Counting Backwards

19

Jessa

April 2022

When I awoke, my arm moved reflexively toward Vance’s side of the bed. My fingers found the covers still perfectly in place on his side, as if even the bedding wanted to hound the point that Vance was gone. Really gone. I was still stunned he’d left. I didn’t know where he would have gone. Maybe a friend’s apartment or a hotel. Could he have taken the car and driven out to his parents’ home in Locust Valley? At the thought of my in-laws, my heart sank. I didn’t want Vance to tell his parents anything about what had happened between us. I didn’t want to think about Renee and Howard listening to Vance’s version of events and shaking their heads, as baffled by my behavior as Vance seemed to be.

As I swung my legs over the side of the bed, my phone pinged from the bedside table. It was a text from my grandmother, ever the early riser.

“Hate to think of you alone with your work all day. Get yourself out of the apartment and come over for lunch.”

Gram must have had a sixth sense about when I needed her. I tapped out a quick response agreeing to meet. At least I still had Gram. I closed my eyes to quiet the words that inevitably followed. For now.

After I brushed my teeth, I fixed myself a sad breakfast of dry whole wheat toast. It was one of the few meals that didn’t make me gag. When I finished, I rinsed the dish and put it in the drying rack next to the sink just as the apartment’s buzzer phone warbled for attention. My first thought was Vance. But that was ridiculous because he wouldn’t have needed the doorman to ring up. Then my stomach clenched as I remembered: Before the argument with Vance, I had emailed Dustin, asking him to stop by and translate some of his notes from the interview.

But now, the idea of spending time with him was even less appealing than usual. And that wasn’t even accounting for the constant low-level nausea I was suffering. But I needed his help, and we both knew it.

I asked the doorman to send him up and quickly cleared a space at the dining table for us to work.

“Hey.”

I tried to sound nonchalant, even pleasant, as I opened the door. As usual, Dustin was dressed meticulously, though he looked a little like he was on his way to a nightclub, all turned out in his black slacks and sleek black button-down. He had a fresh shave, and his thick hair, curling just slightly at the collar, caught my eye in a way I wasn’t prepared to acknowledge. Taking in his appearance, I felt that much dowdier, still clad in the sweats I’d slept in.

“Sorry for the mess,”

I said as I ushered him inside. “I’ve been printing hard copies of everything that seemed relevant. It’s just easier for me, so please don’t tell me I’m acting like I’m a billion years old. I’m aware that digital files exist.”

I scooped a stack of papers off the table and deposited them on the credenza behind us.

“I got staffed on a new matter last night,”

he said, taking a seat catty-corner to mine. “Everyone’s going into the office today, so I’m more rushed than I expected. But I’ll stay as long as I can.”

Dustin’s mention of the office, and the thought of energized attorneys getting together on the weekend to discuss a brand-new case, the intensity and excitement of it, made everything about my choices feel suddenly more conspicuous—taking the abrupt leave of absence, jeopardizing my career, risking my entire livelihood. He must have noticed the dismay on my face as he opened his laptop and said, “I thought you just wanted to review the notes from the meeting with Jacinta. That shouldn’t take too long.”

“No, no.”

I tried to shake off my bigger concerns. “You’re right. I didn’t realize you were on the clock. But hey,”

I said, pulling my laptop closer, “I’m meeting with four other women soon. Well, if I’m lucky. At least two of them will require a Spanish interpreter.”

I looked at him hopefully.

He looked up from his computer screen and sucked in air through his teeth.

“What?”

I asked, even though I knew what he was about to say.

“Come on, Jessa. You know I can’t do it. This case isn’t on the firm’s roster anymore. It’s one thing for me to come over and talk about it on a weekend, but it’s a whole different level to keep going with you to client meetings.”

“Right, right, no, I know.”

I nodded my head, trying not to sound as disappointed as I felt. I’d have to find another interpreter, but I could do that. There were probably lots of human rights organizations out there that would be more than happy to provide the name of someone who could help.

“Jessa,”

Dustin said, reaching for my hand.

I looked up at him, startled by the physical contact, and even more surprised that I wasn’t entirely opposed to the feel of his warm hand on top of my own. “I’ll do whatever I can to help. You’re just putting me in a tough spot. I can’t risk my job. I’m still new, so I don’t have the kind of savings that would allow me to be cavalier. As it is, I’ll be paying off my student loans for a thousand years.”

