Widows-in-Law

by Michele W. Miller

  On a hot spring day, Brian walked alongside the congressman up a cement path, weeds growing through erupted veins of time and weather. The congressman—white-hair, blue eyes, and exact smile—had talked nonstop for the ride from O’Hare to an area where Chicago ghettos leaked into Indiana.

  “Over seven hundred children live here,” he said. “Every single one of them has elevated lead levels.”

  “The contamination started in the eighties,” Brian said, knowing all the stats. He always did his homework. “That means a couple of generations. Thousands of people damaged.”

  The three-story garden apartments were like those where Brian and Jordan had lived during college, except the lawns here were dirt and sparse crabgrass, the trees scrawny skeletons, not a canopy of oaks and maples in a sea of green like Brian’s old home. There was a bleakness here, a place that had been destroying lives since its inception thirty years ago. Brian couldn’t help but think of Emily. How would he have handled the news that his daughter had been slowly lead poisoned into a life of compromised IQ, poor concentration, and personality disorder? He couldn’t even imagine living with that truth.

  Two hundred people, all African American, had packed into a community room, sitting in metal folding chairs and standing in the back. There were no cheery posters on the off-white walls. They all just wanted out.

  A woman stood, her two children sharing a folding chair beside her. “I let them play out in the dirt in front of our building for years. No one told us. Now we hear the dirt is poisoned with lead from the old plant they never bothered to properly clean up. We just want to be moved like the mayor promised—and they’re not even offering enough money to live anywhere decent. The kids are going crazy, locked up in the house like prisoners. They don’t understand.” Her mouth wrenched into an angry grimace. “Neither do I.”

  The congressman spoke, looking glumly at the woman, “As to the move, the checks will begin to be distributed next month. We’ve got counselors coming out here to try to help folks figure out where to go. Let’s have Brian Silverman fill us in on the lawsuit.”

  Brian stood and looked around. “Thank you for meeting with me today. We’ve filed the complaint in this case. The first step will be to get certified as a class so you won’t each have to litigate the case separately, which would be prohibitively expensive. Unless the refinery settles with us, it will take years to get you what’s owed. They will put as many hurdles as they can in our path. But we have a strong case and we’ll need your cooperation. Many of you have met the team from my firm. They are continuing to gather documents. If we don’t already have them, we need medical records for your children and yourselves. We’ll need school records.”

  Heads were bobbing in the audience. They seemed empowered by what Brian was saying, which gave Brian an infusion of energy too. People were taking notes. “Money won’t reverse the damage. These are hard facts. But money will ensure that your children receive the best interventions and be taken care of to the extent needed.” Brian’s eyes followed a toddler squirming in his mother’s arms. He felt a disconcerting wetness in his eyes, remembering Emily again. “But I will fight for you. I will make sure you can take care of your children and yourselves.”

  An elderly woman raised her hand. “What about the offer they’re talking about?”

  Brian turned toward the side of the room where she sat. “I know the amount of money they’re offering sounds tempting, but their formula doesn’t pay enough for the damages to the children and teenagers. It is simply not enough for the lifetime challenges many of them will have to face. So we need to continue our trial prep. The most convincing argument for a favorable settlement is that we’re ready and able to take the case to trial.”

  Brian shook hands or hugged nearly every person in that room before leaving. He knew money was a poor surrogate for getting people their health back. Every dollar they won was in exchange for a dollar’s worth of health and peace of mind. They weren’t winning the lotto.

  Yet his clients tended to be grateful for anything he could do, which was a humbling experience, gratifying but ultimately inadequate because he couldn’t make the sick healthy. Plus the pump Brian got out of dealing with his clients often had a boomerang effect, leaving him with a feeling of dread that he’d fail them. For a week after a meeting like this, he’d wake up in the middle of the night from dark dreams about things he had to do on the case—a deposition, a response to interrogatories, a motion; his mind fixated on each task that needed him, the thought returning repeatedly that he was an impostor, not nearly the superhero-attorney they imagined he was.

