Counting Backwards

24

Jessa

May 2022

I closed the journal, glancing at the clock and discovering I’d been reading for three hours.

I’d expected Vance back earlier, but whatever delayed him had given me a chance to read to the end of the diary.

It was hard to wrap my mind around everything Carrie Buck had been through.

One thing painfully obvious from the journal entries was that the woman had never been feebleminded.

No, she’d just been a poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks who had neither the education nor the support necessary to beat a system that was rigged against young women like her.

I rose from my spot on the bed, stiff from all that time sitting.

As I stretched my arms toward the ceiling and then twisted back and forth to loosen myself up, the movement made me think of Dustin, and I felt my lips tick up.

I couldn’t say for sure what emotion welled inside me at the thought of him.

Was it just a surprising fondness? Actual longing? I almost began to berate myself.

But then I thought of Carrie and her insistence on being true to herself, so I allowed myself to simply feel what I was feeling.

I shrugged to myself in the empty room.

If the feeling persisted, sooner or later I’d be able to name the emotion.

I took my phone from the counter to check my missed calls and saw only one notification, but not from Vance.

The voicemail was from Lydia, letting me know that ICE had responded to the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order to prevent any retaliatory deportations.

“Call me back!”

Lydia had shouted in the recording, sounding frantic. “Doesn’t matter what time!”

I instantly panicked, wondering if ICE had responded with some defense we hadn’t anticipated.

As I hit the callback button and waited for an answer, I hoped the urgency I’d heard in Lydia’s voice wasn’t because of something even worse, like one of the women already being put on a plane to be shipped out of the US.

“Finally!”

Lydia declared as she picked up on the other end. “I’ve been waiting and waiting.”

“What happened?”

I asked. “Is it Isobel? Denise?”

“It’s all of them,”

Lydia said.

“They deported them all?”

I balked. “But half of them weren’t even in custody!”

“No, no, no. Nobody’s been deported. That’s the whole point. ICE stipulated to the terms of the injunction request.”

“They stipulated?”

I repeated. “Wait, so they’re safe? Everyone’s still here?”

“Yes, yes. This is good.”

Lydia chuckled. “They’re all still here.”

But then her tone turned serious again. “Sadly, they’re exactly where we left them. But the little bit of happy news is that ICE has at least agreed not to deport any of the plaintiffs while the case is still being adjudicated.”

I couldn’t believe it. “Without even a hearing?”

“Without even a hearing.”

“But why?”

I asked. “Why would they do that?”

“The media! You did a great job, Jessa. Mailing out those press releases the day we filed the complaint was genius. The story is everywhere. ICE must be shaking in their boots. They’ve got to know they can’t get away with retaliatory deportations with all eyes on them. Maybe they figure stipulating to this one request will help them play better in the court of public opinion.”

“Wow.”

I lowered myself onto the edge of the bed, stunned. It was a win. Not the win, but it was something.

“I know,”

Lydia said on the other end of the phone, as if she could hear everything I was thinking. “You did good, my friend. We’ve just got to keep it up. Now, go get your rest, and we’ll talk in the morning.”

* * *

Three days later, I got the call Dustin had predicted. It was Andrew Hendricks. He knew all about the filing, the additional plaintiffs joining the case, the government’s agreement to comply with the terms of requested injunctive relief. He was impressed. He was proud, he said. I scoffed at that. Proud. As if Andrew had anything to do with what I’d accomplished with the case.

And he wanted me to come back.

That was what I was telling Vance and his cousin Yuval as the three of us ate dinner that night. Both Yuval and Vance had come uptown straight from their offices to meet me at the little Middle Eastern café we loved. They were dressed in almost identical outfits. Each had on tan slacks and a light blue button-down shirt with French cuffs. A few weeks earlier, I might have been uncomfortable being the only one at the table in casual clothes, but I’d recently begun thinking that jeans and boots were more my style than dress pants and sweater sets after all.

“Turning him down felt beyond amazing,”

I said, and I could feel my cheeks straining from how widely I was smiling.

“Good for you.”

Yuval reached out, giving me a light punch to the arm.

“You did what?”

Vance squinted at me like he couldn’t comprehend what I’d said.

“Dillney’s not the right place for me.”

I shrugged like it was no big deal, then stabbed a ball of falafel with my fork. “It’s so clear to me now. I guess sometimes you have to move away from something to make sense of it.”

“But we’re having a baby,”

Vance said. “You need that job.”

“A baby?”

Yuval exclaimed. “Mazel tov!”

He leaned over the small bowls of hummus and eggplant salad between us, punching me in the arm again, this time a little harder than the first. “We have much to discuss, no?”

He nodded encouragingly. “Only a few months behind our own. Now you will have to come and live near us. The babies will be friends from the very beginning.”

I smiled back at him. It was nice to think of our child having a cousin and playmate. I hadn’t let my mind wander to things like playdates or “mommy and me”

classes yet. But I’d finally hit the end of the first trimester, so maybe it was time to let myself dream a little. “Moving to the suburbs is definitely not part of the fantasy for me,”

I joked, “but the rest sounds pretty good.”