“No, I get it,”

I said. “I didn’t mean to make you feel guilty or obligated. This is my fight. I know that.”

He nodded and let go of my hand, and I felt the retreat like a loss. I turned my eyes away from him quickly, back toward my computer screen, wondering how I had arrived at a place in my marriage where my husband had walked out and I was actually relishing touches from Dustin, of all people.

“Let’s just get to it,” I said.

As we dove into the notes from the interview, examining each detail Jacinta had given us and considering the various points of law that might be supported by her testimony, I tried not to get discouraged. Even though I had so adamantly declared my intent to represent the women on my own, I hadn’t really expected to be alone alone. I thought I’d at least have Dustin’s brain to pick and Vance to bounce ideas off. But nope. It was Jessa against the world. Which, frankly, was a feeling I’d experienced so many times in my life that sinking back into it now was like putting on an old, reliable sweater. There was an odd sense of comfort to the familiarity of it.

It didn’t take long to get through the notes, and before an hour had passed, we were already finished. Dustin rose from his seat and twisted from left to right, like he was stretching his back. It was a move I’d seen him do in the office countless times.

“You have back trouble?”

I asked as I, too, scooted my chair backward and rose to my feet.

“Just an old surfing injury,”

he answered. “No big deal.”

Something about the way his eyes darted away from mine told me the very opposite was true.

“When did it happen?”

I asked, suddenly filled with an unexplainable urge to know about Dustin’s past. Was I so desperate for company that I’d listen to Dustin’s life story just to keep another warm body in the apartment? Yes. Yes, I was.

“About five years ago,”

he answered. He’d made his way to the door and was looking back at me expectantly, as if waiting to be dismissed.

I quickly parsed the timing in my head. “That would have been right before you went back to law school.”

“Yup.”

He nodded, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand while his eyes moved to his feet.

At his obvious discomfort, I connected the dots. “That’s why you went to law school,”

I said. “Because you couldn’t surf anymore.”

The realization irked me, all my judgmental feelings about Dustin’s prior life choices resurfacing. The path I had chased since my childhood, the education and career I had hustled to achieve for so many years, was simply his pivot, his plan B when his laid-back surfer lifestyle stopped working out. “Seems like a drastic change for you.”

I scoffed. “One minute you’re chilling on the beach without a care in the world, and the next you’re knee-deep in torts outlines?”

“I was hardly chilling,”

he said, his tone suddenly hard as he stepped closer to me. “It was my job.”

“You were a professional surfer?” I asked.

“Yeah. And I worked my ass off to get to the top.”

My head tipped to the side in surprise. This new piece of information didn’t comport with the impression I’d been carrying around about him since our very first meeting. He seemed to sense I was doubting something about him or his story. Then he pushed his shoulders back, dipped his chin, and began to refute everything I’d previously thought of him.

“I was training all the damn time,”

he said, “in and out of the water, regimenting my nutrition, constantly educating myself about the science of the body, the ocean currents, the boards. Early mornings and late nights trying to be the best I could be.”

He shook his head slightly and added, “I did love it though, even when I was just a kid. For years, surfing was the only thing that mattered to me, so maybe it’s not fair to call all of it work.”

I blinked back at him, my eyes shifting in surprise. I’d never imagined him as anything other than a slacker, when in fact a great deal of substance might be hiding behind his bro facade.

I wondered what else I didn’t know about him.

As I considered him, I looked back up at his face, and our gazes connected with a sudden zing. Alarmed by the electricity I felt buzzing between us, I stepped back. I wasn’t going to be that woman. I wasn’t going to start thinking about someone else just because I was having trouble with my husband. And Dustin was still a prick, even if he was a complex, substantive prick.

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

I said, working to keep my voice neutral.

“Shoot.”

He pushed his hands into his pockets and waited.

“How come you’ve always been such a jerk to me at the office, but now you’re acting like a total nice guy? What changed?”

“I haven’t changed, Jessa,”

he said. “You have.”

He glanced down at his watch. “I’m late,”

he said. “Sorry.”

He let himself out, closing the door behind him and leaving me to wonder what he’d meant.

