No One in the World (8 page)

Across the table were printed listings of homes that had been drastically reduced but still no one wanted to buy. There were envelopes that contained unpaid bills that Austen saw every day but ignored. And then there was one envelope that she had been avoiding for two days but knew she had to address today. She hadn't been able to make a mortgage payment in over six months, and something dreadful told her that within that envelope may have been news she didn't want to know.

In an attempt to avoid having to deal with that bad news, Austen was on the phone, calling numbers off a list of people she had taken out once or twice to look at houses.

“Hello, Mr. Hadley,” Austen said, smiling, because she'd been taught if she smiled on her end of the phone, the sound of happiness would be conveyed to the caller. She didn't know if that was true or not, but she needed every advantage she could gain right now. “This is Austen Greer. We went out two weeks ago, looking at properties.”

“Yes, I remember,” Mr. Hadley said.

“You told me to call you back in a couple of weeks. So here I am, calling you back.” She smiled.

Silence.

“So are you still in the market?” Austen asked. “I was thinking we could meet downtown, and I could walk you through some more places that have just been listed.”

“I have a busy day today, Austen.”

“Oh, no problem. I can always email the listings to you, and you can get back to me. What is your email address?” Austen asked, grabbing a pen.

“Austen, I don't think I'll be doing that.”

“A couple of weeks ago you seemed very interested in—”

“I was,” Mr. Hadley said. “Actually, I just closed on something two days ago. I'm sorry.”

Austen was speechless. Two weeks ago, she had driven this man all around the city for more than six hours. She had even taken him out a week before that for almost the same amount of time.

Austen was crushed. “Excuse me, Mr. Hadley,” Austen said, trying to maintain her composure. “But you told me that we would be working together, that I would be your agent.”

“I know Austen, but my wife found someone that she preferred, so we—”

“But you
told
me we'd be working together. Your wife finds someone else, and what does that mean? Aren't you supposed to make the decisions?”

“Excuse me?” Mr. Hadley said.

“Do you know what that commission would've meant to me?” Austen said, feeling herself starting to lose it. She didn't care. The client had defected. The money was gone. “I'm about to lose my home. I give you valuable hours I could've spent with someone serious, and you screw me like I work for free. Mr. Hadley, you are nothing but a—”

Click!

“Hello,” Austen said into the phone. There was no answer. “Hello!” She slammed the phone into its cradle and turned away from the table, wanting to cry.

She focused on the Bank of America letter and grabbed it. She tore it open to see it was exactly what she had feared. It informed her that in five days her condo would be foreclosed on, then auctioned off on the steps of the courthouse.

E
ric sat on his bunk, unable to believe what he was looking down at. Just last night, he was thinking about Jess, wanting to hear from her, and like magic, this morning she had contacted him through the letter he was holding now from a lawyer she had hired.

He would've never guessed it would've been a petition from Jess, trying to strip him of all his fatherly rights, but that's what the letter said.

“Can she actually do this shit, man?” Eric said, waving the document in front of his cellmate, Blac.

“Yeah, man. I knew a dude it happened to. And once it's done, it's permanent.”

Eric's cellmate was an extremely well-built man, with very dark skin the color of crude oil and a perfectly shaped shaven head. He wore sagging prison trousers, a tank top, and an unbuttoned blue prison shirt.

“Why she doing this now? I been in here three years, and now when I got two days left, she does this,” Eric said, standing from his bunk. “I gotta find her, talk her out of this.”

“She call you recently?”

“No.”

“Is her address in that letter?”

“No.”

“Then I'm thinking she don't wanna be found.”

Eric turned to Blac. “She don't have a choice. I'm gonna go to the library right now, do some damn research on this letter, try and find something that'll lead me to her, and when I get out, she and I are gonna straighten this out.”

“You know I get out two days after you. If you need any help out there, just let me know,” Blac said. “She might have a boyfriend who don't care how much you want your daughter back. A boyfriend that might have to be dealt with while you take care of your business.”