  He rarely shared with anyone how these cases twisted his insides. He never dropped the facade that things came easily to him. He didn’t even let on with Jessica, knowing his vulnerability would scare her. And he certainly didn’t talk about it with Steve, who looked at people as numbers with dollar signs in front of them, not as real people whose lives could be raised up or dashed by the quality of his work product. Walking toward the congressman’s car, Brian’s unease deepened. He looked out at the housing project as they drove away, feeling as if all of life was balanced on the edge of a cliff.

  He took out his phone and scrolled though messages and emails, which tended to soothe him like cyber-Xanax. He’d received messages from Jessica, Emily, and Lauren. The familiarity of the three women was a protective nest when his emotions threatened to get the better of him. Even Lauren with her nagging and jabs. Once he and Lauren had overcome the worst of their hurt, things had been okay between them. The part he’d regretted most about the divorce was letting go of the idea of family—Lauren, Emily, and him as a unit. Not that he was unhappy with Jessica.

  His phone vibrated in his palm. Jordan. Brian didn’t return the call. Instead, he forced himself to listen to the congressman’s political small talk for the ride back to the airport. Brian shook the congressman’s hand when he left the car, promising to see him at the next dinner party Steve and Nicole were hosting for him. “All righty, then,” the congressman said, slapping Brian’s back as if greeting voters outside Wrigley Field.

  Brian tugged his compact carry-on into the terminal. He dialed Jordan as he waited on the abbreviated security line for private travelers flying their own planes. “Hey, J, what’s up?”

  “Can you come talk to me, attorney-client?”

  ***

  After landing at Westchester Airport, Brian went straight to the Home Game sports bar on Manhattan’s West Side. It was on a warehouse block midway down the street from the Intrepid, the aircraft carrier that served as a military museum. Car washes anchored each end of the block, and yellow taxis lined up outside them for the cabbie special rate. A forklift driver steered into a warehouse’s garage next door to the building where Brian’s Uber left him.

  A broad-shouldered man unclipped a velvet rope to allow Brian to enter the sports bar at the bottom of a brown-brick building. A black awning but no sign out front made anyone who entered feel like an insider. Brian might have wondered about the place if he were passing by—or he might have overlooked it completely.

  Brian took in the sleek, red-backlit bar that ran the length of the right side of the large open room. Cocktail waitresses in skimpy black outfits outnumbered customers at the moment. This place was no raucous beer joint like most sports bars. At the center of the room, a few men drank at high tables on bar stools, wearing suits or corporate casual. Mixed martial arts and a Mets game played on flat-screens.

  Seeing Brian, Jordan broke away from talking to a small blond man near the bar.

  “What are you having?” Jordan walked with Brian to the bar, ordered, and handed Brian a gin and tonic. “Come upstairs.”

  Brian followed Jordan to the back of the bar, down a hallway lit by floorboard lights, and up a carpeted staircase. A bouncer opened a door for them, and they entered a black-carpeted area more crowded than the bar downstairs. There were blackj
ack and roulette tables. Brian could make out poker games in progress at the far end of the room. The women working here wore shorts that were barely more than thongs. Low-cut belly blouses pushed up large breasts. They were extraordinarily beautiful. Jordan brought Brian to a VIP area in the back, a cocktail waitress smiling at Jordan in recognition as they passed. Behind velvet ropes, circular leather couches surrounded low coffee tables arranged into seating groups.

  “Check out the tables over there,” Jordan pointed with his forehead after they’d sat.

  “Yeah?” Brian took in the sight of men at a poker table just outside the VIP area. Women massaged their shoulders. Brian watched the men play.

  “See the two young dudes.”

  Brian knew who he was talking about. Two well-heeled men in their twenties, wearing shirtsleeves, their shirt buttons open. Women whispered in their ears as they rubbed.

  “Most of the guys who come here are bankers, hedge-funders, a few trust-fund kids. They play high stakes. Not millions but thousands on a hand. Are you wondering how they concentrate?” Jordan asked.

  Brian laughed and shook his head. “Exactly.”

