Counting Backwards

11

Jessa

March 2022

Sunday was always my favorite day of the week. Usually, Sundays meant brunches and long walks with Vance or running a couple of frivolous errands before catching up on work that had spilled over from the prior week. But Vance was out of town, and even if he’d been home, I’d still have felt off-kilter, probably even worse. I sat at the Formica table in the narrow kitchen of the apartment where my grandmother raised me, flipping through the pages of a celebrity gossip magazine. Gram was at the sink, sponging pink globs of Goddard’s silver polish onto a tarnished serving spoon. A pile of old serving utensils rested on a dish towel beside the sink, waiting to be freed of their black and purple stains.

“Stop reading that garbage,”

Gram said. “It’s obvious you’re stewing about something over there, so you might as well spit it out.”

I looked down at the magazine and laughed. “I’m not the one who subscribes to these rags.”

Closing the cover, I took in the glossy photos on the front. In one corner was a picture captioned, “Tom and Gisele: At Each Other’s Throats!”

Maybe it should have made me feel better about all the recent arguing with Vance that there were other couples—even rich and famous ones—who couldn’t get along either. But for the moment, my focus was elsewhere.

“I can’t get Hydeford out of my head,”

I confessed. “The fact that multiple women had their reproductive organs altered without their permission. I’m just so outraged. We still live in a world filled with monsters—awful, awful humans—and I guess I’m just trying to process it all. It’s filling me up with all these warring emotions.”

Gram put down the spoon and turned to face me.

“Monsters,”

she repeated, and I couldn’t tell if she was agreeing or reproaching me for the unproductive comment. “Why don’t you try to name what you’re feeling?”

This was something we’d done ever since I was a kid. She said it increased emotional regulation and self-compassion.

I thought for a moment, trying to determine which sentiment was most prominent for me at the moment. “I’m feeling a lot,”

I said. “Anger, shock, disgust, helplessness, fear. I’m also feeling motivated, thanks to you. If you hadn’t pushed me the way you did . . .”

I paused, not even wanting to vocalize how I might not have followed up on the situation at the center. I never would have seen the ugly truth for what it was without her prodding. “It’s just a lot to digest. Maybe you could distract me with something else?”

She studied me for a moment, her light eyes traveling over my face, like she wanted to say more. “All right,”

she breathed finally. “Go get my box of photos, if you want. It’s on the nightstand on Grandpa’s side.”

Three months earlier at Christmas, Vance’s parents had given Gram a picture frame, which she immediately displayed on a credenza in the living room. But she’d never bothered to put a photo in it. “You’ve spent long enough admiring this beautiful couple,”

I’d laughed earlier that morning, pulling out the insert that had come from the store.

“We’ll find a different picture for the frame,”

Gram said, “but throw that awful tabloid in the bin on your way.”

I tossed the magazine back on the pile of mail where I’d found it and started toward my grandparents’ bedroom. “We both know you’re going to read it from cover to cover right after I leave,”

I called over my shoulder.

When I reached the end of the hallway, the floral, citrusy smell of Gram’s Jean Naté After Bath Splash was as strong as ever. The shoebox full of photos waited in the same spot as always, on the bedside table next to a stack of my grandfather’s business books. Grandpa Walter had died decades earlier, when I was only seven years old. Gram had long since gotten rid of most of his things, but she’d left his nightstand as he’d always kept it, filled with his books and reading glasses and vitamin bottles. I thought maybe Gram liked to open her eyes to that view every morning. Maybe it allowed her to pretend, just for a moment after she woke up each day, that her husband was still alive.

I crouched down for the Cole Haan box that contained many old photographs, but before grabbing it, I paused to admire the framed picture still on Grandpa’s beside table. It was a shot of me when I was about six years old, wearing a glittery leotard and posing onstage at a dance competition. I lifted the photo and studied my younger self. The smile on my overly made-up lips was as wide as possible. I could still remember that dance, a sassy number I performed to “My Lovin’”

by En Vogue. Back then, I had adored dancing and might’ve even been talented at it. But after my parents died, I just couldn’t do it anymore. Without their smiling faces watching me from the audience, I just didn’t see any point.

Looking down at the picture, I suddenly realized why I’d felt so strange when Isobel mentioned the doctor telling her to count backwards from ten. My father used to tell me the exact same thing right before I went onstage as a kid. I hadn’t thought about that in forever, but now it all came flooding back to me. His words had been like a shorthand message. Whenever I was afraid to try something, instead of giving me a long, boring speech, my father would tell me, “Count backwards from ten, and then it’s showtime.”