* * *

By lunchtime, I was in my usual chair at my grandmother’s kitchen table, picking at the crusts of a turkey sandwich. I’d just finished giving Gram the Reader’s Digest version of what happened with Vance, how he’d left in a huff with no indication of where he was going or how long he intended to stay gone. Gram sat opposite me, her lips pursed in the way that meant she had a number of her own thoughts on the issue.

“There’s one other thing,”

I said, waffling between excitement and nerves.

Gram raised her eyebrows as she lifted her teacup from its saucer and sipped delicately. English breakfast had always been her favorite, and the familiar wet-grass smell of it was comforting, making me feel bolder.

“I’m pregnant.”

“Jessa!”

Gram’s face lit up and she straightened in her seat, a bit of tea sloshing out of her cup as she put it back on the table. But then, almost as quickly, her expression soured. “And Vance left anyway? What a thing to do to your wife. That . . . that . . .”

She seemed to be struggling for a strong enough insult.

“No, stop.”

I shook my head to intercept Gram’s outrage. “I didn’t tell him. He doesn’t even know yet.”

I regretted that I’d brought even more duplicity into my marriage. “This is apparently what I do now. I keep all sorts of secrets from Vance. It’s becoming a hobby or something. I just conceal one thing after another. Actually, not so many things, just the big things that really matter. I’m just a big fat liar, a rotten, worthless fraud of a wife.”

“No, don’t do that,”

Gram said. “You cannot compare not telling him you’re pregnant with the other secret you’re keeping.”

I ran my finger over the painted flowers on the saucer in front of me. “If I just dropped the case, begged for my old job back, and forgot about Hydeford, I know Vance would come back. But I can’t just put my life back the way he wants me to. I need to do this. He doesn’t understand why it’s so important to me to represent these women. But, Gram . . .”

My eyes filled with tears, and the room blurred.

“Oh, honey,”

she said, reaching across the table and taking my hand. I held tightly to her bony fingers, trying to still myself, but a sob escaped anyway. And then another and another, until I was weeping in my grandmother’s arms. She let me cry, waiting silently as she ran her hand over my long curls.

When I finally began to quiet, she sat back regarding me.

“That’s better,”

she said, handing me a napkin to wipe my face. “Now, let’s talk a little bit about blame, shall we?”

She looked at me pointedly, as if I should already know what she was trying to convey. But I didn’t have an inkling, so I just stared back. She sighed in the way of a teacher repeating a lesson to the child who hasn’t paid attention in class.

“You are not the only one to blame here, Jessa. Maybe I gave you bad advice. I was the one who encouraged you to keep our family secret to yourself. I thought it was the right thing to do. But perhaps . . .”

She paused, her eyes searching my face. “Perhaps that was just my own childhood trauma influencing me.”

“Are you saying I should tell him?” I asked.

She was quiet another moment, and I watched as her expression changed. She was going back in time, and I could almost see the file drawers opening inside her head as she pulled out old memories.

“Mother told us we were never to talk about our past, that we were to forget where we came from. I did love my father. I can’t say that I didn’t. But I can never forgive him for what he did, the evil he brought into the world. I did everything I could to remove myself from it, including keeping it secret.”

She looked down at her lap for a moment before meeting my eyes again. “I didn’t want you to ever feel the kind of shame I did, not when it wasn’t your shame to bear. But I see now the toll it’s taking on you, keeping this secret from Vance. I’m beginning to think that keeping it tucked away is doing you more harm than good. And now with a baby on the way . . . Maybe it’s time to sit down with Vance and just tell him everything.”

After she’d been so adamant about keeping our history to ourselves, doing otherwise felt nearly impossible to consider.

“But you said—”

“Forget what I said.”

Gram swatted an invisible obstacle in the air. “I’m just an old fool. You have to do what’s right for you. And for your marriage.”

I took a deep breath as I digested her words, trying to decide how I felt about them. I leaned closer to her, resting my head on her shoulder and closing my eyes. Of course I would tell Vance about the baby. If I told him about the baby but nothing about my great-grandfather, I was certain he would come back. But I didn’t want to bring our child into the world knowing I was keeping other secrets from his or her father. That was not the type of parent I wanted to be, nor the type of person. Once Vance knew the whole truth, would that be the end of our marriage?