“You'd help me with that?” Eric said.

“You my boy. You know I always got your back.”

T
he day had not really even begun yet. I had made it to the prison and was being escorted by a corrections officer through the halls toward the counsel room, where I would speak again to Roger Finch. Turned out my boss was interested in what he had to say.

Other officers, as well as the occasional inmate, walked past me through the corridor. This prison had an open-cell policy for the nonviolent offenders. They could move around a few select areas: the commissary, the gym, the library, the rec room, and the church.

Walking toward me I saw a colleague of mine who I had not seen in almost a year.

Raymond Tyler Jr. was a tall, hazel-eyed, handsome man with a reputation as one of the best and most compassionate attorneys in the country. Although I only saw him annually, at the National Bar Association conferences, I considered him a mentor and called him for consultation whenever I had a tough legal matter.

“Raymond Tyler,” I said happily, shaking his hand.

“Cobi Winslow,” he said. “Rich kid. What are you doing in the big house? Finally caught you for embezzling money from your family's business, heh?”

“Not quite. Making a deal on a cop shooting case. How about you? Didn't expect to see you here.”

“I relocated to Chicago. I'm a defense attorney now, so this prison is my second home.”

“Poor guy.”

“You must not know how well defense pays.”

“You know that's not what I meant,” I said.

“Well,” Raymond said, slapping me on the shoulder and releasing my hand. “Time to make the doughnuts. It was really good seeing you. Maybe we'll bump into each other again sometime.”

“Hopefully,” I said, smiling.

I said good-bye and started down the hall but stopped and turned, watching as Raymond walked away, thinking that maybe I should've asked him out for a drink. It would've taken my mind off of everything that was going on. But then I figured I had enough on my plate. Why drag him in to experience my drama.

When I turned back around, I was almost knocked off my feet. My briefcase flew out of my hand, banged to the ground, and belched all of my confidential papers into the air. I immediately dropped to one knee to gather them up.

As I quickly swept the papers together, I saw another pair of hands helping and heard a man's voice apologizing for steamrolling me.

“It's okay,” I said, my head down, my eyes focusing on stuffing the documents back into my briefcase. “Next time, just watch where you're going.”

“I'm really sorry,” the man said again.

Finally looking up to see the man's face, I froze, lost balance, then toppled backward onto my rear. Looking up at the man, I couldn't believe what I saw. The man staring back shocked and wide-eyed was the spitting image of me.

He slowly reached out to grab my hand and help me up.

I stared at his hand for a long moment before taking it. This man, who could be no one but my brother, pulled me to my feet.

The corrections officer did a double take, then shook off the disbelief that momentarily appeared on his face and said, “I'm sorry, sir.” He turned angry eyes on my brother. “Get back to your cell and watch where you're going next time.”

“No,” I said, my voice softer than I wanted it to be. “He's fine.” My
brother and I stared at each other for a long moment, as if we were the only two men in the corridor or in the prison.

I finally spoke. “What is your name?” In my heart, I already knew the answer.

“Eric Reed,” my brother said. “Who are you?”

I extended my hand to him. “Everette Reed, but please, call me Cobi. I'll explain later.” I smiled.

A
fter my meeting with Roger Finch, I sat slumped in the chair across the table from where Roger had sat. Holding my head in my hands, I felt conflicted. I had given up looking for Eric but now had found him. Unfortunately, just as my sister predicted, he was not the man I thought he would be.

I looked up at the cell door. The guard was still posted there. I could walk out, forget I ever saw Eric, and never come back. I didn't have to ask why Eric was here. I already knew. Something told me he was the same man I'd prosecuted a hundred times in the past. He was DeAndré Moore. Roger Finch. I had no time or love for men like that.

I stood, grabbed my briefcase, and walked toward the cell room door.

The corrections officer said, “Is there anyone else you need to see, sir?”

