A few feet away, Riley stood watch over Cullen’s class, the Little Floaters, where the objectives were more ambitious—to float unassisted on your back for ten seconds, and doggie paddle five feet. Unlike his sister, Cullen loved the water, perhaps a little too much, and unless supervised, would try to paddle his way to the deep end. Unsure she could rely on the young instructors—none of them more than nineteen—Riley kept alert with eyes peeled for the entire thirty-minute class. She always manned Cullen’s side of the pool because she was never sure she could trust Shawn to pay as close attention as she did.
And besides Shawn was Cass’ preferred audience when she was having a meltdown, like the one she was having at the moment. The instructor had turned her over onto her tummy and held her afloat, but Cassidy screamed and squirmed while Shawn crouched at the edge of the pool, trying to coax her into cooperating.
While Riley watched, one of the instructors made her way toward him and Shawn leaned in closer to listen to something she said. He nodded, then stood upright, and started walking away while Cassidy screamed even louder. By the time he got to Riley, he looked a little shaky.
“What happened?” Riley asked.
“They think she’s ‘performing’ for me,” Shawn said. “And they’re ‘suggesting’ I stay out of sight while she’s in class.”
Riley laughed and then pursed her lips when he scowled. “Sorry,” she said. “But I’ve told you that a million times. You need to have an iron will. Like Tracy and Brendan. Look …”
Across at the Little Bubblers corner of the pool, Brendan and Tracy seemed engrossed only in each other, while Layla spluttered and hammed it up for her parents to no effect. Tracy, while full of hugs and kisses for her daughter, was still the original Tiger Mom. Hissy-fits would have little effect on her.
“Yeah, well I’ve been expelled, so I’ll see you out there.”
Riley’s eyes followed Shawn as he headed for the waiting room. The private club where they took their children for lessons was on the Lower West Side, and inside a building that looked completely innocuous from the outside. One could walk by, glance at its forgettable red brick façade and never know that behind the walls, the offspring of movie stars, musicians, politicians and other high-profile New Yorkers were having the same lessons that “regular” children went to all around the country in lower-resource community centers and at elementary and high schools.
Riley had first heard about it from one of the other mothers at the school, and when she came to check it out, was outraged at the opulence. The shiny new changing rooms, the pristine play areas, music rooms and mini-theaters. Not to mention the “serenity rooms” where unruly kids were sent to “reflect” and calm down. And then there were the four café areas, each with a different ambiance, and serving different kinds of food. Coming from a world where she had covered stories about schools with toilets didn’t flush and the drinking fountains had no potable water, Riley almost wanted to cry at how much these children—and her children—would have when other kids had very little or nothing at all.
She’d made the mistake of sharing that misgiving with the mother of one of Cullen’s classmates. The woman’s eyes had gone flat and she sniffed.
Well, she said. If you object to nice places, perhaps you should send your children to do their lessons at the Bronx YMCA.
That was the last time Riley had ever complained aloud to someone she barely knew about the relative privilege she was able to enjoy, and the guilt that it sometimes produced.
In the pool, Cullen was swimming toward the instructor, his little head bobbing above the water and moving from side to side. Riley smiled.
In the back pocket of her jeans, her phone vibrated, and she fished it out. It was a media text. She opened it, and there was a picture, of a group of people sitting in a semi-circle on folding chairs. At the opening, a woman stood. She was wearing a white t-shirt with black words emblazoned across the chest and appeared to be mid-speech.
Another text came through.
You’re missing out. Great meeting with mothers of juvenile lifers.
Riley tapped on the picture and magnified it. The woman standing at the front of the room, unless she was mistaken, was Ella, Brian’s wife. She looked even more beautiful now than she had in her wedding photo. Her locs were babies no more, and instead rested on her shoulder to one side. The letters on her t-shirt red ‘END JLWOP’ JLWOP Riley knew, meant ‘juvenile life without parole.’
233 W. 14th. Not too late.
That was less than six blocks away. What were the chances?