* * *

Vance wasn’t answering my calls. I’d been trying for two days. Not until I texted him saying I needed to share important news did he finally call me back. Now we were sitting across from each other at a crowded Starbucks near our apartment building. Several people were lingering at the counter, waiting to retrieve their orders. We had managed to find the last empty table, wedged into a corner close to the restroom. My throat felt tight as I held the wrapper of my straw between my fingers, twisting it into a tight coil.

“Well, I’m here.”

Vance sounded frustrated. I noticed that the circles under his eyes were darker than usual.

I stared back at him, still unsure what to say first.

“Jessa,”

he groaned, “is there anything you actually need to share? Or was this just some kind of ploy to get me to return your call?”

His unkind words shocked me into admission.

“I’m pregnant.”

He shook his head like he had water in his ear, like he hadn’t heard me properly.

“What?”

he asked, his voice still laced with irritation.

“I’m pregnant,”

I repeated, and I watched his face slowly begin to change. As the words sank in, the accusatory glare melted away, and in its place appeared an unfettered expression, as if he was opening himself up to the news, to possibilities, to me. A cautious smile grew, slowly overtaking his face.

“Jess!”

he nearly shouted, his voice full of joy. His eyes darted around the room as if he was looking for other people to include in his celebration. The older man at the next table was focused on his laptop and didn’t look up.

I was so relieved by Vance’s excitement and his complete 180. Moments before, he had looked at me like I was gum on the bottom of his shoe. I nodded back at him with a goofy grin on my own face.

He reached across the table and took hold of my hand, gently pulling the straw paper out of my grasp before closing his fingers around my palm.

“I’m so sorry,”

he said, “for the way I left. For storming out on you and not giving you the benefit of the doubt, for not waiting longer to figure things out. I should know better. We’re going to make this work. Whatever you need. How long have you known? Did you call the doctor? What do we do next?”

I found myself getting caught up in his excitement, nodding and laughing at how frenzied he sounded. I’d been so worried about his reaction that I hadn’t imagined the great pleasure I might take in finally sharing the joy of the pregnancy with him. But then I remembered the rest, that there was more I needed to tell him.

“Wait, Vance, slow down.”

I smiled sadly. “There’s more.”

“Is everything okay with the baby?”

he asked, fear creeping into his voice.

I shook my head. “Yeah, no, the doctor said everything’s fine, although it’s super early. It’s something else.”

“You don’t want to drop the case? Or Hendricks already fired you for good?”

“Vance, just let me talk!”

“Sorry, sorry. Go ahead.”

He released my fingers and took hold of his coffee cup with both hands, as if to show he was behaving. I would have reveled in the adorableness of the gesture had I not been so distracted by worry.

“There’s something important I learned recently that I haven’t told you. I didn’t want to upset you. I guess I thought I was protecting you . . . or protecting our relationship. But I can’t bring this child into our life with any secrets between us.”

“Secrets? What kind of secrets?”

He looked at me quizzically.

I took a deep breath and dove in. “My great-grandfather, Gram’s dad, was named Harry Laderdale.”

I paused for a second, waiting for a reaction, even though he’d likely never heard of the man.

“Laderdale?”

Vance asked.

“Yes. They changed their last name to Larson after World War II, to hide who they really were.”

“After World War II?”

Vance tilted his head slightly, one corner of his mouth lifting. “Are you about to tell me you’re part Jewish? My mom would be thrilled.”

“No.”

I shook my head and reached for my iced coffee. I noticed my hand was shaking. “It’s actually almost the opposite.”

“What?”

He laughed lightly, still not appreciating the enormity of the moment. “What’s the opposite? That you’re part Nazi?”

“Vance,”

I said pleadingly, “this is serious—and probably worse than anything you can imagine.”

I took a deep breath for strength and launched in. “My great-grandfather was a scientist, a eugenicist. He compiled data, studies, that argued certain types of people should be bred out of the population. He started here in the States in the 20s, sterilizing women at psychiatric facilities so they could no longer have children. Which is part of why I’ve been so obsessed with my case.”

I realized I had started to cry. “He said he did it for the nation, for some warped notion that his work could improve American society. But it’s even worse, Vance. His findings eventually made their way to Europe. His work gave the Nazis the idea of racial cleansing. It was his publications they relied on when they started killing non-Aryans.”