  “They’ve drunk too much and probably snorted too much. You see the other guy who’s getting a massage, a little older? Now, watch him. He’s not a banker, and he’s barely touched his drink. He’s playing teams with two other guys at the table. They’re telling each other their cards. He’s saying something at the table like, ‘I love the boobs on that one.’ That means he’s got two queens.”

  “No shit.”

  “Word to the wise: never do what they’re doing, Brian.”

  Jordan and Brian watched the table for a few minutes, nursing their drinks, not seeing the cards but able to tell when the hands went sour for the young bankers.

  Jordan put down his drink. “I have a business proposition for you. I want you to help me.”

  Brian felt a shot of adrenaline but made sure not to show it.

  “It’s safe and very profitable,” Jordan explained.

  “I’m all ears.”

  “I told you about my Chinese players. They’re so desperate for action, they’d bet on a fly crawling up a wall if they had a taker. But the only thing they hate worse than losing is getting caught by the Chinese authorities. So, the house—that’s me—gets its cut off the top and delivers the winnings in ways that avoid traceable records. They win some and lose some but, while they’re at it, they get to funnel money out of China just in case things go sour for them there, which can happen without warning.”

  “Interesting.”

  “I want you to help me move the money. You could easily help me on this, and the cut is very generous.”

  “Interesting,” Brian said again, watching a woman walk away from the poker table toward the front of the room, the lights shining on miles of smooth exposed skin. Brian had no moral compunction about Jordan’s business, no more than he cared about people who smoked marijuana, used prostitutes, or the greedy schmucks getting ripped off at poker nearby. He’d heard all the stuff about how internet gambling preyed on the weak, how it brought an addict’s fix to his fingertips. But in Brian’s estimation, the Feds were only protecting the profits of the old-money casinos when they illegalized internet gambling. He had no ethical problem with internet gambling, especially when it came to billionaires. He certainly had no ethical qualms with their hiding Chinese money.

  He imagined not working day and night, never enough hours in the day to make him feel comfortable that he was doing enough for his clients. He pondered how much easier the simple life would be if he had the kind of money Jordan had. Money would solve his Emily problem too. He allowed himself a momentary fantasy of flying Emily to visit him in the Bahamas every weekend. The proverbial cake and eating it too. Still, what Brian didn’t want was to get caught up in anything that would threaten his law license or lead him to a simple life in prison.

  Brian leaned over and stubbed out a cigarette. “If we were caught doing this, we’d get five years, easy. They could throw in a RICO conspiracy along with the tax evasion. On top of that, I get disbarred and Jessica and I die in poverty.”

  “Don’t be a drama queen,” Jordan said. “It’s foolproof and not even illegal. We’re a foreign corporation conducting perfectly legal overseas business. Technically speaking, there’s no US profits to report, so no tax evasion.”

  “Technically speaking, right.”

  “The US government has no problem with us helping the Chinese get their money out of China. Think about it. We’re doing our patriotic duty, and we’d be appreciated for it.”

  Brian couldn’t help but notice Jordan’s use of the word “we.” He liked the sound of that and pictured freedom. He smiled. “You should have had one of those girls massaging my shoulders while you proposed that.”

  Jordan laughed. “Does that mean you’ll do it?”

  CHAPTER 16

  Saturday, November 2

  At six thirty, the sun burst through Lauren’s fifth-floor window. A prewar radiator hissed, deceptively warm on a frigid day. She shuffled to the bathroom. It was a weekend, but she always woke up at dawn, no matter what time she’d gone to bed. Emily accused her of being rigid and controlling even while asleep, and there was an element of truth to that.

  She washed her face, still feeling mortified as if she’d hooked up with someone against her better judgment. She’d tried to put it out of her mind yesterday, but it hadn’t worked. She’d liked Carl so much that she’d ignored her instincts when she’d thought him evasive. He’d clammed up every time the conversation turned to him. And even when she first saw him with Mookie, she’d gotten a fleeting sense that he was somehow manipulating her. Now she could see that he’d planned every move of Thursday night like a chess game, ten moves ahead of her.