A knot grew in my throat as I remembered. How could I have forgotten that? It had been something so special between us. I had a pang thinking of how many other special things I must have forgotten—about both of them.

Count backwards from ten. Isobel and Denise had heard the same phrase right before being victimized. The thought horrified me. I wished my dad was still here so I could tell him about the women I’d met. As I pictured his deep hazel eyes and his bushy hair, I was pretty sure I knew what he would say.

I wiped at my eyes and put the ceramic frame back in its place, returning my attention to the box. I’d been through the photos inside countless times over the years, poring over images of my mother from the 1960s, a child with unruly, curly pigtails, then later as a teenager in the ’70s, her hair styled into a puffier version of Farrah Fawcett wings. My favorite pictures were from the 1990s, when I started appearing in the images too, a baby in my mother’s arms.

With the box in hand, I returned to the kitchen table and lifted off the dusty top. Gram was back at the sink working on the next piece of silver.

“Is there a specific picture you want me to find?”

As I reached into the pile of photos, my phone chimed from inside my tote bag on the floor. I twisted around to reach for it, but she interrupted me.

“Hey now,”

she said, glancing back to fix me with a halting stare. “I thought we were finished with working eight days a week.”

“You know what?”

I removed my hand from the bag and held it up, showing my empty palm as proof. “You’re right. I’m not at their beck and call anymore.”

I wondered for a second if it might be Vance calling, but then I remembered his flight schedule. As the phone continued buzzing inside my bag, I willfully ignored it.

“Not at their beck and call?”

Gram repeated. “Didn’t you work late Friday night and then spend the whole day at the office yesterday?”

“Not for any paying clients,” I said.

After meeting with Denise, I hadn’t wasted a moment. I’d begun researching case law on medical care in detention facilities, retaliatory actions by correctional officers, prisoners’ rights, and the requirements for consent in medical procedures. I still needed more proof, but so far, everything pointed toward the women at Hydeford having a strong case against the facility and potentially even the federal government. I was trying to figure out what relief to seek, how to get justice for the women who’d been harmed, and how to prevent any further damage.

“It was for the women at the detention center. I wanted to do it while Vance was away.”

Gram blinked twice. I hated how she always managed to see right through me.

“You haven’t told him you’re looking into the surgeries?”

“No, I did,”

I said, but I could see by the tilt of her head that she knew I was holding something back. “I mean, partially, just broad strokes about medical mistreatment,”

I admitted. “But then he told me I should hand the whole thing off to another attorney. He’s not behind me on this, and . . . I don’t know, I guess I just didn’t feel like listening to him discount any more of my ideas or the reasons why it’s important for me to be involved.”

She nodded slowly, putting down the cake server she was holding and drying her hands on a dish towel.

“I’m going to tell him,”

I hedged. “I mean, I’ll have to. It’s not as if I can move forward on a case like this in secret. But I’m not ready to talk to him yet.”

“I want to argue with you,”

Gram said, pausing as her gaze seemed to shift inward. Then she shook her head. “But who am I to preach brutal honesty when I only just told you about my father and all the ways his crusade affected our family?”

She picked up another utensil but then put it back down. “Sometimes we’re just not ready to share certain things, and I suppose that has to be all right. You don’t have to beat yourself up over needing a moment to come clean.”

My nose prickled, the level of understanding in her words threatening to make me weepy.

“Thanks, Gram,”

I said, clearing my throat.

“Well, that’s settled then.”

She tapped her hand against the counter before coming to sit beside me. “Let’s find ourselves a photo.”

Pulling the box of pictures closer, she began riffling through them.

“Maybe this one,”

she said, lifting one from the messy pile. “One of my all-time favorites.”

It was a picture of me and Mom. We were at some zoo in Florida where we’d been allowed to feed milk to a baby tiger from a dropper. When the cub yawned, my mom had screamed in terror, thinking the animal was going to bite little eight-year-old me. When Gram snapped the photo, we were laughing over Mom’s oversized reaction, our faces pink. Our grins stretched wide as ever as we looked at each other with glee.

“I can’t believe that place actually let people hold the tigers,”

I said, staring down at the picture with a smile. “It’s hard to imagine anyone allowing something like that now.”

I often thought about how much the world had changed since my parents died, all the things that would be new to them—iPhones, Uber, streaming services, my trusty Alexa. But then I thought about what was going on at Hydeford and worried that maybe there were still too many things that hadn’t changed at all.

Gram pulled out another photo and held it up. It was my mom as a toddler in the 1960s, sitting in a sandbox with two little boys. My eyes drifted to the swing set behind them and the old-fashioned cars in the background before I looked back at the kids.

