Chapter Thirty-Six #3
For close to three years, I’ve imagined this reunion with my daughter.
From across the room, she would see me and run to me.
We’d hug, not wanting to let each other go.
All those drawings I’d been sending her would have worked their magic, keeping her memory of me alive and intact.
But this is nothing like that. She’s wary of me.
It’s understandable; I’ve been gone from her life for so long.
But it’s painful, too, and it’s hard not to resent Emily for keeping her from me.
Does she have any memory of me at all? “Hey, Maisie, do you remember the song we used to sing at bath time? The wheels on the bus go round and round.… ” She says she knows that song from school.
“Oh, okay. So how’s Mr. Zebra? Is he still your favorite stuffed animal? ”
“Who’s that?” she says. “My favorite is Monk Monk.”
Mom is saying something to me in silence, but I’m unable to read her lips.
I decide to go for broke. “Maisie, don’t you remember me?
” Without looking at me, she shakes her head and starts that braid twisting again.
I look up at my mother. This time I can read her lips. “Don’t pressure her,” she’s saying.
Patrolling the room, Butch—in fairness, she’s Officer Stickley—stops at our table and asks Maisie whether she likes books.
Maisie nods. “Well, you see Bert and Ernie on the wall over there?” She directs Maisie’s attention to a badly done version of the Sesame Street characters.
“Over there is where the books are. I bet if you pick one out, your daddy will read it to you.” Maisie looks at her grandmother, who tells her to go ahead, so she slides off Mom’s lap and heads for the books.
“You are her father, right?” Stickley asks me.
I tell her yes, but after she walks away, I say to my mother, “I used to be.”
“Now stop that, Corby,” Mom says. “This is a lot for her to process. Be patient. She’ll come around.”
“Yeah, okay. But I wish you’d have given me a heads-up that she was coming. Kind of a shock to see her walk in here when I wasn’t expecting it.”
“Well, this got put together very quickly, and you and I haven’t spoken since when? Tuesday? It’s not like I can call you .”
“No, you’re right. I apologize. Thanks so much for bringing her here. How the hell did you pull it off? Is this visit clandestine or is it Emily-approved?”
“Corby, I never would have brought her here without permission,” she says.
“Emily had planned a weekend getaway in Boston with some of her teacher girlfriends. Betsy was going to babysit, but she came down with a bad cold, so I volunteered. I got one of the other girls to take my weekend shifts. I have Maisie until tomorrow night. I figured it was a long shot when I asked Emily about bringing her here to see you, but she surprised me and said it was probably a good idea. She told me the child psychologist she’s taking Maisie to has urged her to let you and your daughter see each other again to prepare for your getting out.
To tell you the truth, I think Emily was relieved when I offered to bring her.
She told me she feels guilty she hasn’t come to see you more often herself, but she finds this place so intimidating, she gets nauseous. ”
“You sure it’s the place ?” I ask, half kidding, half not.
Mom assures me that it’s the place. “But having you back in her life is going to take getting used to for Maisie. Today is just the first baby step. Okay?”
“Okay. Hey, were you always this wise or is it something new?”
She laughs and says she doesn’t know how wise she is; she’s just trying to make things easier for everyone, Emily included.
All the time we’ve been talking, I’ve been keeping an eye on Maisie.
I know most of the other guys who are here—we’re all from B Block—and I haven’t had a problem with any of them.
But I know Jorge was a gangbanger; Lou’s doing time for “doing” his girlfriend’s underage daughter; Sal’s here for human trafficking; Gallagher scammed two different widows out of their life savings.
Nobody’s bothering Maisie, and most of my peers, absorbed with their company, don’t even notice her.
But watching her pass within five or six feet of these guys puts me on alert.
I’m not their peer right now; I’m Maisie’s father.
In all the time she’s been kept away from me, I’ve only been able to see through the lens of my own selfish need—to look at her, talk to her, touch her, observe from visit to visit how she’s doing, how she’s changing.
But this is the first time I’m able to see things through Emily’s eyes.
To consider that she may not have been withholding my daughter to punish me, but to make sure her only living child stays away from a potentially dangerous place that houses dangerous people.
Maisie returns with two books, Curious George Goes to the Zoo and something called Pinkalicious .
She’s also carrying a tattered and stained stuffed bunny.
Emily would shudder at the thought of Maisie holding the thing, but I take my cue from Mom and let it go.
“Which book do you want me to read first, Maisie?” I ask.
She chooses Pinkalicious but says Grammy has to read it, not me.
“All right,” Mom tells her. “I’ll read this one and your daddy can read you Curious George .” Maisie doesn’t look thrilled with this plan, but she doesn’t object.
When it’s my turn to read, I reprise my performance as the funny daddy the twins used to love, hamming it up with over-the-top animal sounds and exaggerated responses to Curious George’s hijinks.
Maisie is poker-faced during the first few pages, but by the end, she’s giggling in spite of herself.
After that, and for the rest of our hour together, she’s a little more friendly and talkative.
At one point, she says, directly to me, “You know what?”
“No. What?”
