"If I was the judge, I'm not so sure I could overlook repetitive offences either," Ceci said diplomatically, a pained expression on her face as she reached for her pillow and hugged it to herself.
"Poor Nicky," she whispered into the pillow. Her legs were tucked underneath and she leaned back against the wall with a hard sigh.
Gloria nodded her head sympathetically and perched naturally down on the edge of the mattress. It was later that same night. Galina had gone home reluctantly over an hour ago and Gloria had been waiting up impatiently for her mother to return with her daughters. Elena was taking a shower and Milagra had gone straight to sleep upon arrival.
"I know, it's awful," Gloria agreed, shooting an appreciatively glance at her oldest child. She was grateful to be able to talk about this with her privately because she knew Ceci would take the news as hard as maybe even Galina had.
She had been keeping Nicky's secrets and burdening her young heart with such hopelessness since the two had become friends, but Gloria knew that Nicky had brightened Ceci's life as much as she'd tried her. She hadn't only been a bad influence. Ceci had a good head on her shoulders anyway, and Nicky brought her own sense of wisdom with her everywhere she went. It was terrible that it had all come to this. Even if it was necessary and deserved, it was still tragic.
"I was sitting with Galina all evening," Gloria confided. "She said you and Elena could go visit Nicky with her, if you'd like to."
Ceci pursed her lips and pressed her chin into the pillow. She looked so youthful and beautiful with her dark curly hair hanging down her back and a pair of pink flannel pajamas with kittens printed on them. Gloria had never felt more grateful to have her daughters back under her roof. She wanted to reach out to Ceci right now, stroke her hair back or kiss her cheek. Even more, she wanted those feelings to be reciprocated. As upset as Galina was feeling tonight, Gloria was anxious herself. Her mother's visit, while welcomed by the girls, was making Gloria feel more and more nervous. It was impossible not to feel insecure.
"Maybe I'll write…." Ceci said doubtfully. She lifted her chin slightly and raised her eyebrows at her mother. "I don't know...should I visit?"
"Up to you," Gloria said automatically. "If it makes you uncomfortable then you don't have to."
"Have to do what?" Elena yawned, walking into the bedroom in Gloria's purple bath robe with a towel wrapped around her hair.
"Visit Nicky," Ceci said bluntly.
"In jail?" Elena looked surprised. She was less emotional about the situation than her sister, but she still cared deeply about their friend. She had expected Nicky to be bailed out of the situation entirely though. Deep down they all had.
"Well, I'll go," Elena shrugged, using both her hands to tousle her hair dry with the towel.
"You want to?" Ceci raised her eyebrows.
"Well, we might as well brighten her day," Elena said calmly. "If I was in jail, I'd want you guys to visit me."
"If you were in jail, I'd want to kick you," Gloria said. She leaned back on her elbows and smiled when Elena threw her robe playfully at her.
Gloria smoothed the fleece fabric over her like a blanket. She loved it when her daughters borrowed her things. Even more when they did it without asking. Earrings from her jewellery box, a spritz of perfume, her hairbrush or her makeup...there was an essence of comfortability in their home now. They didn't typically knock before walking into her bedroom, nor did they hesitate to come into the bathroom to brush their teeth while she was in a shower. It was like being a real family again.
"What would you say to me if you visited me in jail?" Elena teased, pulling her nightgown over her head.
"Probably just do a lot of yelling," Gloria said matter-of-factly.
"I don't think Red is going to yell at Nicky," Ceci shook her head. "But I bet Nicky would rather her yell then cry again."
"Probably," Gloria agreed. "I never really cared when your Grandmother yelled at me. It was when she cried that I felt guilty."
"Do you think Nicky feels guilty?" Ceci asked.
Gloria paused. "I think she has a lot of regrets," she said finally. "And I'm sure she is scared for herself and angry at the whole situation. A visit from her friends will probably help a lot. Galina said she could take you on Saturday."
"Can you come?" Elena asked. She crawled up on her sister's bed and stretched out next to her mother.
Gloria had to keep the store open that day, but she didn't want to say it was because of work. "There's probably rules about how many people are allowed to go," she said finally, and was satisfed when Elena seemed to accept this.
"And it wouldn't be fair for us all to ditch Grandma," Ceci reasoned.
"Exactly," Gloria agreed. "Plus somebody has to play referee between her and Tia. They bicker more than Julio and Benny when they both want the same toy."
Both the girls laughed at that, and Gloria took the opportunity to tuck some damp strands of Elena's hair behind her ear. She was grateful for her daughters and that they seemed to appreciate that they could have both their mother and grandmother in their corner. They didn't need to choose. And Gloria just had to hope that would remain the same when Milagra went back to Puerto Rico.
XXX
One of the last things Red had said to her was to keep busy, and Nicky had been. Not that she had been given much choice in the matter. Even behind bars, as a juvenile she was expected to be in school. The majority of her day was spent in a stuffy overcrowded classroom where inmates sat at metal desks bolted to the floor. They were all different grades and abilities, several of Nicky's peers couldn't read and even more of them came to class with the sole intent of making it as distracting and unpleasant for everyone as possible.
Nicky would sit slouched in her chair filling out workbooks, her back and bottom getting sore. Naturally smart, her hand would get a cramp from the speed with which she wrote out her answers and she'd welcome the chaos in the room because it helped a little in keeping her mind off of where she could have been right now if she hadn't been so stupid.
What would she do to be able to walk to school with Ceci every morning and joke around with her between class. She wished she still had Red to come home to at the end of the day. That she could still pretend to be annoyed when she checked through her backpack and made her sit at the kitchen table to do homework under her close eye.