  And the coup de grâce: he had two phones. When they were at the café, he’d excused himself to take a call on a black phone. When he put her contact info into his phone, he’d used a different phone, one with a navy blue cover. She wasn’t sure at first, but it jelled in her mind in the hours after she left him: he was married, not divorced, and had a burner phone. He couldn’t give her the same phone number his wife knew about, and he couldn’t talk with his wife on his real phone in front of Lauren. He hadn’t made a serious pass, but he was obviously one of those guys who played it cool until the woman gave it up.

  She felt like an adolescent trapped in an adult body, hollowed out by her vulnerability, once again. Her remorse and shame about her neediness with Carl felt all too familiar, even after so long. In the quiet of her brightening living room, she remembered walking to a makeshift drop-in center on Saint Mark’s Place in the East Village, alone, unprotected, an invisible speck in a fast city. She remembered thinking that her father was probably in the morgue by then, waiting for one of his cousins or aunts to put up the cash to bury him. A crowd of recovering addicts milled around outside the ramshackle building, smoking cigarettes, talking and laughing. Her father had brought her there when he attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings. There were big rooms downstairs where recovering addicts played cards, hung out, and had meetings. Anyone could walk into the sooty-dark place where all the windows were covered to protect the anonymity of the recovering addicts. There was no security or staff. Homeless adults roamed the rooms, lounging across metal chairs, sleeping, or talking to themselves in the back row of meetings until it was time to claim their beds at the Bowery Mission.

  When Lauren was there with her father, she’d seen homeless kids too. So that first night after he died, she trailed behind when she spotted a group stomping upstairs like Peter Pan’s gang after a day of boosting at Macy’s and Tommy Hilfiger. She still carried her father’s cocaine hidden in her knapsack, although she’d thrown his gun in a dumpster behind a sushi takeout place, wanting no part of it. On the third floor, two dozen chattering teenagers, girls and boys, tugged mattresses on
to the empty dance floor of a sober nightclub that only opened for dancing on weekends. The building’s owner stored mattresses for them and let them sleep in the disco when the dance floor wasn’t in use.

  Lauren pulled her mattress toward a wall of the disco, thinking she would feel safer there until she saw a moving shadow, a cockroach, at the baseboard where the dance floor met a peeling plaster wall. She switched directions and dropped her mattress in the center of the dance floor.

  A tall, handsome boy with a crooked-toothed Denzel Washington smile pulled his mattress near hers. “You’re new.” He signaled to the other kids in the room. “Stick close to us. The addicts downstairs are cool, but there’s older guys down there who aren’t really in recovery. They’ll try to pimp you.”

  He became her boyfriend, starting that night. At least he held her when she cried for her father, which was the closest thing she had to a funeral. He helped her keep her orphan’s terror at bay. And she joined their group. They were fed and used the showers in an apartment next to the disco. They slept in relative safety in exchange for chores like dumping the garbage, mopping and cleaning the bathrooms downstairs, which resembled a nightmare Port-A-San at the end of a county fair.

  The group helped her sell off her father’s cocaine, all the kids buying new clothes at the Gap on the corner of Second Avenue, plus weed at Tompkins Square Park. The twelve-step meetings ran twenty-four hours a day at St. Mark’s, white noise for the teenagers. Lauren and her friends passed through or napped in meetings, never actually participating, but they kept their weed and booze hidden from sight out of respect for the recovering addicts who would buy them coffee or cigarettes sometimes if they asked.

  One night, Denzel didn’t come back. They all figured he’d been busted, but there was no way to find out. Another of the guys became her boyfriend. Then another. And then there were the nights when she just needed company in the dark, it didn’t matter who.

  She felt that same yearning now, to be held and protected in the face of her upturned life. She hated that in herself, just as she’d hated it twenty years ago. Was that what drew her so rashly to Carl? Lauren dried her face, feeling shame welling up, much of it so old and firmly repressed that it flowed out like a gusher of underground oil. She’d worked so hard to craft a new life and leave her teenage self behind. She was such an idiot for opening herself up to some asshole, she of all people, who thought she was so damn streetwise. As if marrying Brian hadn’t been enough of a lapse.