“I mean, the clothes these poor children are wearing.”

I laughed lightly as I examined the sweater vests and saddle shoes for another moment and then glanced up at Gram.

“I used to love to dress your mother,”

she said wistfully. “The sailor dresses and bows.”

She shook her head. “It was a different time, not like when you were a kid with your neon sweatshirts and ripped jeans. How we made it through.”

She looked toward the ceiling with a what can you do? gesture.

“I still don’t understand why you won’t just put these in an album.”

“Don’t start.”

She looked back at me with a mock frown. “We all have our quirks. Leave me be.”

Except maybe I did understand now. After I’d heard more about Gram’s childhood, everything was clearer. That day when Gram and I went walking in the freezing cold, she’d opened up about so much I’d never heard before. She told me that Grandpa Harry had been part of a tight-knit community of scientists and medical professionals, many of whom had been investigating methods of eradicating certain human genetic abnormalities. When Carrie Buck’s case went to trial, everything came to a head. Gram’s voice had faltered as she’d restated the facts of the case and what had led Carrie to court—how frighteningly similar it was to what was happening at Hydeford. Grandpa Harry stood up to the scientists and politicians though, filing his own brief with the court in hopes of defeating their agenda and defending Carrie’s rights. Gram said his activism cost him his job and his good name.

No research institutions would hire him after that. The eugenics community had dubbed him a troublemaker and a naysayer, smearing his reputation however they could. When Gram’s family’s money began to run out, they had to leave their home on Long Island to start over in a new place. They even changed their last name so the negative publicity wouldn’t follow them. It was years before they were back on their feet. Eventually, my great-grandpa was able to open the clinic I’d always heard about, but as Gram had made clear, the years in between were incredibly difficult. Their family had been ostracized by so many along the way.

It was no wonder she often avoided talking about parts of her past. Unlike Gram, I had the luxury of looking back at her story and seeing only the heroism and selflessness of it all, but for her, so many upsetting memories remained.

Rather than argue, I did as she bid, continuing to sort through the remaining pictures. We finally settled on a photo for the frame, a shot of Gram and Grandpa Walt as young adults on a tourist trip to London. After positioning the picture inside the glass, I returned the frame to its spot in the living room and then stepped back to study the younger versions of my grandparents. They were huddled under a red umbrella with wide, toothy grins on their faces and Big Ben in the background. Neither of them had any idea then that they’d have only a few more years to enjoy each other. I’d long known that my grandparents had an intense love affair, one that lasted until the day my grandpa died. I wondered if they’d have been that blissful if Gram had kept secrets from her husband too.

My phone let out another little chime, and I remembered that Tate might be looking for me. We had talked earlier in the week about meeting for a walk at the Reservoir that afternoon.

I returned to the kitchen and nudged Gram away from the sink so I could extract the trash bin from the cabinet beneath it.

“What else can I do for you before I head out?”

I asked as I hoisted the full bag out of the bin and tied the handles closed.

“I’ve been taking care of myself just fine for decades. Go enjoy your Sunday.”

She gave me a gentle shove on the arm. “If I need anything else, I’ll ask Manny.”

The weekend doorman, Manny, had been doting on her forever, becoming indispensable to her as both handyman and friend.

After I hugged Gram goodbye, I carried the trash to the rubbish room in the hallway on my way to the elevators. While I waited, I pulled out my phone and saw that Tate had indeed texted. Instead of an outdoor walk, she suggested we avoid the rainstorm that was now predicted for the afternoon and meet to sample cosmetics at Bloomingdale’s instead.

Below Tate’s text was another message from a number I didn’t recognize, all written in Spanish. As the elevator doors opened and I stepped inside, I lamented that Spanish was a language I’d never learned. I puzzled over the message, deciphering only a few of the words.

“Si, podría hablar con usted, pero no hablo inglés. Espero que no sea problema. Yo trabajo hasta las seis y media, pero usted podría venir a mi casa después de esa hora. Estoy libre el miércoles. Déjeme saber si le parece bien.”

Then a follow-up came through from the same number.

“Soy Jacinta Morales,”

the message announced.

“Oh!”

I said aloud as I saw her name.

When the nurse had handed me that note at the detention facility, she’d written down the name Jacinta Morales with a partial address. After just a little digging, I’d been able to find a phone number for a Jacinta Morales on the very street listed. A landline. I hadn’t determined yet how the woman was connected to Hydeford, whether as an inmate or maybe another nurse or staff member. But I felt certain the nurse at the facility had been trying to help by slipping the name into my hand. With any luck, the woman would be able to corroborate some aspect of what was happening at Hydeford and maybe even provide some insight into how to convince Isobel and Denise to take action.