This was harder than her first stint in juvie, because back then she had grown accustomed to only having herself to depend on and had just assumed that was the way things would always be. Now, Nicky had a mother to love on her and keep her in line, and she wasn't even allowed to be with her. Nicky had appreciated what she had too late.
She still woke up every day intending to do as Red said. She followed the rules, she kept her sarcastic remarks to a minimum, and she focused on schoolwork. Every evening when she returned to her bunk, Nicky would check another day off on her calendar and then pray she'd get tired fast enough so she could sleep through as much of her sentence as possible. Even with a strict schedule and every single minute of every day being accounted for, time seemed to be crawling.
"I thought it was going to be pizza tonight," A tiny girl with blonde hair pulled back into cornrows grumbled. Nicky recognized her as Tricia Miller, although this was the first time she had seen her standing upright. Tricia had already been admitted into the detention center a few days before Nicky and had been loudly detoxing in the bathroom during their exchange.
"Nah, they don't want us to be happy," Nicky said, taking a bite out of a crusty white roll. She hadn't yet touched her own meat and was hoping if she filled up enough on bread for dinner that she wouldn't have to. Sometimes she couldn't resist fantasizing about the home cooked meals Red used to prepare for her and with a supper that looked like this, it was one of those times.
"This sucks," Tricia said. "I almost didn't mind when they picked me up cause it meant I'd get three meals a day. But if they keep serving this I might go on a hunger strike. "
"Here, take this," Nicky said, ripping her roll in half and tossing a piece across the table. "It's just in….Man can live on bread alone."
"Thanks, but now aren't you going to still be hungry?"
"I can choke this down," Nicky shrugged. They weren't allowed to use a knife so she used her fingers to rip off a dainty piece of the thin meat pattie.
"You know swallowing things without tasting them is a life skill I learned after the pinch my mom gave me for spitting out my escargo in her wine glass at a work party she dragged me to," Nicky shared conversationally.
"Also helps when you blow a guy for a hit," Tricia giggled.
"Exactly," Nicky agreed. "I've been there before too. I'm not sure what is worse….at least for a hit there's something in it for me."
"I'd kill for a hit right now," Tricia shook, and Nicky raised her eyebrows at her. The girl couldn't be much more than thirteen but she looked even younger. The worst of the withdrawl was behind her but she still looked extremely pale.
Nicky picked up her plastic mug and took a sip of water. "I guess I don't have to look too far to figure out what you got in here for."
"That's just a bonus," Tricia shrugged. "I told the cop if they didn't stop picking me up and making me go home, that I'd just get better at hiding. So, they brought me here instead."
"Well, you must have a good reason," Nicky replied, feeling a pang of guilt for how eager she was herself to get back to the loving home waiting for her. Most people in here didn't have that. "How long are you in for?"
"I don't know," Tricia said, ripping off a piece of the soft inner bread and bringing it to her lips. "Guess I'll find out when I go see the judge and hear what my mom and her fucking husband say."
"Tell the judge why you run away from them," Nicky suggested. "After that they might be too embarassed to say anything."
"Or make them say more," Tricia replied.
"That'll just make them unhindged and help your case," Nicky replied. "That's what helped my mom's case. She just let my dad bring his mistress into mediation and dig himself a hole, and then she took all his money."
"Smart," Tricia laughed. "And then she spent it on making you eat gross things like snails. You're from the fancy world. How did you get here?"
"She's dead now," Nicky said hoarsely, making Tricia stop laughing and pause for a second.
It didn't answer her question, and yet it sort of did. It sent Nicky on a downward spiral that she hadn't been able to escape from. There was no chance of closure, when somebody was dead. It meant not getting the last word or getting to confront. It meant the end, and until Nicky found her place with Red and Dmitri, she hadn't been able to visualize a new beginning.
"I wish mine was dead," Tricia said finally. "I don't need a mom."
"Sometimes they're more trouble than they're worth," Nicky agreed. "To be fair, they'd probably say the same thing about us. I've been in foster care since then. In my experience, from all the ones they passed me around to, mothers are not created equal."
She didn't elaborate. She didn't want to talk about Red because mentally comparing her situation now to what Tricia was describing just made her feel guilty. She got through about half of her plate before she decided to substitute the rest with a bag of potato chips she had bought from commissary. Red had immediately put money on her account when she'd gotten here.
"Do you think they're watching anything decent in the TV room?" Tricia asked.
"Hmm...maybe," Nicky replied. "I beat a bunch of kids at Jeopardy yesterday."
She had been planning to go line up to phone home after dinner, but with Tricia intent on hanging so close to her side she decided not to bother. It only made her sadder and think more about how she didn't want to be here. She couldn't imagine saying the same things to one another on repeat could possibly do much for Red either, and visitation was in a couple of days anyway.
So, the girls bussed their trays and then sped off to Nicky's bunk to get the chips Nicky promised to share. Tricia had no money to buy treats. Nicky had to chuckle as she watched her new friend lick the salt from each potato chip and then nibble at them slowly. After withdrawling, her appetite was returning and Tricia proclaimed that nothing had ever tasted better.
"I'll buy us some more to share tomorrow," Nicky promised, feeling oddly protective of the younger girl. She was too young to be so alone in the world and she seemed really sweet. Despite the unfair hand life had tossed Tricia, tossed both of them, Nicky knew better than anyone that one person could change the whole story around. It was exactly what was being done for her.
