddler, two slightly older boys playing with action figures, and a ruddy-faced man in a cowl-neck sweater. It looked like the dad was telling them all a story. He was smiling and gesticulating, miming shooting a basketball. None of the others were paying much attention to him, or to each other for that matter.

Watching them, I thought about how I had once taken it all for granted too, the simple weekday dinners, my mom’s constant hovering, my dad’s chattering about the different people in his office or someone he’d bumped into at court. If Vance and I ever managed to have the babies we were aiming for, I would make sure to do better, to relish every moment and appreciate how lucky we were. I tried to mentally superimpose my own face onto the mom across the room, Vance’s onto the dad, imagining what it would be like to trade places. All these years after losing my parents, the desire for a picture-perfect family still followed me wherever I went. Except now, in addition to the constant desperation, I also felt a new sensation of panic—the fear that I wouldn’t be able to have a baby, that the family I’d always dreamed of was simply never going to happen.

“Well, don’t you?” Gram asked, and I realized I’d missed the first part of whatever she’d been saying.

“Sorry, what?” I asked, my eyes coming back to hers. “Gram, are you okay?” Her face seemed to have turned even paler than usual.

“You can’t just let it go,” she answered. “You have to protect this woman, make sure she hasn’t been harmed.” Gram had always been a woman of deep passions, but this reaction seemed aggressive, even for her.

“That’s not what I was hired for. It’s not my business.”

She held my gaze silently for a moment, as if trying to make a point. When I didn’t respond, she asked, “Doesn’t it concern you?”

Even though she was putting voice to thoughts I’d been considering myself, I kept reaching the same conclusion: Unless Isobel asked for help or divulged more details, there was nothing I could do about her medical procedure. I shook my head. “She didn’t really want to get into it with me. She’s the client, so she’s in charge.”

Gram slammed her hand against the tabletop, her voice rising as she leaned toward me. “Well, maybe for once in your life, you should take some charge! Stop letting other people make so many decisions for you. Constantly letting other people steer the ship isn’t going to protect you from anything.” She pointed a finger and leaned even closer. “Enough with sheltering your tender heart. Enough coddling yourself!” Spittle flew from her mouth as she finished.

“Whoa!” I reared back. Gram was typically the picture of composure, even in anger. This behavior was so out of character, so much more than the little blips of senility she sometimes displayed, that I was instantly concerned. My thoughts jumped directly to worst-case scenarios, as usual. She might be reaching the beginning of the end, I worried, and faster than I’d realized. I didn’t know if I could confront a life without Gram in it. I wasn’t ready to be the last one from my biological family left on the entire earth.

I knew what I was doing.Catastrophizing. Another term my therapist taught me back in my teens. Unfortunately, no therapist had yet trained me to prevent myself from racing immediately, and unjustifiably, toward imagining the worst possible outcomes.

Gram inhaled deeply and then began again.

“I’m sorry,” she said, visibly working to calm herself. “It just...” She hesitated. “I hate to think of a young woman deprived of choices like that. Should you not, at least, just ask her about it one more time?”

I was so relieved to see her composure return that I felt willing to agree to anything she suggested. The server reappeared beside our table then, placing a steaming dish in front of Gram and my salad before me.