Riley swallowed and glanced at the time. The children’s swim class would be done in less than fifteen minutes, and then she and Shawn, Brendan and Tracy, with the kids in tow would probably head over to Magnolia Bakery on Bleecker and then across into Brooklyn to hang out at Brendan and Tracy’s place.
She could, if she left now, catch a little bit of Brian’s meeting. And she would meet The Wife, whom she was now almost irrepressibly curious about. Then, she would simply take an Uber across the bridge and meet everyone at Brendan and Tracy’s, and ride back home with Shawn and the kids.
It was a good plan. A sound plan. And completely understandable. If she was considering donating to Brian’s non-profit after all, it made sense to see exactly what they were about.
When she started her walk over to W. 14th, Riley suspected she may have made the wrong decision in going, and by the time she rang the bell at number 233, she was sure of it. The building was next to a dry cleaner on one side, and a bodega on the other. For a moment, Riley almost missed it until she saw the small sign for Youth Justice Campaign listed next to another, for a podiatrist’s office and a notary public who also claimed to do wills, incorporations and bankruptcies.
She waited a few moments and was almost relieved when it seemed like no one would come to answer the door. Then there was a loud buzzing, and she shoved it open. A glass door immediately on the left was the podiatrist, and one on the right was the notary. In front of her was a flight of stairs. Riley looked up.
“Hey! You came!”
Brian was leaning down, and beckoning for her. She climbed the steps, trying to fix her expression so that she looked a lot more relaxed than she felt. At the top, there was yet another door, which Brian held open, so she could enter. There was a modest reception room, with a shabby coffee table and two chairs, and a screened off receptionist’s area behind what looked like bulletproof glass.
Riley glanced at Brian, who nodded.
“Yeah. Our work isn’t that popular in certain quarters,” he explained. “Families of victims sometimes get a little … passionate. Justifiably so.”
She nodded.
There were brochures and tracts, magazines and leaflets on the coffee table. On the wall there were posters with various victims’ assistance helplines and their numbers displayed, a poster from the public defenders’ office and one with a little kid sitting on a bench in handcuffs, staring at the camera with large, plaintive eyes.
‘We finally found a solution for prison overcrowding,’ the poster read. ‘Littler prisoners.’
“Let’s go in,” Brian said, a hand on her arm.
He punched a code into a door to the right of the fortified reception area and pushed it open when it clicked. Behind the door was a large office area with four private offices, and an open space in the center where a group of people were congregated. The meeting looked to be finishing up, because everyone had their heads bowed. Riley watched as the women clasped hands across the divide between their chairs; and at the front of the room Ella crouched in the gap of the semi-circle, her arms fully extended so she could hold the hands of the women on either side of her.
Someone, Riley couldn’t see who at first, was offering up a prayer “for those that are lost—our loved ones in prison, and the ones they took away from their families.” At her side, Riley saw that Brian had bowed his head as well, and so she did the same, embarrassed that she hadn’t immediately done so
on her own.
When the prayer ended, the women—there were no men in attendance except for Brian—stood and hugged each other, beginning to engage in friendly chatter. Many of them went to hug Ella, and she returned their hugs, then pointed to a table where there were refreshments laid out—a platter of fruit, doughnuts and bagels, coffee and juice.
Riley couldn’t help but notice how worn everything was. There were water stains on the ceiling, and some of the doors to the offices were losing their façade, exposing particle board underneath.
“We do this meeting once a week,” Brian explained. “A support group for the mothers of kids sentenced to life without parole. Or at least we call them kids. New York’s age of majority is sixteen, so you have folks who were seventeen at the time of their offense who’ve been in for thirty, or forty years.”
“Wow. But those would have to be for some pretty serious crimes though, right?” Riley asked, lowering her voice.
“Most are,” Brian said nodding. “Some downright gruesome to tell you the truth. Many of our clients were accessories, or accomplices with much older co-defendants. Rarely were they the instigators, and more often than not there were mitigating or extenuating circumstances. But still, it’s a tough issue for sure.”
