Unlawfully Wed

All things considered, the jail that George had been arraigned to really didn’t look so bad, at least from the outside. There was no barbed wire surrounding the building, and while there was a guard or two standing in the parking lot, it didn’t look like there was a whole force of officers monitoring who went in and out. Alex had been having nightmares every night in the week that had passed since he received the letter, and he had managed to convince himself that George was in the type of facility he had visited the worst of the worst in.

Alex held his coffee up to his lips and took a sip, his hands shaking and almost making him spill the burning liquid onto his lap. It scalded his lips, but the pain felt welcome in comparison to the nerves that he felt. He glanced down at his watch. He still had a few minutes until he needed to go inside. Visiting hours didn’t start for another twenty minutes, but he had visited enough clients in jails to know that he needed to go through a metal detector and properly sign in before they let him see George.

Alex sighed. He wasn’t entirely sure that he was ready for this. He had spent much of the week corroborating with his friends to decide whether or not this was a good idea. Hercules, ever the protective one, was furious with Alex for even considering the trip upstate. Alex knew it was just because the man didn’t want to see him get his heart broken again, but it still hurt when Hercules called him a “fucking ass-backwards moron” and hung up on him when Alex tried to rationalize his ideals. Gil and John supported him to his face, but he knew that they were both rather upset with him, too.

Eliza, on the other hand, had been the most supportive when he had told her what was going on. He could remember the conversation as though it was playing out in front of him.

Alex went up to the front door of Eliza and Maria’s four-bedroom home, his heart in his throat and his palms sweating. Three days had gone by since Alex had received George’s letter, and he was at a complete loss at what to do. So far, John was the only one who knew of George’s request, but Alex was struggling with talking to him about his options. John acted like everything was fine and that he was all right with whatever Alex chose to do, but the standoffish nature he had begun to project when he was around Alex spoke louder than his words.

Alex stepped up onto the porch and raised his hand, hesitating for a moment before wrapping his knuckles against the door. He bit his lip and shuffled his feet, shoving his hands into his pockets as he waited. He had left his hair out of its normal bun, so it dangled around his downwards-facing face like a dark curtain. He breathed in and out through his nose evenly while he waited for one of the women to open the door.

Normally, Phillip or Angelica were the first ones to see who was visiting, but Angelica had soccer practice on Wednesday nights, while Phillip had piano lessons, so Maria and Eliza were by themselves.

After a minute or two Maria came to the door, one hand resting on the doorframe and the other under her swollen belly. She wasn’t very far into her pregnancy, but as she was having twins (conceived in vitro using Alex’s sperm and eggs from both women) she looked eight months pregnant just shy of the five month mark. She looked at Alex in surprise. “Alex! We weren’t expecting you tonight. I thought you were coming for supper on Friday? Did I mark it down wrong?” She pulled up the calendar on her phone and started to study it, but Alex reached out and lowered her hand before she was able to bring up individual days.

“I just wanted to talk to Eliza, if she’s here. I meant to call first but . . . you know how things can be.”

Maria chuckled and nodded. Alex had a pendant for showing up unannounced and uninvited. “Of course, Alex. She’s in the study. Go on up.”

“Thank you.” Alex paused to kiss Maria on the cheek before going through the living room to the narrow set of stairs that led up to the study. Sure enough, Eliza was at her computer, browsing through news articles.

“Hey honey, I—oh. Alex! You’re not Maria.” Eliza spun around in her chair, her eyes widening when she saw Alex standing there. She stood up and walked over to give him a hug before pulling him over to the dark-brown suede sofa in the corner of the room. She pushed him down before sitting down next to him. She leaned her back against the olive-green cushions and kicked her legs out so that her feet were resting on Alex’s thighs. “I didn’t know you were coming over. Did you text me?” Alex raised an eyebrow. Eliza chuckled and rolled her eyes. “Right. Of course you didn’t. Well, you knew the kids weren’t going to be here tonight, so what do you need?”

