8. Charlotte Before
Charlotte Before
“Miss,” the Uber driver said gently, “are you, um, going to get out?”
Miss .
I couldn’t remember the last time someone had called me miss . I didn’t hate it. But then a cold chill washed over me. Was he calling me miss because he intuited that I was going to be unmarried in short order? I looked down at the sparkling carats on my left hand and my breath caught in my throat. This was one of the only things I had left. Was someone going to come take it from me? Should I try to sell it before they did? Would that be a crime?
And why isn’t my freaking lawyer calling me back?! Three days ago, Oliver had left me a message letting me know the date and time of the arraignment and urging me to be there. Then he had left a message telling me that Bill was being detained because he was a flight risk since he had the means to flee and plenty of ties to offshore companies… and because of that stupid, nothing prior conviction for check fraud that I kept trying to ignore in case it made me think that Bill could have done this.
And, no, I had not called Oliver back then. So maybe he was giving me a taste of my own medicine. But the idea that he had abandoned Bill too panicked me. Was it because we couldn’t pay him with our assets frozen? But Oliver had been with us for almost three years. Not a lifetime, but long enough for us to deserve some loyalty. Surely he wouldn’t desert us now. Part of me thought about calling someone else. But who? It wasn’t like lawyers were filed under “wire fraud” in the Yellow Pages. Plus, I couldn’t pay one anyway. I felt sick.
“I have another ride, but if you need me to drop you somewhere else…” the driver interrupted my thoughts again.
“No, I’m sorry,” I said, collecting my purse and my phone and sliding out of the hot black leather seat. “Thanks so much. I’ll be sure to give you five stars.” And a good tip that I could ill afford for a half-hour ride I didn’t want to take. I knew I was going to have to figure out a bus route or something if I came here often.
“I get it,” he said. “No one’s really dying to walk into jail.”
I grabbed the bag I had brought and inhaled as I stepped out, somewhat relieved not to be bathing in the scent of pine air freshener anymore even if I was walking toward a fate that felt out of a fairy tale, one of the dark Grimms ones where people died and children were eaten by witches. But we never think about the bad parts of the fairy tale, do we? We remember Cinderella’s glass slipper, not the evil stepsisters trying to keep her from the ball—or, in the original, cutting off their toes to fit the shoe. This was toe-cutting level.
I looked up at the building, which, to my immense relief, wasn’t surrounded by a fence or barbed wire. It was long, white, and boring. It looked like a suburban high school. I was in a fog as I pushed a call button on the door and heard the buzz that meant I could open it. I walked into what looked more like a bank lobby than a prison. A woman in uniform with short, curly red hair sitting behind the desk said, “ID, please.” I tried to smile at her as I handed her my license, but I couldn’t quite do it.
“What’s that?” she asked, taking my bag as I walked through a metal detector.
My new housemates had been so kind as to put together some treats for Bill. “Oh, just clean sheets, body wash, some snacks, things like that. Do you want to go through it?”
Her smile conveyed that I was the dumbest person she had ever met. “Ma’am, you can’t bring that in here.”
Now I was confused. “Why?”
“This isn’t Legally Blonde . This is prison . You can leave that on the counter and get it when you leave.”
I was embarrassed, mostly because she had read me so clearly: we had based this whole thing on the scene in Legally Blonde when Elle Woods visits her exercise instructor in prison. So, yeah. The woman rifled through my bag and handed me the two paperback books I had packed for Bill. One was Killers of the Flower Moon , a tale of the grizzly Osage murders. But I knew he would get the subtext of the flower moon, remember our perfect night on the beach, hopefully be transported there. “Here,” she said. “You can take these.”
I changed the subject. “Um, what do I need to do if I want my daughter to be able to come visit my husband?” Nausea roiled in my stomach. Stop it, I scolded myself. This was the reality. I had to handle it. Plus, this would be over so soon. I hoped.
She handed me a stack of papers. “Fill these out.”
“Thank you,” I said, quietly, my throat feeling dry. As I wrote, I said, “I mean, I’m sure we don’t even need these. There’s no way they can just keep holding him here. He didn’t even do anything wrong in the first place. So my daughter will just see him at home and…” I realized I was rambling, and the look she was giving me was so oh you poor thing, you think he’s innocent that I wanted to smack her.
