Here She Lies

He would be at work; he could speak directly with Kent and find out what was going on. I reached Bobby right away and told him everything.
    “All right, Annie,” he said in his most determined voice. I’m going to build a chair; I can prune that tree myself; I plan to retire at forty-five; we’ll get married; I will get you out of jail. “I’m going to do two thingsnow. No, three. First I’m going to make some calls and find you a lawyer — so don’t say anything else to anyone. Promise?”
    “Promise.”
    “Second, I’m going to find Kent. I’ve had it with that jerk-off and this time I’m not going to be diplomatic. If he did this, he’s dog meat.”
    “Thank you,” I said, trying not to cry again. “And Bobby, will you call Julie? I couldn’t reach her. Tell her I’m okay.”
    “I will. And I’ll be on a plane as soon as I can. Don’t worry, Annie.”
    Don’t worry? I was beyond worry; I was insane with panic. Alone and under arrest in Manhattan, a hundred and fifty miles from my baby. When I hung up the phone I realized that leaking breast milk had bled through my blouse. I had no choice but to test Agent Shoemaker’s sympathy.
    “I’m a nursing mother,” I said. “My baby’s in Massachusetts with my sister and my breast pump is in the apartment where I’m staying on Fifty-sixth Street.”
    “Your what?”
    “Breast pump. To get the milk out of my breasts before they explode.”
    He seemed appalled at the thought of my breasts exploding in this very small cell, exploding all over him.
    “They won’t literally explode,” I said, “but I could get mastitis and end up with an infection. If I don’t get the milk out right away, it could get very bad.” When Lexy was a newborn I once ignored my swelling, hardening, reddening breasts and within half an hour was shaking with fever. I massaged out the lumps anddrained the milk, solving the crisis, and later learned that engorgement could lead to a serious infection that might actually land you in the hospital.
    He ripped a clean sheet off his yellow pad and handed it to me along with his pen. “Write down what you need. I’ll see what I can do.”
    I listed the particulars. “Thank you. You can send someone to the apartment for my pump or you can buy something new — I’ll pay you back.”
    He nodded. Clearly he was in new territory here, but at least he was being polite about it. He took the sheet of paper with my instructions and stood up with his pad and file. Then he called to Officer Williams, who unlocked the door.
    “I’m taking her downtown,” Shoemaker told Williams.
    Officer Williams reshackled me and the chafed skin on my wrists instantly burned on contact with the metal. Shoemaker handed him my list, which he then passed off to Officer Kiatsis as we crossed the room busy with detectives doing their jobs. Anonymity had never frightened me more than during my walk through that bustling room. These were the people, or the people of the people, who had mostly ignored me when I was brought in here before. When an older man with a single earring in his left lobe glanced at me with the shadow of a smile, I felt, instead of grateful, a shiver of hypocrisy; it was a hypocrisy I recognized, having once been on his side of the divide. In my Kentucky prison the staff had been us and the prisoners them, and now I had flipped categories, becoming one of them, without consideration, a social pariah. I knewthis well from working at the prison clinic: you had a job to do and you did it the best you could without thinking about whether the prisoners were actually guilty or innocent. All you knew was that they were locked up and you weren’t, and you took it from there. I ignored the lone friendly detective; despite his presumed good intentions, he could not possibly know my predicament and his almost-smile raised the barrier between us even higher, which made me feel even worse. My last view as I passed through the glass door — with a half-flaked-off TINU SEVITCETED confusing me for a moment before I realized it was DETECTIVES UNIT backward — was of Kiatsis reading my list and eyeing me with suspicion. And I felt overcome by helplessness. Would he bother to get the breast pump? Would I have to ask again? Would anyone listen?
    After signing me out and picking up my envelope of belongings, Williams led me into the bright May noontime. Outside: warm springtime air; gas fumes and honking horns from cars jammed at the