The Penpal

The pair used to sit on the vintage couch they’d gotten from the antique store down the road. “Maybe it once belonged to a circus clown with an alcohol problem,” Elle half-jokingly suggested in explanation to the slabs of paint and wine-colored rings that adorned the furniture’s fabric. Thomas, on the other hand, thought the couch to be the reject of a family of ten, with unruly children who had little regard for discipline and an inclination towards arts and crafts. Whoevers it was before, it became theirs, and on this couch, their knees brushed against one anothers.

Years later, Elle sat alone on a clean suede couch in what was supposed to be their living room, in the home that they eventually moved to start their family. But now, her beloved husband rested five feet beneath the soil in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Her son barely called his grieving mother. She didn’t hold it against him – he was in college studying bioengineering at his father’s alma mater, immersed in the complexities of adulthood.

Thomas’s side of the bed remained cold and undented – Elle didn’t dare perturb its vacancy. Between tosses and turns, she confided in an online forum about grieving the loss of a spouse. “Step 5: Talk out your thoughts and feelings,” she read with a scoff. If only it were that easy.

It was that night that she received the first call.

“You are receiving a call from an inmate at Rikers Island Federal Penitentiary,” the robotic voice monotonously dictated on the other line. “If you wish to be connected, press one. If not, hang up now.”

She had assumed the call to be a prank, given the oddity of the circumstances. She didn’t know any prisoners – she was a retired soccer mom from Westchester. The most criminal person she knew was Adam Shore from the country club, who committed a minor case of tax fraud last winter.

Elle’s loneliness transcended all sense of logic. She pressed down on the digit and was teleported to the concrete jungle that was Rikers Island.

“Denise?” The man sounded desperate. “It’s your brother, Aiden.”

Elle didn’t have a brother, and her name wasn’t Denise, so she explained this to the detainee. As a mother, she felt sympathy for the young sounding voice on the other end of the phone.

Together, the two concluded that this must’ve been a mis-dial. The prisoner admitted that he meant to call his sister, whose phone number ended in 4-2-4-6, while Elle’s ended in 4-2-4-7. Elle wished Aiden well and he thanked her for her understanding. Oddly, Elle prayed for the man. She wasn’t religious, but she hoped he’d reach his sister – loneliness, she knew, was a scary thing.

When she heard her phone ring again later that night, she hoped it was her son finally returning her call. It wasn’t. It was the prisoner again – her maternal instincts still prevailed. Maybe he had no one else to call. Maybe he couldn’t reach his sister. So she pressed one again.

“I was just calling to let you know how much I appreciate the kindness you showed me on the phone earlier. I got in touch with my sister, but I just thought I’d tell you that.” Elle beamed at his appreciation. It was the first time in a long time that someone gave her the credit she felt she deserved. She also wrestled with the fact that she didn’t do much but wish Aiden good luck, and somehow, this meant so much to him.

Against her better judgment, Elle asked Aiden why he was in there. She felt like she was in a prison movie, inquiring to her cellmate, “What’re you in for?”

He sighed. “It’s all just a misunderstanding. The mother of my kid, she’s fuckin’ crazy. Said I broke the restraining order she had on me, but I was just going over there to get my stuff back. I didn’t even wanna see her, I figured she was at work. So, I guess I’m in here for trespassing and burglary, too.” She questioned if Aiden was telling her the truth.

The pair exchanged phone calls consistently for a few weeks after. He was the one person who made her forget about the fact that she was a lonely widow – with Aiden, she was a woman who loved Sinatra, hated mayonnaise, and had a weird knack for yodeling. As for Aiden, he was no longer Inmate 37568, but an artist who lost his way, a father who specialized in airplane feeding – the only way his son would eat vegetables.

Eventually, Elle decided to visit Rikers. She hadn’t told any of her friends about Aiden, primarily because she knew they’d dissuade her from maintaining any sort of relationship with him, be it merely platonic. They lived in the bubble of suburbia and hedge fund husbands for too long to ever understand the depth of the bond that Elle and Aiden shared.

Elle changed her shirt five times before she drove down there. She settled on a plain white tee. She brought with her some crossword puzzles and a poem that she found online– she knew Aiden would like it.

***

“Five letters, earth tone?” Elle had already penciled in ochre on her copy of the puzzle, but she found it endearing the way that the prisoner closed his eyes and massaged his temples, as if mechanically coaxing the proper response from the depths of his brain. After a brief pause, he offered khaki, which fit, but she’d been doing these puzzles long enough to know that “R” needed to be the penultimate letter.

How fascinating it is, she thought, that these unlike phrases, in some way or another, merge together, forming a mosaic of intricate meaning. That’s the same way she began to feel about Aiden. Two people from disparate walks of life, complementing each other in a way neither of them had expected. She was 5 down, and he was 10 across, unexpectedly intertwining in the crossword grid that was New York.

Upon returning home, she entered Aiden’s information into the prison database. The result popped up almost instantly – he had 10 years in prison for attempted murder.

Her phone rang almost immediately after. Her finger hovered over the keypad for a mere second. She pressed one and closed the tab on her laptop.