Riley nodded. When she looked up a woman was coming toward her and Brian, arms outstretched. She was about fifty or so, and had a warm, round face, greying natural hair and wore a plaid shirt with ripped denim shorts.
“Attorney Marshall,” she said, with affection in her voice.
Brian hugged her, and she clasped her arms around him, then pulled back and put those hands on his cheeks, cupping his face.
“I want to thank you,” she said. “For going to see my Reggie. He wasn’t in a good state of mind till you went up there. So I want to …”
“Don’t thank me, Natalie. It was my pleasure. Reggie’s strong. He’s going to make it.”
“I think so. With your help, I really do think so.” Natalie gave his face one last pat and turned to greet someone else.
“Her son’s serving twenty-five for armed robbery and second-degree murder,” Brian explained. “He went in when he was sixteen, and he’s served ten years. We’re hoping we can get a resentencing and reduce his time some.”
Riley nodded again, looking around the room. All the women were smiling, laughing even. They were eating the refreshments and there was an atmosphere of fellowship and hope that reminded Riley of church.
She had been so busy looking at the women, she didn’t even notice when someone else approached. This person Brian hugged in a different way. Riley turned toward them just in time to see him and Ella exchange a kiss on the lips, one that lingered. Then he was draping an arm across her shoulders and pulling her toward him. With one last kiss on her cheek, Brian finally looked at Riley. His eyes were alight, and alive with pride.
“Riley,” he said. “This is my Ella.”
12
My Ella.
The words rang in Riley’s ears as she sat in the back of the Toyota Corolla that was shuttling her toward Brooklyn. Her Uber driver was a chatty one, but he didn’t seem to need much from her by way of responses, so she just let him talk, though she was sensing the beginnings of a tension headache.
My Ella. With those two little words, Riley had arrived at a dozen tiny realizations.
It’s so good to finally meet you, Ella said right after Brian introduced her.
She had an accent. Riley had been right. She was Nigerian.
It’s good to meet you as well, Riley said. And then, Brian’s wife.
She cringed, remembering she’d said that: Brian’s wife. Like she was trying to get the idea of it to take root in her unwilling brain.
Come have some coffee, Ella said, inclining her head toward the refreshments table and moving out of Brian’s embrace.
And for the next thirty minutes, she had given Riley the most polished fundraising pitch she had ever heard—and since marrying Shawn, she had heard many—all while making it sound like friendly weekend conversation.
What’s the Campaign’s annual budget? Riley managed to ask at some point, after hearing about all the work they did.
By then Brian was sitting on one of the folding chairs across from a woman who was earnestly explaining something to him, hands clasped between her legs and leaning forward. He was making good eye contact, listening closely to every word, nodding but never interrupting her.
Four-hundred-thousand, Ella said. Give or take.
Riley narrowed her eyes. And you have … how many employees?
Just two. A paralegal and our receptionist.
But …
How are we able to operate on such a meager budget? Ella finished the question for her.
Riley nodded.
Ella smiled. She had a slight gap between her two front teeth.
Well, to start, Brian and I are as poor as church mice. And the rest is just good luck, good will, and a little faith.
Riley made her excuses shortly after that, telling Ella and Brian truthfully that she had to meet up with her family.
You have babies? Ella asked as they were walking her out.
Yes, Riley said. Two. Cullen and Cassidy.
C’mon then, Ella said with a wry look and a sigh. She extended a hand, palm up. Pictures please.
At that, Riley couldn’t help but smile. She pulled out her phone and unlocked it, finding a picture of Cullen grinning widely with Cassidy sitting on his lap, his arms around her in a bear-hug.
Adorable.
Ella showed Brian the photo and he smiled and nodded.
We can’t wait, she said, leaning into Brian.
Next year, he said, more to his wife than to Riley. For sure.
The Uber driver crossed the Manhattan Bridge. They were less than ten minutes from the townhouse now, traffic allowing. She had to stop thinking about Brian and his wife.