I had called Jacinta’s number the day before and left a voicemail, saying I hoped she might be able to shed light on services a client at Hydeford needed. I’d kept the message intentionally vague, worried that if I disclosed the true nature of my call, she’d get frightened and refuse to meet.

I examined the message again. The only information I was able to cull from the text was that Jacinta didn’t speak English. Three years studying Mandarin during high school was completely useless in this moment. I wondered if maybe Jacinta could understand spoken English but struggled to write it. I pressed my thumb to the phone number above the text, considering trying my luck with another call—but then I thought better of it. I was too anxious to find out why the nurse had pointed me in Jacinta’s direction and didn’t want to bungle anything by trying to communicate too hastily.

As the elevator doors opened into the lobby, I could see rain falling outside the building’s floor-to-ceiling windows. I emerged reluctantly into the dampness of the afternoon and headed toward the subway. As I walked, I dialed Tate.

“Do you speak Spanish?”

I asked. The rain was only a light mist around me, but it was still wet enough to warrant digging through my tote for the umbrella buried deep inside. I passed by a crowded restaurant where a cluster of outdoor tables was jammed full of boisterous weekend customers. The patrons were mostly fresh-faced hipster types who looked to be in their early twenties. Large patio umbrellas with stripes of burgundy and ochre shielded the tables from the mist, leaving the diners to continue their revelry dry and unbothered. How nice it must be for them, I thought, as I wondered about their careers, these young people who could find time to drag Sunday brunches well into the middle of the afternoon.

There had been a time when Vance and I were part of that brunch scene, urban professionals spending our Sundays waiting in line at Barney Greengrass or lounging on hotel rooftops with mimosas in hand. But neither of us had really managed to lean into those experiences. We were both too focused on our careers, antsy to get back to the assignments waiting on our laptops. Our friend Lou had given Vance so much grief for constantly checking his phone that Vance eventually decided we should just stop going to those big group gatherings. I remember thinking back then it was a relief—like we had found time for getting more work done.

Putting in those extra weekend hours was supposed to propel us both toward unparalleled success. At least it had paid off for Vance, who’d managed to remain the permanent darling of his investment bank even while building a labor-intensive podcast on the side.

“Not really,”

Tate answered, bringing me back to the moment. “I took it in high school and one year of college. I could order you a great drink at a bar in Cancún, but that’s about it.”

“I’m going to forward you a text. See what you can make out.”

“You do know you can just Google Translate it, right?”

Tate asked.

“Can you just look at it for me? My hands are full, and it’s starting to rain.”

“I’ll do my best,”

she offered.

I took the phone from my ear and sent off the text.

“Got it,”

Tate said. Then she went quiet as she took a moment to read the message. “This is for your immigration case?”

she asked.

“Yeah. It’s a witness I want to interview.”

“It’s pretty basic stuff,”

Tate said. “She says she can meet with you but she doesn’t speak English. She works until six thirty, but you can come after. And then she said she could see you on miércoles.”

“What’s miércoles?”

“Uh . . .”

She sounded sheepish. “It’s either Tuesday or Wednesday. Or it might be Thursday. I’m Googling now.”

“Do you think I should call her back?”

I asked as I neared the stairwell to the subway. “Or maybe text her and hope she has someone who can translate what I’ve written?”

I moved under the awning of L’étoile, a French patisserie Gram loved, and leaned against the cool bricks beside the window. I didn’t want to go underground and lose reception before I was finished with the call.

“Yeah, but what about when you actually meet with her? The firm can pay for an interpreter.”

“Maybe.”

I wasn’t ready to tell the powers that be about this other potential aspect of my new pro bono assignment. “This isn’t really part of the actual case I was assigned. I’m still just collecting information.”

“Oh!”

Tate suddenly blurted into the phone, her voice rising with excitement. “You know who speaks Spanish? Dustin Ortiz. You should ask him.”

“Ugh, no,”

I groaned. “I am not asking him for anything.”

“I still don’t get your aversion to him, Jess. He’s a pretty good guy.”

“Different strokes for different folks,”

I said. “I’m at the subway. See you at Bloomie’s.”

“If you’d rather go find a weekend happy hour, I’d be game for that too,”

she offered. “Nachos and margaritas make rainy days so much sunnier.”

“Nah, I’m trying to cut down on alcohol.”

“You are?”

She knew how much I loved a glass of good Chardonnay. “Wait, you’re not off alcohol because . . .”

She let the suggestion hang in the air.