A man, also in a uniform, smiled jovially at me. “You ready, Mrs. Sitterly?” he asked.
I wanted to say no. I wanted to run away. I wanted to see Bill, but I didn’t want to see him.
I had no idea what to expect. I’d never been to jail, after all. I’d only seen it on TV, watched prisoners and their visitors talk on black phone receivers through panes of plexiglass.
“I guess so?” I asked.
“He’s going to be mighty glad to see you.” He was awfully cheery.
I was surprised to be taken to an open room with floor-to-ceiling windows, quilts hanging on the walls, five or six sets of tables and chairs. It smelled of a familiar cleaning solution. Windex, maybe, or 409? It wasn’t an offensive smell, and it thrilled me that the entire place felt so bright and tidy. A family was clustered in the right-hand corner, and it broke my heart to see a toddler on what I presumed was her father’s lap. In the middle were two men huddled together talking. And in the left-hand corner, in an orange jumpsuit he looked quite sickly in, was Bill. Huh. It was shocking to see how tiny a six-foot-two man could look.
Bill’s once-blond hair had darkened to light brown and, now, begun to tinge with gray around the temples. He was a stickler for an every-three-week haircut, which he was definitely at the tail end of now. Bill had a commanding presence, broad shoulders, a strong jaw. He was the kind of man who looked like he would always protect me. What about now? He gasped when he saw me. He jumped out of his chair and practically leapt toward me, wrapping me in his arms and kissing me passionately. I let him. He smelled like metal and industrial soap, not the Byredo Black Saffron body wash he favored. And he was so thin . How was he ever going to survive in here?
It felt like a stranger kissing me, but I still found myself melting into him. I missed him; I missed him so much. As I pulled away and hugged him tightly, I felt myself exhale a breath that I didn’t know I had been holding for the past four days. And out with the breath came an absolute reservoir of tears. I looked into the face of my husband, the man I loved. “I’m so sorry,” I said. A physical pain gripped my insides. Through my tears, I touched his face and said, “You needed me, and I just left you here.”
He pulled me to him again. “Hey,” he said quietly, in that same kind voice he always used to comfort me. “It’s okay. I know this has been hard for you too.” He stroked my hair. “I knew you had to go home to your parents. You didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Home is where you are,” I choked.
He kissed my tearstained cheeks. “I know.”
And I knew he did. I knew that Bill knew—was the only one who knew—that he was my rock, my safe place, my port in the storm. Without him, I was totally adrift. Trying to hold it together had nearly killed me. I knew then that not coming here had been a protective move in more ways than one. If I saw him, I would default to letting him fix things. That wasn’t an option. I needed to be strong for Iris; I had to be the one with the plan. He held my face in his hands and said, “Look at me.”
I nodded, and I did, suddenly not caring what he had done, or how bad it was. I just had to get him out of here.
“I did not do this,” he said firmly.
I nodded because I knew he was telling the truth; I’d known it the moment I saw him sitting so small in the corner. I believed him with all my heart, and then I felt even worse because I’d been mad at him when I should have been helping him.
“I know,” I whispered. I bit my lip. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for the arraignment.” I had let myself off the hook, told myself that not standing beside my husband as he faced the federal magistrate was because I was getting Iris and me set up for our next move. But the reality was that I just couldn’t face it.
Over Bill’s shoulder I finally noticed the man I had once believed held the key to solving all our problems: Oliver Engle, the refined, fortysomething British attorney Bill had hired as his head counsel at Sitterly Capital three years ago. He always wore horn-rimmed glasses and wool sports coats that made him seem as if he’d just come from a hunt. And he smelled faintly of pipe tobacco, though I’d never seen him smoke. Something about his mere presence soothed me.
Upon spotting him, I remembered it wasn’t just Bill and me here. I took a deep breath, wiped my face, and walked to him. “Well, well, well… you aren’t dead in a gutter or on vacation on a deserted island.”
He looked sheepish. “Apologies, Charlotte. I’ve been working nonstop to get Bill out of here until his trial—at least get him on house arrest.”
