Chapter 13
Roman
I’m in the middle of filling out some paperwork for a car I inspected after an accident.
I was told the driver is fine, but the car is not.
It needs a lot of work, from the axle to the frame rails, a total safety system rebuild, as well as a complete replacement of the left side panels.
It’s gonna run north of six grand, and I’d be surprised if the insurance adjuster doesn’t declare it a total loss.
This part of the job is necessary yet boring, and I’m so grateful for the reprieve of my cell phone ringing that I barely even look at my screen before hitting the button to answer.
Then it hits me all at once who it is when I hear the white noise.
Amy.
An automated voice fills my ear. “You have a collect call from an inmate at Champlain Valley Rehabilitation Facility for Women. This call may be monitored and recorded. To accept the charges for this call, press one. To decline, press two or hang up.”
I let out a breath and hit the number one.
“You may now begin your fifteen-minute call,” the voice tells me, and I sit on the edge of the seat, the usual anger and hurt twisting up my gut.
Then Amy comes on the line. “Hey, Roman.”
“Hi.”
“How are you doing?” she asks too brightly, and it annoys me.
“Fine.”
“That’s good.”
I should probably be more supportive. She is the mother of my child, and yet I don’t have it in me, so we sit in silence for a minute until I lose my cool.
“What do you want, Amy? I’m getting charged for this.”
“Oh, sorry my imprisonment is fucking up your life.”
I rub at my forehead. “What do you want?”
“I want to talk,” she says, sounding like she might cry. “I want to hear about Mazie. Does she miss me?”
Here again, I should feel some sympathy for her, but I don’t because she fucked up her life and ours—Mazie’s and mine. She did this. But I’m not that much of an asshole to tell her the truth.
“Yeah,” I answer but don’t elaborate. “What do you want to know?”
“How is she?”
“Mazie is…” Better than she’s ever been. “Doing really well.”
“Yeah? How about school? Does she like it?”
“She loves it. She started dance class too.”
“Oh my god,” Amy says, voice breaking. “You have to send me pictures.”
I sigh. “Yeah. Okay.”
“And the bunny. What’s his name?”
“Steve.”
“Right. Steve. How is he?”
“Good.” And because I’m tired of answering her questions and because I did love her at one time, I ask, “How are you?”
“I’m…okay.”
I don’t respond. I have no idea how to fucking respond to this situation. Ever.
I met Amy at the lowest point in my life, and we fed into each other’s worst tendencies.
I don’t know who dragged whom down, but I was the one to stay clean when we said we would get clean.
The day she told me she was pregnant was the day I had my last drink, gulped down my last pill.
Amy managed to be sober through her pregnancy and a few weeks after, but it didn’t take long for her to backslide, using postpartum depression as an excuse.
Maybe it was too hard for her, I don’t know, but from where I stood, it didn’t seem like she tried all that hard.
I was the one taking Amy to her doctor’s appointments.
I was the one offering to go in with her.
I was the one telling her to take a walk because she seemed like she needed a break.
But it was all, I’m fine or I don’t need you or Just for half an hour.
It wasn’t long before I found her stash. Coke to stay up, pills to sleep. Then there were the few glasses of wine to relax.
I didn’t want Mazie growing up in the shadow of an addicted parent like I did, so I knew what I had to do. I told Amy she needed to clean herself up or I was taking Mazie and leaving.
It worked. For a few months. But then she slipped.
The older Mazie grew, the harder it was to hide what was going on, and while I wanted my daughter to have two parents, it wasn’t going to be at her expense. Because I stopped trusting Amy with our daughter.
I packed up Mazie and moved out, to Amy’s crying. She begged me to stay, apologized, made the usual promises, but when it became obvious it wasn’t going to work, she called me a bastard for taking her child, a motherfucking asshole for leaving her alone.
But I made it clear I wasn’t going to keep Mazie from her; all she needed to do was clean up her life. I did it and knew she was capable of doing it too. Although I also knew how difficult it was to stay sober.
Amy hadn’t been very present in our daughter’s life, but when she was, she was a good mom. So when she called a few months later, telling me she’d turned her life around and wanted to see Mazie, I agreed.
We went over to her new apartment, decked out with brand-new furniture and electronics.
She bought Mazie a bunch of toys and dresses, ordered more food than we could finish, and topped it all off with ice cream and popcorn while we watched a movie.