“No, I am most definitely not pregnant.”

I failed to conceal the dejection in my voice, even though I hadn’t told Tate everything I was doing to get pregnant or how I was doubling down on my attempts to make it happen.

I’d read that alcohol could disrupt ovulation. So in addition to tracking my nutrient intake, avoiding antihistamines, swearing off raw fish, and limiting caffeine to tragically low levels, alcohol was out.

It had been months already since I’d whispered excitedly to Tate that Vance and I were trying for a baby. My continued silence about it ever since probably spoke all the volume it needed to.

“This will work out,”

Tate said gently. “You’ll see. Now hurry up and meet me.”

“Yeah. See you soon.”

As I started down the stairs toward the train, I wished I could be as much of an optimist as my friend. Instead, I was focused on all the things that could still go wrong.

* * *

The next day at work, I caught sight of Dustin walking past my office door and almost called out to him. He was carrying a paper coffee cup in one hand and what looked like a box of bakery treats in the other. I could just imagine all the admins swooning over him as he dropped off the croissants and muffins he’d picked up for them. There was something so self-important about him that just got under my skin. I closed my mouth before calling his name.

An hour later, I forced myself out of my chair. I still hadn’t come up with a better idea for interviewing Jacinta Morales in a language I didn’t speak. I couldn’t allow my personal feelings to interfere with the investigation, not when so much was at stake. As I walked toward Dustin’s office at the other end of the hallway, I passed his office mate, another first-year associate named Helen, fawning over the box of pastries with a few others in the kitchen alcove.

When I reached his office, I knocked lightly on the open glass door.

“Hey, do you have a sec?”

Dustin looked up from his computer, swiveling in his chair to face me head-on. He wore his typical uniform of khakis and a French-blue button-down shirt with silver cuff links. His sandy hair was perfectly in place as always, curling just a little at the collar. I imagined he’d gone to great effort to achieve the admittedly disarming look.

“Sure. What’s up?”

I was quiet for a beat too long as I gathered my thoughts, and his eyes began to narrow.

“You’re about to saddle me with more document review, aren’t you? It’s fine—I can make time if it’s too much for you.”

He started clearing some space on top of his desk.

Right, because the great Dustin Ortiz could handle anything. Despite my urge to scoff at his “anything you can do, I can do better”

attitude, I forced myself to stay on task.

“No, not at all,”

I said, noting that I was suddenly nervous to tell him what I needed. The issues I was researching about the women at Hydeford felt private. It was unnerving to share my thoughts on the topic, especially with a man—and a man I didn’t care for at that.

“Do you think Helen would mind if I sat for a minute?”

I motioned toward the empty desk chair.

“Please.”

Dustin held out a hand in invitation.

I tried to steady myself with a deep breath as I turned the chair to face him and sat.

“So you know how I’ve been working on an immigration case?”

“Yeah, I heard that.”

He nodded, leaning toward his desk to pick up a small blue stress ball nestled beside his penholder. He started tossing it from one hand to the other as his dark eyes surveyed me. “It’s impressive that you’re finding time for pro bono work with all the other cases you’re staffed on. You’re the lead on, what, four other cases right now?”

I couldn’t decide if he was being snarky or genuine, so I just plowed on with what I’d come to say. “I might have stumbled upon some medical abuse at the detention facility, but I’m not sure. There’s a woman who may have useful information for the case. Truthfully, I don’t know much about her except that she’s living in Brooklyn. And I want to interview her, but she doesn’t speak English.”

“Ah.”

Dustin’s head moved up in the start of a slow nod. “You want me to be your interpreter.”

I nodded back, hoping he was on board.

“But the case is non-billable,” he said.

“Correct.”

Of course he’d want to hound the point that I’d sunk to the level of asking the great Dustin Ortiz for a favor.

“So then”—he put out his empty hand, palm up—“what’s in it for me?”

“Ugh, forget it.”

I popped up from my seat so fast that the chair banged against the wall behind me. “I knew I shouldn’t have asked you,”

I snapped as I turned on my heel.

“Wait, Jessa. I’ll do it.”

I paused and turned back to face him.

“I just meant, like, can I track these hours as if I’m on the case with you?”

“You should be aware,”

I answered in a defensive tone, “that your pro bono hours won’t count one iota toward building a track record for making partner. Sometimes you can just do someone a favor without a quid pro quo.”

“Look, I wasn’t trying to be a dick,”

he said, “but you know as well as anyone that it’s a rat race out there, and we’re not all as good at juggling as you are.”

He paused, glancing at the little ball he was still holding. “Impressive stress ball demonstrations aside.”