“So yes to the playdates, no to the burbs. Got it.”

Yuval smiled back and then held out his fist to bump with Vance.

Vance returned the gesture half-heartedly before turning back to me.

“But, Jessa, the money,”

he said, prodding as if I hadn’t understood what he’d said.

“No, I get it. But I was thinking of doing something else.”

“But why? That was a great job. Of course not making partner was disappointing. I get that. But losing out was a blessing in disguise. Without jockeying for a promotion, it’s just a good, steady job at a well-regarded firm.”

He looked at Yuval for agreement, but Yuval just shrugged and bit into his pita. “You can take whatever work they assign you,”

Vance continued, looking back at me. “And not worry about fighting for the high-profile cases all the time. You get to avoid all the crazy, intense situations but keep the cachet of being a Dillney attorney. You just take your paycheck and go home.”

Ah. Now I saw things more clearly. Vance didn’t want me working too much when the job was stressful or challenging, but if I could be a cog in a wheel, accepting a paycheck to work on cases that didn’t matter to me at all—that, he thought, made good sense.

I opened my mouth to argue, but he cut me off.

“That’s what we decided. That’s what you said you wanted.”

I didn’t know what I wanted exactly, but I certainly wanted enough agency to find out.

The waiter was back at the table asking if we planned to order dessert.

Yuval declined, then Vance rattled off the items he and I would share. Honey cake, vanilla ice cream, and berries.

After the server walked away, Vance turned back to me expectantly, like he was waiting for me to agree with what he’d said.

As I met his gaze, a window shade seemed to lift, and I could finally see through the glass behind it. Vance had once represented everything I thought I wanted, but looking at his face over the glowing candle, I finally understood, with stark clarity, that we no longer fit. I simply wasn’t the person he wanted me to be. Not anymore.

“I’ll talk to Andrew tomorrow,”

I told Vance, then turned toward Yuval. “For now, I want to hear about the trip you guys are planning. Dalia told me there’s a babymoon in the works?”

Vance turned to listen to Yuval with an easy smile. Probably because he thought he’d won. As always. Why wouldn’t he assume I’d agree to maintain the status quo when, for so long, keeping safe and steady had been my primary goal? Except somewhere over the past several months, I had changed, even though I might not have noticed it right away. It was time for my choices to change along with me.

When we got home from dinner, we settled onto the sectional sofa and Vance picked up the remote for the TV.

“Wait,”

I interrupted him. “I want to talk.”

“What’s up?”

he asked, pulling his phone from his pocket and glancing at it before placing it on his lap.

“I’m not even sure where to start,”

I said, struggling to believe I was about to take such a leap. “I think . . .”

I paused, taking a deep breath, then started again. “I think this isn’t working for me.”

“What isn’t?”

he asked, glancing at his phone again.

“Us. Us being married to each other.”

“What are you talking about?”

He looked back at me, his eyes narrowing.

“I don’t think we’re working as a couple.”

I hated having to spell it out. “We need to make a change. Maybe not be together.”

“What do you mean ‘not be together’?”

He made quotes with his fingers in the air. “What, like, get divorced?”

He laughed, like the idea was ridiculous.

“I don’t know,”

I said, forcing myself to be completely honest. “Maybe? I mean, that’s where my mind is going. So yeah, that is what I mean. A divorce.”

“No, you don’t.”

His tone was still light, like we were simply misunderstanding each other. “What are you even talking about? Is this because of what I said about you going back to Dillney? Fine, don’t go back.”

“No,”

I said, frustrated that he wasn’t taking me seriously, even during what was possibly the most serious conversation of our entire relationship. “You and I, we don’t want the same things, Vance. And we haven’t for a while.”

“What are you even talking about?”

he said again, except now he was beginning to sound angry. “What? Don’t we both want the baby? Jessa, we’re making a family. Why would you say this now? It’s all you’ve ever wanted. I’m getting over your family history. I’m getting over all of it and just trying to forget it already.”

“But I’m not, Vance. I’m not getting over it because it’s a part of who I am. I need to acknowledge that and live a life that makes me proud. This dynamic between us . . .”

I paused, trying to come up with the right description of how I felt. I finally settled on the simplest explanation. “I just need different things now.”

“Yeah, but . . .”

He motioned toward my stomach. His mouth kept moving, but no words came out, like he was still trying to decide if I was being serious. “What are you trying to get out of this conversation? You want me to be more supportive about Hydeford? To listen better? What?”

“Vance.”

I sighed, determined to make my point. “It’s none of that. Or maybe it’s all of it.”

I reached for his hand, but he pulled away from me. “I’m always going to care about you, and you’re right. We are having a baby together. We will still raise the baby together. We just won’t live with each other anymore.”

His eyes hardened, as if he was finally hearing me, and my breath hitched. I thought of my entire in-law family, especially Jiyana and the boys, and my palms began to sweat. But I knew I was doing the right thing, so I pushed myself forward.

“Or if you don’t want to be in this child’s life, I will raise it on my own. Either way, Vance, I can’t stay married to you. I need to stand on my own two feet.”