“House arrest,” I repeated. “You mean, like, at the house I’m not allowed to go into?”
Bill slumped back down in the chair. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. As soon as we figure out how to get me out of here, Oliver and I will put all our effort into getting your and Iris’s lives back to normal—or as normal as possible.”
I loved Bill, and I missed him, and I wanted him out of here, but I have to say, that irked me. Was he not worried about us at all? I had gone to stay with my parents. That’s how bad things were. I mean, I’m exaggerating, obviously. Kind of. My parents were great people. They volunteered for causes that mattered, protested when there was a wrong to right, spent their lives in the pursuit of making the world a better, more equal place for all who lived in it. They were both professors; to my friends, my parents were brilliant paragons of knowledge and truth. And I never gave them a reason to doubt that. But the problem had always been that they were more concerned with the pursuit of knowledge than anything else. Including their daughter.
I read once that there comes a point in childhood development when daughters begin to cling more to their mothers, while sons begin to separate and break away. I might have been an exception to the rule because I broke away from both my parents. When I was more interested in playing outside than spending hours with my nose in a book. When numbers came to me easily and quickly, but I was never that interested in history or politics. And, most glaringly, when, instead of signing up with a nonprofit, I took a job at Bank of America. And then married Bill, who also worked in finance.
My actions were stabs at everything my parents—who thought that capitalism was the devil and the downfall of society—believed in. They told me not to get mixed up in that world. They told me not to marry Bill. And so, when I showed up at my childhood house in Chapel Hill and my mother said, “Well, Charlotte, what can I tell you? When you deal with the devil, you get burned,” I almost left. But I had frozen assets, no home, no clothes, fourteen hundred dollars in cash that, thank goodness, was in my wallet, on my person, when our house was raided, and a daughter to think about. So I swallowed my pride, shook my head, and spent three days holding my breath and shrugging off their holier-than-thou attitudes.
They loved us, of course. They helped us enormously, finding us clothes, feeding us, lending me money until, God and Oliver willing, we could get back in our house. But I needed love and sympathy, nurturing and chicken soup. That, however, was too much to ask for.
Now I had to face the fact that my husband was still locked up, that my life was still a disaster, and that I finally felt ready to look for answers. Now that I knew Bill was innocent, if I could help prove it, my parents wouldn’t be able to give me those I told you so looks anymore.
“I love you, Char, and I’m going to fix this. But please don’t be mad at me. I’m telling you, I have been framed. Everything’s going to be back to normal soon. You’ll see.”
I looked around the room, realizing that we certainly weren’t alone, and that even if we had been, there were cameras everywhere. I wanted to yell up at them, Do you hear him? He didn’t do this! But I guessed guilty people lied all the time.
I studied Bill again in that orange outfit and was swamped with horror. I squatted down in front of him, my hands on his knees, the fabric rough and thick and industrial. “I will get you out of here,” I said.
He nodded. He kissed my hand. “I never had any doubt.” He paused. “What are people saying?”
I didn’t know as much about what people were saying because of Alice. The time away from my phone last night had proven to be blissful, restorative. Sitting on the beach, sipping wine with the other moms, had given me a gift I wasn’t expecting. Alice had told me that if I didn’t read what people were saying, then it didn’t apply to me. That wasn’t exactly accurate, but it had done wonders to keep my sanity intact.
I shrugged. “Time heals all wounds,” I said. “You know how it is. People move on.”
“Hey,” Oliver said, “I hate to interrupt, but we’ve got some work to do. Charlotte, can I walk you out?” He looked at Bill. “I’ll be right back.”
Bill squeezed my hands and kissed me again. I savored that kiss, breathed it in. I knew it would be a while until I had another. “I love you,” he said. “Don’t forget it.”
I was in that fog again, my eyes full of tears, as Oliver led me out to the parking lot, stopping to retrieve my bag on the way. My heart was pounding in my chest. How do I fix this for Bill? How do I get our life back? I noticed Oliver looking around.
“Tell me you aren’t looking for my car,” I said.
He touched his palm to his forehead. “I’m sorry, Charlotte. I’m exhausted. I’m not thinking straight.” He walked over to his car, and I followed. “Let me take you home.”