He smiled sheepishly, and my bravado dimmed.

I was the one who needed help, after all, and I could try, one more time, to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. “Sorry, yes, of course. I’ll tell Don Halperin that I needed you, and I’ll make sure to let him know afterward that you were invaluable. We’ll just try to keep the hours down for you so I’m not depleting firm resources. In the meantime”—I walked back toward him and held out my phone—“can you please text this woman and tell her we’ll be there on Wednesday night?”

* * *

That Wednesday evening, I pulled to a stop in front of house number 176 on a tightly packed block in Brooklyn. For the majority of our car ride from Manhattan, Dustin had been stuck on a conference call about another case, which was just as well. Listening in on a discussion about another securities case seemed preferable to having to make conversation with him. As it turned out though, Dustin stayed silent nearly the entire time he was on the phone. With the exception of a few words of agreement, he appeared to be observing the call simply to learn. I was surprised by his deferential behavior, as I so rarely saw him hold his tongue.

As I pressed the button to turn off the ignition, Dustin removed the buds from his ears.

“Perfect timing,”

he said. “Call just finished.”

We stepped out of the car, and I took in our surroundings. The street was filled with petite two-story houses piled so close to each other that the trash cans could barely fit between any two homes. Most houses had wrought-iron fences surrounding their walkways and square patches of grass in their tiny front yards. For all the years I’d lived in New York, this part of Bensonhurst was somewhere I’d never been. I’d always thought Bensonhurst was primarily an Italian-American neighborhood, but I’d learned since Jacinta’s text that it also included a thriving Guatemalan community.

I pushed open the gate and began making my way to the front door.

“No,”

Dustin said from behind me. “She said they’re in the back apartment.”

He pointed toward a short, concrete stairwell on the side of the house, the front door about four steps up.

“Did she tell you how many people she lives with?”

I asked, berating myself for only thinking to ask that question now. I’d already hit Dustin with a barrage of questions about his brief call with Jacinta. He’d managed to ascertain that she had been detained at Hydeford, but only for a matter of weeks.

“She just said she lives with her family. I didn’t ask for details,”

he said as he followed me up the steps and then reached over me to push the buzzer.

A wrinkled woman, stooped and fragile looking, appeared on the other side of the screened door.

“Come, come,”

she said briskly in accented English, pushing open the door and beckoning us in before we even introduced ourselves.

We stepped inside, and I was hit immediately by the alluring scent of savory food—garlic, onions, something fried—and my stomach rumbled. As we made our way into the tight kitchen, the woman called toward the back of the apartment, shouting Spanish words at a rapid-fire pace.

A moment later, another woman appeared, younger than the first. She was about the same height as my five foot four, with a complexion much fairer than the woman who’d shown us inside. She had dark hair pulled back into a tight bun and wore eyeglasses with bright pink frames. She smiled kindly and motioned to the vinyl-covered chairs at the small table in the room’s center.

“Hola,”

she said, looking at Dustin. “Soy Jacinta.”

Dustin reached out to shake Jacinta’s hand, and I felt an instant jolt of annoyance at how he’d somehow commandeered the meeting from the get-go. But I batted the feeling away just as quickly. Of course Jacinta would speak to Dustin first. He was the one who’d talked to her on the phone, and surely he’d told her about my lack of Spanish skills. I reminded myself that he was only attending this meeting as a favor to me, so I had to be more patient with him.

As we took our seats, a commotion arose from the back hallway, the sounds of young children arguing. Then a man’s voice sounded, emitting an aggravated string of Spanish words, and the bickering stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

Jacinta looked at us sheepishly and said something to Dustin.

“Her niece and nephew,”

Dustin interpreted.

I smiled warmly at Jacinta as I pulled my laptop from my tote, placing it on the table.

“Dustin, please tell Jacinta,”

I started, “that we’re grateful she’s willing to help us with our client at Hydeford and that we’ll try to keep our questioning brief.”

Dustin interpreted and Jacinta nodded. She glanced over at me and smiled. I understood the expression as a tacit apology that we couldn’t communicate directly, and I offered a matching smile in return.

Then, through Dustin, I launched into a series of questions: Did Jacinta know Isobel Pérez at the facility? How close had the two women become to each other? Did Jacinta ever see Isobel being mistreated by any of the guards? And so on. Jacinta answered everything, responding to Dustin in a tone that sounded cooperative and sympathetic throughout. As she talked, Jacinta periodically glanced back to me as if for approval. She was chatty, giving lengthy responses to each of the questions, seemingly glad to be helpful.

