When Gretchen was finished, her mother made a small snorting noise and kept staring out into the distance. And then she was just…silent.
“I’m sorry, dear, what’s the question?” she asked finally.
Now it was Gretchen’s turn to snort. “The question is whether or not I should leave Richard.”
“A divorce?” Now there was an actual burst of laughter.
“Yes, a divorce, Mother. He cheated on me. I’m convinced. At least once, maybe more than that. And he’s—I mean, I can ask him to stop, but…”
“Do you think he will?” her mother asked.
“Stop?”
“Yes, if you say: ‘Husband of mine, I politely request that you stop whoring around.’ Do you think he will say: ‘Oh, wife of mine, I had no idea it bothered you! Of course, I will cease immediately sticking my manhood places it does not belong!’ ” And then she really laughed. Loud and shrill.
Gretchen shuddered. Her mother’s use of the wordmanhood,like something out of a bad romance novel, was especially horrifying. Just that one sentence was as close as they’d ever come to a sex talk. “This isn’t a joke, Mother.”
“Oh, I’m being deadly serious, dear,” she said. “Divorce Richard, expose your children and this family to the shame ofyourfailure—only to what? Marry another man who will do the exact same thing to you?”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do,” she hissed. “Because theyalldo it. Every. Last. One. Of. Them. Did you honestly think you were so special, so beautiful, so smart that it wouldn’t happen to you?”
And then Gretchen almost asked:Are you saying that Dad cheated?But the truth had been looming there her whole life, just out of view. Hidden, but only because Gretchen had averted her eyes. Just like she was doing now.
“I’m surprised,” Gretchen had pressed.
“About what?” her mother asked, adjusting her oversize sunglasses on her pale, bony but somehow still very striking face.
“That you, of all people, would tell me to stay. You didn’t want me marrying Richard in the first place.”
Her mother took off her sunglasses and turned to look atGretchen. A grimace played at her lips. “But you went ahead and married him anyway, didn’t you? The beautiful boy who would be loyal to you because he was poor. Because you held the power. But you turned your poor boy into a rich and handsome man. So, it’s your rickety bed. You need to grow up, my dear, and start lying in it.”
***
It turned out the only way to visit someone in Rikers was by riding a packed, rattling old school bus over the bridge and getting patted down at the visitors’ center. And that was only the beginning of the degradation. By the time Gretchen stood in a long line of visiting family members at the Central Welcome Center—which must have been meant ironically—with an enormous German shepherd walking up and down sniffing everyone, she felt like a completely different person. Stripped down, yes, but to some unexpected iron core.
Then there was a second bus after the Rikers Island Central Welcome Center security screening. Rikers, it turned out, wasn’t a single prison—it was many different prisons spread across the island, which was ringed by fencing and barbed wire. Like some kind of horrifying boarding school.
The second bus was in far worse shape than the first, rusted and dented with sagging seats. It smelled distinctly of feces, and the bus driver neither spoke nor made eye contact with anyone, jerking especially hard at each stop so that the visitors onboard were jostled uncomfortably. Punishment, perhaps, for whatever it was their family members had done.
And what if Richard was guilty? What then? Gretchen no longer felt sure of anything.
—
She was left to wait in the extremely grim and very filthy Otis Bantum visiting area for nearly twenty minutes, which was several lifetimes too long. According to Mikey Pearce, the Otis Bantum Center was one of the better options because it housed only“detained” inmates, not convicted ones. In other words, at least some of the men there were theoretically innocent. For that reason, it was one of the facilities that allowed “full-contact” visits. Gretchen had set aside the rest of Mikey’s advice long before she even boarded the first bus. It didn’t matter if someone was recording every word she said—Gretchen was going to get the answers she needed. The rest was Richard’s problem.
The visiting area was dotted with nearly two dozen tables and folding chairs, each filled with someone waiting fortheirinmate. The tables were close, but not so close that Gretchen was worried anyone would overhear. Besides, the other women—and it was almostallwomen, wives, girlfriends, maybe a mom or two—seemed too shrouded in grief to bother paying attention to anything or anyone else.
Finally, the side door opened, and the inmates started filing in, past the desk at the front where a guard had checked Gretchen’s ID, then compared it to the required online sign-upagain. Gretchen hadn’t seen Richard yet—the line was moving slowly, each inmate pausing to sign in. Gretchen’s chest tightened when she finally spotted him, looking older and thinner. A little anger leaked from Gretchen’s sails.
No,she reminded herself.Not this time.She could care about Richard, could love him forever, even. But that didn’t change what needed to be done right now.
As soon as Richard saw Gretchen, he broke into a huge smile. He even stood taller. That was the point of the steadfast wife, wasn’t it—to prop up her husband when things were at their bleakest? Gretchen felt a fresh wave of rage.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Richard said as he sat down. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
“You look…tired,” she managed.