“Since I can ill afford another Uber fare and the extra twenty-five percent I feel inclined to tip since they are dropping me at, you know, jail , I would appreciate a lift more than I can say.”
As we pulled out of the parking lot, I gave Oliver the address, then asked, “So, how much trouble is he in?”
Oliver pursed his lips. “Char, I’m not going to sugarcoat it: I don’t know yet what the feds have on him. They conduct these investigations in secret, and I don’t have any of their evidence yet.” He paused. “But at the indictment, Bill was charged with wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracies with companies known and unknown to the grand jury.”
I looked at him blankly.
“Meaning other people were likely involved, and they know it. They just haven’t made arrests yet.”
I nodded. “But how can they just keep him there?”
“Look, I’ll level with you. Sometimes people are free on bond who probably shouldn’t be, and sometimes they keep people who it seems kind of ridiculous to keep.” He sighed. “But the prosecutor had concrete reasons to keep him.”
That fired me up. “Well, what about…” I searched my brain and pulled out the only legal term I could think of. “… habeas corpus!”
“The prosecutor is arguing that he can be detained until trial because letting him out would give him the opportunity to cover his tracks, get his story straight with his staff, flee to another country.… And, Char, I hate to remind you, but he has a previous charge.”
“Wait. Habeas corpus was the right term?”
Oliver laughed a little out of his nose. “Look, Charlotte, between us, I’m worried about how high-profile this has gotten.”
I flicked Oliver on the shoulder, and he looked surprised. “Oliver, you are the fixer. When things are bad, you make them better. I need that right now! Come on!”
He smiled half-heartedly. “Charlotte, my dear, it is all going to be right as rain! I will wipe this away like it never happened.”
I nodded. “That’s more like it.”
We both tried to laugh, but it didn’t quite take. Nothing was funny. I wanted Bill. He was the one who took care of me. I wasn’t sure I could face all of this without him. My head began to pound.
Oliver pulled up to the beach house and turned to look at me seriously. “Charlotte, the indictment was very clear, so I waived Bill’s preliminary hearing.” He put his fingers to his nose, backing up, since I obviously looked confused. “It will take two or three weeks for the discovery—basically the evidence against Bill—to come in. And then we will exercise our right to a speedy trial.”
Trial. My stomach rolled, and I felt like I might be sick.
“And if we go to trial…”
Oliver didn’t have to finish the sentence. I knew what he meant. Without concrete proof Bill wasn’t involved, if we got to a court date, the outcome was anyone’s guess. Even if Bill was innocent, could we prove it?
Oliver said, “Look, Charlotte, Bill isn’t one hundred percent sure how he feels about this, but I have to tell you…”
My stomach turned.
“You can technically go back to your house. The investigation there is finished.”
I felt a little light inside of me, but, as soon as it flickered, the look on Oliver’s face dimmed it. And then I remembered: all those people had all those hands in all my things. My underwear drawer would have been searched. Things had been seized from our house. I felt so violated, and, as much as I missed home, I knew I would feel that violation ten-fold if I were back there.
Most of all, Bill wasn’t there. How could it feel like home without Bill?
“And why doesn’t Bill want me to know?” I asked.
Oliver sighed. “He’s worried about your safety and Iris’s safety. He’s afraid that, with all these people out there believing he’s guilty, someone could come after you and Iris.”
The mere idea of someone coming after my child made a cold chill run down my spine. I was surprised that I felt relieved Bill didn’t want us to go home. For now, at Alice’s, I felt safe. I wanted to keep it that way.
I nodded. “Yeah. Okay. We’ll stay put for now. We’re fine where we are.” I paused, thinking about my daughter. I didn’t want to lie to her, but sometimes protecting your children meant glossing over the truth. “Maybe don’t mention this to Iris? If she knows, it will just be this whole thing.”
“Mum’s the word,” Oliver said.
I smiled because the phrase was so cute in his British accent.
“For now, we just concentrate on getting Bill out of there and getting you all back home, together, lickety split,” Oliver said.
I was suddenly filled with purpose, like hot concrete was growing inside of me and then solidifying, making me strong. Bill would save me if I were in a situation like this. I was going to save him right back.