Then I asked if she knew Dr. Choudry. Even before Dustin interpreted the question, Jacinta’s smile faded.

“Sí.”

I waited for more, but she just lifted her chin and said nothing.

“Ask her if she knows about what the doctor did to Isobel.”

This time, Jacinta offered a longer response, and it was impossible to miss the outraged tenor of her clipped words.

“Yes,”

Dustin said, meeting my eye. “She knows Dr. Choudry and will never forgive that woman for the things she has done.”

“Woman?”

I asked, confused. “What woman?”

“Dr. Choudry,” he said.

“No,”

I corrected him. “Dr. Choudry is the doctor from the women’s health clinic, a man.”

Dustin repeated my words in Spanish, and Jacinta looked back at me.

“Dr. Choudry es una mujer. La misma.”

I turned wide-eyed to Dustin, assuming Jacinta must be confused.

“She’s talking about the same doctor. Dr. Choudry,”

Dustin said.

“But . . .”

I couldn’t continue. I was struck dumb trying to process this new piece of information. It had never crossed my mind that the doctor might possibly be a woman. I had just assumed from the beginning that Choudry was a man, but now as I mentally replayed my meetings with Denise and Isobel, I couldn’t remember them ever specifying one way or the other. How on earth could a woman be butchering other women in the ways that had been described?

“Dr. Choudry is a woman?”

I asked again, feeling stupefied by what sounded like the ultimate betrayal.

“Sí,”

Jacinta answered.

Stunned, I found myself at a loss for what to ask next. So many questions were suddenly swirling through my mind, making so much noise I couldn’t actually hear my thoughts at all.

But then Jacinta began talking to Dustin, saying something new. He glanced at me as she continued to speak at length, but he didn’t interpret. After the revelation about Dr. Choudry, I was almost glad for the reprieve, a moment to pause instead of having to process any additional sucker punches. But as Jacinta’s comments began to stretch into something of a monologue, I found myself growing frustrated. After two minutes dragged out to four or five, I finally gave Dustin’s foot a little kick under the table.

“Hey,”

I said, trying to remind them both I was still there.

Dustin held up his finger, instructing me to wait, and it was all I could do not to smack his finger back down.

Finally, he turned back to me, his eyes wider than I’d ever seen them.

“They’re sterilizing the women,”

he said, his voice thick, like he had something stuck in his throat.

I sighed. “Yes, that’s why we’re here. To find out about it.”

“No.”

Dustin shook his head. “I mean, I knew you mentioned medical abuse, but this . . . You never said anything like this. How can that be happening?”

He ran a hand through his hair and let out a long breath.

I knew it was hard to believe. Here we were in 2022, and women were being sterilized against their will. I still couldn’t parse out what would be motivating the doctor, the guards, the government, to let this happen. Was it because the women were foreigners? People of color? Less educated? Or was it a scam involving money from insurance payments? Maybe all of the above.

“It’s barbaric,”

Dustin said. His eyes darted around the room, as if he’d gone into fight-or-flight mode. “In our own country. My God, Jessa . . . This is really serious.”

His usually sunny face had drained of color.

“Yes, Dustin, I’m aware.”

Perhaps I should have been gentler, given him another moment to adjust. At least his first reaction had been one of trust; he’d believed Jacinta and whatever she’d told him. It was probably more than I had expected of him, but I was too focused on what was happening at Hydeford to waste time reconsidering any part of my perception of him.

“What else did she just say?”

“Other women in the facility complained, but then they were deported.”

Jacinta watched Dustin closely as he continued relaying her words. “She’s willing to tell us more about what Dr. Choudry did, but she doesn’t want to be involved beyond that. It’s behind her now, she says. She just wants to forget what they did to her.”

“To her? To Jacinta?”

Dustin glanced back at Jacinta.

“Is okay,”

she said in English, giving him permission to continue.

“They removed her uterus,”

Dustin said quietly.

“She . . .”

I looked over at Jacinta, who met my eyes and nodded. “But I thought you were a witness,”

I said, forgetting that Jacinta wouldn’t understand the English words.

“Sounds like she’s both,”

Dustin answered quietly. “Witness and victim. She was only in detention for thirty days,”

Dustin said. “For filling out a form improperly when her green card expired. She said she didn’t even complain of any physical problems before they brought her to the clinic. They told her the visit was a routine checkup, so she assumed it was protocol for all the women when they first arrived. But the doctor did some tests and said she needed to have a procedure to remove two cysts. When she woke up, her uterus and ovaries had been taken.”

I felt myself gripping the arms of my chair, attempting to steady myself in the wake of this news. It was too much.

