Chapter 4 - RIKERS ISLAND VISITATION
The visiting room at the Rose M. Singer Center at Rikers Island smelled of industrial disinfectant, stale floor wax, and damp concrete.
Evelyn sat behind a thick sheet of bulletproof Plexiglas, wearing a coarse gray inmate jumpsuit. Her styled blonde hair was mess, her manicured nails were bitten down to the quick, and her eyes were bloodshot from thirty-six hours of continuous crying.
Beside her sat Chloe, looking utterly broken in her matching inmate uniform, her hands shaking as she held the plastic intercom phone.
I sat down on the civilian side of the glass, wearing a tailor-made navy suit, my silver watch shining beneath the harsh fluorescent bulbs. I looked completely rested, completely calm, and completely in control.
I picked up the black telephone receiver.
Evelyn grabbed her receiver with both hands, pressing her face against the glass.
"David! Oh God, David!" her voice crackled loudly through the earpiece. "You have to get us out of here! This place is horrifying! The guards... the other prisoners... they put us in a cell with cold floors! Chloe had a panic attack!"
"The floor in my kitchen was thirty-eight degrees, Evelyn," I said, my tone as level as a surgical scalpel. "Maya spent eight days sleeping on a wooden chair because you sold her bed."
"We were wrong! Okay?! We made a mistake!" Chloe sobbed into her receiver, beating her fist against the counter. "We thought you had so much money that a few thousand dollars wouldn't matter! Mom said you owed us for all the years she raised you!"
"I paid off your college tuition, Chloe," I reminded her coldly. "I paid off Mark's thirty-thousand-dollar credit card debt when you got married. I bought Mom a house. I paid for your cars, your vacations, your medical bills. I gave this family over one million dollars in eight years."
"Then why are you doing this to us over a few stupid groceries and a vacation?!" Evelyn screamed, her face twisting into dark, familiar rage. "She's just a woman you married three years ago! We are your blood! You are choosing an outsider over your own mother?!"
I looked at Evelyn through the glass, feeling a profound, liberating sense of detachment.
"Maya isn't an outsider," I stated clearly. "She is my wife. She is the mother of my son. She is the woman who nearly died while you were eating salmon in South Beach on my credit card."
"David, please..." Evelyn's rage instantly melted back into desperate pleading as she saw the complete lack of emotion in my eyes. "The lawyer said if you don't drop the grand larceny charges, we're facing ten to fifteen years in state prison! I'm sixty-one years old! I'll die in here!"
"Then you should have thought about that before you left my eleven-day-old son shivering in an unheated room," I said.
I pulled out a thick envelope from my inner suit pocket and pressed it against the glass window so she could see the bold red stamp across the top: NOTICE OF EVICTION & ASSET SEIZURE.
"What... what is that?" Evelyn gasped, her breath fogging the glass.
"That is the emergency court order freezing all of your personal bank accounts," I explained smoothly. "It is also the eviction notice for the Queens condo. The locks were changed two hours ago. Your clothes and personal items have been packed into cardboard boxes and placed in a commercial storage facility. If you ever make bail, you will be homeless."
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"David! NO! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO YOUR MOTHER!" Evelyn shrieked, banging both fists violently against the Plexiglas window.
I dropped the phone receiver back onto its hook, stood up, smoothed my tie, and walked out of the visitation room, leaving her screaming echoing against the concrete walls until the heavy steel doors slammed shut behind me.