“I’m going to a princess party at Michaela’s house.” I tell her that sounds like fun. Ask her whether she’s going to dress up like a princess. “Yup. And guess what else?”
“What else?”
“I have a pet monkey. A real one.” Mom gives me a discreet head shake.
“Wow, that’s cool,” I say. “What’s its name? Curious George?”
“No! She’s a girl monkey.”
“Hmm, is her name Betsy?” Mom tries to suppress a smile.
“No, silly. That’s my gramma’s name.”
“Your grandma? I thought your grandma’s name was Vicki.”
She widens her eyes and slaps her forehead. “My other gramma, dumbhead!”
“What? Your other grandma’s name is Dumbhead?”
Mom reminds us both that it’s not nice to call someone that.
When Officer Goatee gives visitors the five-minute warning, Mom tells Maisie she’d better put the books and the bunny back where she got them. She tells her no, she can’t keep the bunny because other children will want to play with it, too.
As we watch her walk across the room, my protective-parent instinct kicks in again. Mom says she thinks Maisie and I made some good headway today. “They used to love it when I read to them and got silly,” I tell her. “Came back like riding a bike.”
“But please don’t say things like that about Betsy. That’s not going to help.”
“Point taken,” I tell her.
Mom says it broke her heart when Maisie told me she’s going to that princess party.
“It already happened and Maisie was the only girl in her class who wasn’t invited.
Apparently, when she asked that girl Michaela why, she told her it was because she’s ‘a weirdo.’ Emily said poor Maisie was devastated. ”
Hearing this breaks my heart, too, but once I’m out of here… And here she comes, back to the table. For whatever reason she’s an outcast at school, we’re going to help her fix that.
“Visits are now over, people!” Officer Stickley announces. Most of the others in the room stand and embrace.
Mom and I share a quick hug and I get a peck on the cheek.
“Not too much longer before I’m out of here,” I tell her.
She puts her hands together as if in prayer.
Turning to Maisie, Mom asks her whether she’d like to give me a hug or a kiss goodbye.
Maisie shakes her head. “Okay then, see you soon,” I tell her.
I watch them walk with the other visitors to the steel door and wait for it to open.
Mom and Manny’s sister are saying something to each other.
As they stand there, Maisie suddenly pivots, looks back at me, and gives me a timid wave.
I wave back. For the time being, this little exchange is all I need.
The door begins its noisy opening, the visitors walk through, the door reverses direction, and they’re gone.
Dismissed from the visiting room, we line up to be strip-searched.
Thinking about what Anselmo and Piccardy had planned when I was led into that storage room for a strip search, I break out in a sweat.
Begin to shake. I’m desperate to hold on to my daughter’s visit—the sound of her giggling, her braids, the joy of that surprise wave—but it’s being snatched away from me as the ugliness comes back.
I smell the onions, feel the surprise pain of it, the humiliation.
When I’m next in line to be searched, I walk toward the CO.
A few minutes later, I’m outside, walking back to B with Manny.
I can’t recall bending and coughing just now, any of that.
When I began flashing back, I must have checked out until it was over.
I started weaning myself off the Klonopin two weeks ago and quit it altogether the day before yesterday.
That’s it, I told myself. No more. But I’m feeling so rattled by that strip search that, after chow, I get the okay from the CO at the control desk, head over to the medical unit, and get in line.
I’ll just take it this one last time so that, after that flashback I had, I can calm my nerves and get some sleep tonight. Then that will be it.
Dear Emily,
I’m writing to thank you for giving the okay to let Maisie visit me with my mom.
For the past almost-three years, I’ve appreciated the pictures and updates you’ve sent me, but seeing her in person was magical.
Sometimes when I think about that hour she and I had together last Saturday, I almost wonder if it really happened. I love her so much, Em.
Maisie’s visit has gotten me thinking about our future—yours and mine—and the difference between the fantasy of what I’ve imagined happening and the reality of our situation.
My gut tells me you’re leaning toward going forward with the divorce.
It kills me to write this, please know that, but I think I can admit to myself now that, other than legally, our marriage ended a while ago.
That day on the phone when I was pushing for a reconciliation, you said that whatever was going to happen, you wanted me to still be in Maisie’s life.
I’ve done a lot of thinking about that and, especially since her visit, I realize that’s the most important thing.
And you’re right that my reentry into her life should be gradual until she feels comfortable with me and you’re comfortable that my recovery is rock-solid.
There’s a skinny little window at the back of my cell that looks out onto the visitors’ parking lot.
In the time I’ve been here, I’ve sometimes witnessed through this window the reunions between some guy who’s just been released and the families and friends who meet him and drive him away.
For the past almost-three years, I’ve imagined the day when I walk out of here and now it’s close to happening.
My mom is going to pick me up and if it’s okay with you, before we go back to her place, I’d love to see you and Maisie, either at the house or someplace where we can go for lunch or whatever.
I hope that’s not too much to ask and, if it is, I’ll understand.
You can let my mother know if it’s okay with you.
Thanks for considering it. Love you, Corby