“Did they tell her beforehand,”

I asked, “that they might remove other organs?”

Dustin repeated the question, and Jacinta shook her head.

“Ellos solo me ponen a dormir,”

she said, then she made a motion to mimic a mask being placed over her nose.

“Nothing. They just put her under.”

Dustin’s voice was so quiet it was nearly a whisper, but I thought I could hear anger simmering underneath.

“Does she have any children?” I asked.

As Dustin interpreted, Jacinta motioned toward the hallway behind the kitchen and said a few words.

“No,”

Dustin answered, and I fought the urge to vomit.

How many more women could there be? How many had been brutalized? I wanted to get up and call the police. This was an emergency, and wasn’t that the thing to do in an emergency? A crime was being committed at that clinic, over and over and over. Someone had to get in there and stop it. But calling the cops wouldn’t achieve anything here. We were up against a government facility shrouded in red tape and a glaring lack of transparency. The most effective way to help the women would unfortunately be the most cumbersome one—filing a lawsuit.

“Did she tell anyone? Complain?” I asked.

Dustin translated and relayed Jacinta’s answer.

“Other women knew about what happened. Some came to her and gave her their condolences.”

His eyes continued to dart between Jacinta and me. “That’s how she put it: condolences.”

He grimaced and then continued. “She stayed in the infirmary for a few days, and then they moved her back to her regular cell. Three different women told her they’d had similar procedures, at the same clinic, all with the same results.”

Condolences. My heart stuttered at the word because it was exactly right. How many times had I heard that word when I was a child—people always wanting to offer their condolences? On one particularly bleak afternoon about two weeks after my parents’ double funeral, I’d actually taken Gram’s dog-eared Merriam-Webster down from the shelf to look for the definition, wondering how this word I didn’t entirely understand was supposed to make me feel. Nothing could change the fact that my parents would never pick me up from dance practice again, never teach me to drive, never watch me graduate high school. Condolences, as it turned out, was just an empty expression of sympathy, an acknowledgment that all was lost. Thinking about what had been taken from Jacinta, I was reminded of what I’d discovered long ago—that the worst kind of sadness was the kind that came with no hope.

“Why didn’t she file a formal complaint?” I asked.

Dustin asked my question.

“Since she only had two weeks until she was getting out, she didn’t say anything. Didn’t want to jeopardize her position, end up getting deported. She had been warned by friends. Of the other women who filed complaints, one was on a plane back to El Salvador the very same day. Jacinta doesn’t know what happened with the other one.”

“Can you explain to her that if she doesn’t speak up, the doctor is going to keep doing this to more women?”

Dustin rattled off a few sentences, and Jacinta started shaking her head.

“And tell her,”

I added almost frantically, “that nobody in the facility has control over her anymore since she’s on the outside. She won’t get in trouble.”

He tried to translate, but I interrupted again.

“She has legal status now. Tell her she’s safe.”

Dustin turned back to Jacinta, but I yanked his arm and interjected once more.

“Tell her that without her, we won’t have a case. We need someone who’s willing to speak up.”

“If you’d let me speak to her, I would.”

He looked down at my hand on his arm, and I instantly withdrew it.

“Sorry, sorry,”

I said, forcing myself to stay quiet after that.

When Dustin’s Spanish words finally trailed off, Jacinta looked from him over to me, her dark eyes pensive. She tilted her head from one side to the other, like she was beginning to think through the possibilities. Glancing at Dustin, I could see cautious optimism in his eyes.

“Please,”

I said in English, hoping the woman would understand. “Think of all the other women like you, still hoping to have children. I can’t imagine what that would be like for a woman who has waited her whole life to have kids”—my voice broke, betraying my emotions, but I kept on—“only for her to find out some stranger has taken that away from her.”

Twin tears escaped from my eyes, racing each other toward my chin.

Dustin began repeating for Jacinta what I’d said, but he continued talking for long enough that I could tell he was adding words of his own. Jacinta interrupted him, and he responded at length, all the while leaving me in the dark. Finally, Dustin finished whatever he’d been saying. Jacinta’s eyes slid back to me, and we were all silent. I wasn’t sure what I’d do if Jacinta refused to work with us. If the women were all too afraid to speak up, how could I even help?

“Sí,”

Jacinta finally said. “Lo haré.”

“She’ll do it,”

Dustin said, his voice still quiet but firm.

Then Jacinta said something else, and from the tone, I could tell she was hedging.

“But she doesn’t want to be the only one,”

Dustin said. “She’ll only do it if you convince others to speak up as well. This is not about her, she said. It’s about all women.”