As I talked, the color drained from Vance’s face and his features went slack. He looked stunned, as if he’d just been injected with a tranquilizer but hadn’t yet collapsed to the floor.

I seized on his silence, continuing my confession, spouting out every last horrid detail before I lost my courage.

“He helped create the Immigration Act of 24 that kept so many Jews from coming to America in the ’30s.”

I knew I was just making this worse for Vance, but if I didn’t tell him everything now, I might never be brave enough to finish—and I couldn’t have this hanging between us anymore. I needed to reveal every horrifying, disgusting truth. “He sent films to American high school students,”

I said, the words rushing from my mouth, “to teach them about the importance of eugenics in Germany. The Germans based their sterilization law on a model he wrote. He defended Hitler’s Nuremberg decrees as scientifically sound. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Heidelberg in 36. He—”

“Stop! Stop!”

Vance held up a hand as if to protect himself from my words. “That can’t be right. What are you even talking about? None of this makes sense.”

He shook his head vigorously.

“I didn’t want you to know,”

I answered on a sob.

“Are you serious? Gram’s father did all of those things?”

“He did,”

I said, choking up again. Instead of finding a napkin to wipe my tears, I studied Vance’s face. I couldn’t gauge his reaction.

But then something in him shifted.

“Wait.”

He pushed back his chair as if to stand. “You knew? You knew about all this and didn’t tell me?”

“No! I only just found out a few weeks ago.”

I reached out for his wrist.

“Weeks?”

he snapped, pulling his arm away. “You’ve known this for weeks and only thought to tell me now?”

“I should have told you sooner,”

I said. “You have no idea how horrible this has been for me. I don’t know why I waited.”

I searched his eyes, hoping he could forgive me.

“I know why you waited. Because you knew I would never want to be with someone who came from a person like that,”

he said, venom in his voice. “Fuck, Jessa.”

He looked around, as if remembering his surroundings. He was silent a moment and then began to speak. The effort he was making to control himself was clear. “You knew how much I would hate this. And you didn’t think to tell me, not once, while we were trying for the baby or when I was prepping episodes for the pod? Not even when we were spitballing all your eugenics theories about Hydeford? Wow.”

He shook his head, a smirk on his face as his gaze traveled toward the ceiling. “It all makes sense now.”

I thought he was going to keep talking about the legal case, but he shifted back to himself. “You know how strongly I feel about everything that happened to my family. You didn’t think, maybe once, before trying to get pregnant, that you should have shared this information?”

I couldn’t say for sure if I’d conceived before or after learning about my family history—but I didn’t think it was the right moment to say as much. I had a different point I needed to get across.

“Don’t you see now?”

I asked. “This is why I have to take the Hydeford case, why I can’t give it up no matter how many times you ask. It’s my chance to separate myself from what my great-grandfather did, to separate myself from the sins of my family. This case coming to me felt like fate.”

“You are so obsessed with this fucking case!”

Vance slammed his palm against our table, and this time the guy beside us did look up.

Noticing the man’s glare, Vance mumbled a quick, “Sorry,”

then turned back to me.

He inhaled a slow, deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter. “The fucking case is the least of your problems. Nothing you do can undo what your great-grandfather did. And nothing can undo what you’ve done either.”

He stood, pushing the heel of his hand against his forehead and closing his eyes for a moment. As he blinked, I could see a new thought occurring to him.

“And now my baby is going to be related to this man? What are my parents going to say about their grandchild sharing the same blood as a fucking Nazi?”

“He wasn’t a Nazi,”

I said weakly, as if it made any difference.

“No,”

Vance said. “I guess not. From everything you’ve said, he might’ve been even worse. If such a thing is even possible.”

His eyes were stony as he glared down at me. “I can’t look at you. I have to go.”

He pushed his chair back toward the table with too much force, leading it to tip and fall to the floor with a thud. He didn’t turn around as he marched toward the door and back out to the street.

I stayed in my seat, ignoring the stares from the people who’d witnessed the scene. A young woman walking by lifted the chair and offered me a weak smile. I was too upset to even thank her.

In the span of one trip to Starbucks, I had somehow saved my marriage—only to destroy it all over again.