I was impressed, and we all had a great time.
It almost felt like it was back to normal. Until someone banged on her door.
It was multiple cops. There to arrest her.
Mazie didn’t understand what was going on, but she knew enough that seeing her mother in handcuffs was bad. She was hysterical, which only made me hysterical. Especially when they separated us, interrogating me about who I was and what I was doing there.
It was traumatizing, to say the least. Seeing my baby carried away as she screamed and cried, her hands reaching out for me. It wasn’t long before I was reunited with her—in the back of a police car—but the damage had been done.
Mazie didn’t want to leave my side for weeks, had outbursts in school and crying fits in the middle of the night. She already had trouble understanding why we lived separately from her mom, so attempting to explain that she was in prison…it was a nightmare.
Arraigned on multiple charges of theft and fraud, Amy was entangled in a web of her own making.
She had been stealing prescription pads from the medical office where she worked, forging scripts to feed her escalating addiction.
She had also siphoned off money from the practice, masquerading her theft as legitimate expenses while pocketing the funds for her own use.
Instead of seeking sobriety, she had merely learned to hide her addiction behind a facade of lavish purchases. Her case was open-and-shut.
I didn’t attend the trial. Didn’t bring Mazie to see her like she asked.
She was fucking lucky I didn’t revoke her parental rights.
After thinking about it, I came to the realization that it was my job to keep Mazie safe, but that I should leave it up to her to decide if she wanted a relationship with her mother once she’s released from prison.
So, Amy would continue to receive updates every few weeks in the form of a phone call or an occasional picture for the next four years. The only positive out of all this was that she had to dry out while behind bars.
“Do you need anything? More money in your account?” For as much as movies and television shows are fiction, they’re still pretty accurate at portraying what it’s like to be in a cellblock.
I visited Amy once after sentencing, and she was in a rough way.
She told me how the inmates barter and trade their commissary goods, and I didn’t know what else to do besides promise that I’d keep money in her account.
I didn’t feel bad that she’d been caught breaking the law, that she was paying for what she’d done, but I had loved her at one point.
It broke my heart to see her like that, physically a mess.
Worse off than when she came home from a bender.
“No, I’m okay. I’m just…” Amy sniffles on the phone with me now. “I’m trying, Roman. I’m really trying to take this day by day, but it’s hard.”
“You’re still doing counseling in there, right? How’s that going?”
“A fucking joke.”
“What about your job?” Last we talked, she’d started working in the kitchen.
Amy’s sad tone flips to ire. “This skinny little bitch got me kicked out. Thinks she runs this place. She doesn’t run shit. I—”
“You have one minute remaining on this call,” the automated voice tells us.
“I’ll talk to you next time, Amy.”
“No, wait, Roman. Wait.” When I don’t hang up, she rushes out her request. “I was thinking you could bring Mazie to visit me.”
“No.” I stand up. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not bringing our six-year-old to a prison. She doesn’t need to see you in there, and I don’t even know why you’d want her to see you like that.”
“Because I love her.”
I pace the office. “Yeah, you really have a great way of showing it.”
“Fuck you. You have no idea what I’m going through in here.”
“And you have no idea what I’m going through out here. I’m not putting Mazie through that. End of fucking story.”
“Well, when I get out—”
“When you get out, we can talk about your relationship with her,” I interrupt. “But not now. Not like this.”
“What relationship?” Amy’s voice rises, a hint of desperation creeping in. “You won’t let me have one with her. You won’t let me be her mom.”
I barely keep my voice restrained, not wanting my coworkers to overhear me. “How can you? You’re in prison. You can’t be her mother. At least not right now.”
“You’re a son of a bitch, you know that? You—”
Her sentence is cut off abruptly, and then the automated voice tells me, “This call has ended.”
“Fuck.” I grit my teeth and toss my phone on my desk, my fists clenching with the need to relieve this pent-up stress.
This is so fucked up.
I may have thrown away a lot in life because of my addiction, but I refuse to give up anything else because of it.
I made it out, and like my mother, I won’t let my child suffer because they have a parent who continues to let it rule their life.
I’m not above taking Mazie away from Amy. I don’t want to.
But I will if I have to.
I slump into my chair, elbows on my knees, head in my hands.
That call, it’s a reminder.