“No,” I said, without giving it any thought. I walked ten feet or so, hearing his steps echo mine. I stopped. Eric was just like all those men I knew so well, but there was one difference. He was my brother. I turned to the CO. “On second thought, there is one more I need to see.”

When I finished telling him all that happened to me over the last thirty years, Eric gave me a very strange look, one I didn't think I could imitate,
even though we had the same face. “Why didn't the family that adopted you take me, too?”

“They said they only wanted one son.”

“Oh,” he said, frowning, looking away from me.

“What's wrong?”

“I knew about you,” Eric said softly.

“What?” I said, shocked. “How?”

“My mother—our mother—wrote me a letter when I was eight, explaining why she gave us up, apologizing, stuff like that.”

“Why did she do it?” I asked, yanking the seat out from under the table, and sitting so I could look directly into my brother's eyes.

He stared back at me and said simply, “We were too much for her. She was young, stuff going on, you know.”

I didn't know. I felt jealous, envious. We had both been given up, and even though I had been adopted by a wealthy family, even though I was raised by a mother and a father, it felt as though he knew our natural mother much more than I did.

“Why are you in here, Eric?”

He scratched the back of his neck. “It hasn't been easy for me.”

And there it was. My brother was indeed one of those guys. “What hasn't been easy?”

“You know . . . life.”

“Were you ever adopted?” I asked.

Eric shook his head. “One foster home to another. Shitty way to be raised, you know.”

“One day, I want you to tell me why you're here. Can you do that?”

“You a big-time lawyer. Access my records. Find out for yourself.”

“I don't want to. I want you to feel comfortable enough to tell me. Why don't you try now?”

“No.”

I looked away, up at the ceiling. “Okay, how much time do you have left?”

Eric's face brightened a little. “I'm out in two days.”

“Really?” I said. “What are you going to do? Where are you going to go?”

“Don't know,” Eric said. “Halfway house, I guess.” He looked at me as if waiting for an invitation.

I could not help but think what Sissy would say. She'd lose it. There was no question. I looked up at Eric and said, “Why don't you stay with me?”

E
ric walked back into his cell as if in a daze.

Blac was lying in his top bunk, deeply engrossed in his handheld videogame device. Eric stood in the middle of the cell. He didn't say a word. Blac paused his game, swung his feet over the side of his bunk, and sat up.

“What's up?” Blac asked.

“You'd never guess what just happened to me.”

“We in prison, playa. Try me. The same thing might have happened to me yesterday.”

“I just met my brother.”

“You ain't got no brother.”

“I do. I just never told you about him. We're twins.”

“Naw,” Blac said, jumping down from the bunk. “Naw! Two of you? I don't believe it.”

“I just bumped into him in the hallway.”

“Well, I guess it's cool you saw your brother, but it sucks that he's a convict just like you.”

“He ain't no convict. He's a lawyer. And he's rich. Dude's name is Cobi Winslow. You know, the people that make the hair stuff.”

“You mean Winslow Pomade, in the little metal can?”

“Yeah, those Winslows.”

“Hell, naw! When I used to grow my hair, that's all I'd use. Winslow Pomade, do-rag, brush it all day with the soft bristle brush, waves like crazy. That's what's up, yo. He's paid like that?” Blac said, seeming not to believe the news.

“That's what he told me.”

“Damn, he gonna break you off with some money? Give you like a million dollars or something?”

“I ain't playing it like that. He's already doing enough by letting me live with him for a while.”

“He's gonna let you live at his crib?”

“Yeah.”

“You still ought to ask him for some money. And if you don't want it, give it to me. I could always use some cash.”

Eric laughed. Blac wasn't smiling. “I'm serious.”

“No. Blac, why is it always about money with you? He's on the outside, and he's a lawyer. I told him about Jess, about her trying to take my daughter away. He's gonna try to find her address for me and give it to me when he picks me up day after tomorrow. I ain't messing that up by begging for money.”