Page 6 of Counting Backwards

“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 myselfto 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 & Lowe.” My words were emerging stilted and stiff, like a script I’d rehearsed. “We partner with Legal Aid periodically. I’m here to help you with your application for a stay of deportation.” I opened my memo pad to take notes, then accidentally knocked both pens to the floor. Sweat was forming on my brow, and I wiped at it as I leaned down for my pens.

“Girl,” Isobel said, “how come you’re the one who’s nervous? It’s my ass on the line.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but I couldn’t think of how to answer.

“I’m your first immigration client; 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 naïve 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 byher 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 myabuelowith 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 frommy 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.