Chapter 2
The phone area smelled like disinfectant, warm plastic, and the coffee the guard carried past without offering anyone. I sat beneath the buzzing light with the receiver pressed to my ear, watching a thin crack in the wall paint while I waited for Lena to answer.
When she did, she didn't say hello.
“Is Nia there?”
Her voice sounded close and far away at the same time.
“Yeah,” I said. “I can hear her.”
A soft rustle came through the line. Then Nia made a small sound, not quite a word. I pictured her curly hair sticking up after a nap, her light onesie wrinkled at the knees. I kept my eyes on the crack in the paint because picturing her face made it harder to speak.
“Hey, baby girl,” I said.
The line went quiet except for Lena shifting the phone. Nia breathed against it, quick and uneven.
“She still remembers you,” Lena said.
I almost smiled. “I know she does.”
“You don't know that.”
“I heard her.”
“That doesn't mean—” Lena stopped. I heard a cabinet close on her end. “The next visit is Saturday. If I can get the bus fare together.”
“You don't have to come every time.”
“I know.”
“You've got rent. Groceries. Daycare.”
“She comes with me.”
“I know she comes with you.” I rubbed my thumb along the receiver cord. “I'm saying you don't have to spend money getting here just to watch somebody pull me away again.”
Her breathing changed. It became careful, measured. The same way it had been in the visitation room when she looked past me toward the officer's gloves.
“I want her to see you,” she said.
“You want her to see me, or you want me to see her?”
“Both.”
Neither of us filled the silence after that. Somewhere behind me, another man laughed into his phone. The sound rose and disappeared beneath the fluorescent hum.
“Lena,” I said, “what was in the envelope?”
She didn't answer right away.
“You saw it?” she asked.
“I saw you holding it.”
“You weren't supposed to notice.”
“I notice everything in there.”
“That place sends paperwork all the time.”
“Not to you.”
A chair scraped behind me. I lowered my voice. “You said it came from a place connected to my case.”
“I said it came from a place connected to your case.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what I said.”
“Is it from the court?”
“No.”
“From the county?”
Another pause.
“Lena.”
“I can't talk about it on this phone.”
“Then tell me when you come.”
“I said I can't talk about it.”
Her answer wasn't sharp. That made it worse. She sounded scared of the words themselves, as if saying them clearly might make somebody else hear.
I leaned forward, pressing my elbow against my knee. “Don't risk anything for me.”
“I’m not.”
“Your apartment, your job, Nia's housing—”
“Don't do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make me feel like protecting you is the same as putting her in danger.”
I closed my eyes. The glass from the visit came back to me: her reflection layered over mine, Nia's tiny hand on the other side, all three of us trapped in separate versions of the same room.
“I don't want my need to cost her anything,” I said.
The line stayed silent long enough that I thought we'd been disconnected.
Then Lena said, “It already has.”
The words landed softly. I had no answer ready for them.
When the guard called time, I asked, “Will you bring something for her Saturday?”
“What kind of something?”
“Anything harmless. A book. One of those little board books she likes. Let me hold it up for her.”
“Okay.”
“You promise?”
“I promise to bring one book.”
Not the envelope. Not an explanation. Just a book.
Before she hung up, I heard Nia make that small reaching sound again.
“Tell her I love her,” I said.
Lena's voice dropped. “Tell her yourself next time.”
The call ended.
That evening, Lena sat on the edge of the apartment's narrow bed with the envelope under a folded towel beside her. Nia slept in the next room, her crib close enough that Lena could hear every turn of the mattress. The apartment was small, but the envelope seemed to take up the whole place.
She had brought it home inside her purse, beneath a grocery receipt and a packet of crackers. The return address belonged to an office connected to Malik's case. She hadn't opened it again since reading the first page.
Not because she didn't care what it said.
Because she cared enough to understand what opening it might cost.
Her rent notice lay on the table beside an overdue utility bill. On the refrigerator, a daycare reminder waited under a magnet shaped like a yellow bus. Lena pressed both palms against her knees and looked toward Nia's room.
Then she slid the envelope deeper beneath the towel.
At the prison, I lay awake counting the spaces between footsteps in the hallway. I kept hearing Lena's sentence.
It already has.
May you like
By morning, I had stopped asking whether the envelope mattered. I knew it did.
What I didn't know was whether Lena was hiding it to protect herself from the truth—or to protect me from what the truth might demand.