But … with a four-hundred-thousand-dollar a year budget, they were probably paying themselves far less than one hundred grand a year each. And they wanted children. But what did she understand about scale and salaries and what constituted a good living any longer?
Last year, she and Shawn had spent one-hundred-thousand just to add a poolhouse to their home in New Jersey.
Before leaving, Riley had grabbed some of the literature about JLWOP from the waiting room and shoved it all into her tote. Standing outside Brendan and Tracy’s townhouse, before ringing the bell, she pushed them deeper inside, and weighed them down with her wallet. She didn’t know why she was bothering. Shawn would never look in her tote unless she asked him to get something from it, and even if he did, the literature was easily explained as background for something she was working on for Polis.
That had been the excuse she’d given Shawn for leaving the sports club in the first place. That she was meeting someone who had information for a story she was interested in writing. She rarely wrote stories of her own anymore. It was too difficult to do that and concentrate on running the business side of things. But occasionally, she ran across something so compelling that she couldn’t resist. It was occasional enough that Shawn knew not to question why she would go chasing a story in the middle of family time.
Every other Saturday, the women reclaimed their men, and the basketball games were moved to Sunday, or canceled altogether. On those Saturdays, the understanding was that Riley, too, would postpone her other obligations.
But still, Shawn hadn’t even hesitated to pick up the slack when she claimed she needed to interrupt that time, to go chase a lead.
When the door to the townhouse swung open, Riley heard the children right away, and then one of them tore past, screaming at the top of his or her lungs. She thought it might have been Layla but couldn’t be sure.
“Every week, I say ‘no more cupcakes’.” Tracy pulled her inside. “And then what do I do? Go over to Magnolia and get seduced by all the pretty frosting.”
Riley laughed. “Who can resist frosting?�
�� She slid her tote off her shoulder and put it on the foyer table.
“No one. We just shouldn’t go there anymore,” Tracy said. “Come upstairs with me. Let Brendan and Shawn deal with these kids for a change.”
Glancing into the living room, Riley waved at Shawn and followed Tracy upstairs to the master bedroom where they sprawled across the bed. Riley kicked off her sandals and rested her feet in Tracy’s lap.
“God, Riley. When was the last time you had a pedicure?”
“Not for a while.”
“Well it shows.”
“So, that’s what’s happening in my life,” Riley said. “No time for pedicures. How ‘bout you?”
She and Tracy spoke every day, sometimes multiple times a day, but asking her what was up was a surefire way to ensure that she wouldn’t have to say much, and that Tracy would carry the conversation. Now that she didn’t work outside the home, she was always a little starved for adult conversation, and babbled when she got together with her friends.
“Trying to get pregnant. Uncooperative husband. The usual.”
“It’ll happen, Tracy.”
“So everyone keeps telling me. Want a mimosa? Lemme go get us mimosas.”
Without waiting for a response, Tracy hopped off the bed and padded back downstairs. Riley barely registered her absence. She turned over, so she lay flat on her back and stared at the ceiling, thinking about the plans she and Brian made to meet that coming Tuesday. It would be the third time she had seen him since he’d shown up unannounced at her office, and yet she still hadn’t breathed a word to Shawn.
Now, it was outright deception. If she didn’t tell her husband soon that she had seen him, it would only worsen things. Except, that on Tuesday, after that very last meeting, she would have something concrete to tell—that she had seen Brian, and decided to donate to his non-profit, and that was that. She wouldn’t need to see him again. Just till Tuesday. Telling Shawn could keep until then.
There was a private rooftop garden in their building that Riley and Shawn rarely used. For a not-so-small monthly fee, they were assigned an access code to get to it. And if their code had been used to open the garden, no other codes would work for a one-hour interval. You were permitted to renew your code entry for an additional ‘grace hour’ if you wanted to, but if residents wanted to use the garden for more than two hours, special arrangements would have to be made and—unsurprisingly—additional fees paid.
Four: Stories of Marriage Page 9