“What, I can’t just come over and admire the beauty that is my ex-wife?”

“Nope.” Eliza moved her feet so her Achilles tendon was on the side of his thighs. She pulled his legs closer to her before putting her crossing her kegs at the ankles and relaxing back into the arm. “So, I will ask again: what do you need?”

Alex sighed. Eliza always knew when something was bothering him. It was one of the reasons why their friendship remained intact when their marriage dissolved. He decided to just come out and say it. “I received a letter from George a few days ago. He wants to see me.”

Eliza’s eyes shot open, and she spun around so her feet were on the floor and her face was mere inches away from Alex’s. “A letter? As in, an accrual letter? Not a Facebook message or a text?”

Alex shook his head and reached into his pocket. He had brought the letter with him. He pulled it out and handed it to Eliza for her to read.

While Eliza scanned over the words, Alex studied her to see her reactions. He could tell exactly when she got to the sections about how George felt about Alex, as she smiled softly and reached a hand up to twist the sapphire necklace that she was wearing. When she got to George’s favor, her eyes went wide and her hand moved to her mouth, and when she finished the letter, she looked at Alex with tears in her eyes. “Oh, Alex. What are you going to do?”

“That’s what I came to see you about. I have no idea what I am supposed to do.” He looked down and let his hair fall over his face for a moment before he flipped his head up and tossed his hair over his shoulder, twisting it into a quick braid before moving his hand to his mouth and biting down on his fingernails, a bad habit he had developed when he was overseas. “Part of me is dying to see him again, even if it’s just for a few minutes, but the rest of me just wants to run away and pretend that I never opened this stupid thing.” He took the letter from Eliza’s hand and shook it before tossing it to the coffee table, a look of disgust on his face.

Eliza nodded understandingly and took Alex’s hand in her own. “Do you want to know what I think?”

Alex looked at her. “Obviously.”

“I think that you should go and see him. It must have taken a lot of courage for him to write to you when he knew there was a good chance you’d never read it. He may have made a mistake with how he ended your relationship, but he really did love you, Alex, and I know you truly loved him.”

“He really hurt me, Eliza.”

“I know that, too, Alex. I saw how broken he left you, and I was here the entire time you were struggling to put the pieces back together, but Alex, don’t you think George deserves to put his pieces back together too? He said in his letter that you made him happier than even his wife and child do. Alex, I know it might seem impossible, but I really think that the friendship between you two could thrive again if you two just talked. I also know that you are not yet over him, but maybe this will allow to move on.”

There was the same thought that Alex had been having. He sighed, knowing that Eliza had won. “But what if—Eliza, I’m terrified to see him again,” Alex admitted, beginning to fiddle with his sleeves and pull them down over his hands.

Eliza moved forward and kissed him in the cheek. “I know you are, but I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

And that had been that. Alex had gone home that night and collapsed onto his bed, his heart pounding and his mind whirring as he planned everything about this day down to the pair of underwear he planned on wearing. He had dressed in his nicest khaki pants and a dark-green button down, one he knew brought out the color of his eyes, and he had left his hair down around his shoulders in the way George always used to love. He kept telling himself that he was just trying to look his best, and not like he was throwing how “happy” he was in George’s face, but he knew that was a lie. He wanted George to see him and mourn what he had lost all those years ago, and this was just the outfit to do so.

Alex took one final sip of his coffee and shut off his car, his nerves firing back up full-force as he opened the door and got out. He stuffed his cell phone into his back pocket and swirled his coffee around in the cup before making his way across the parking lot to the front entrance.

While Alex walked, he took notice of all the other visitors that were around him. There were people of all ethnicities and ages, ranging from newborns to the elderly. He could see several mothers reprimanding crying children, demanding that they be good and not embarrass their mothers on this trip. He could see girlfriends and boyfriends who looked as nervous as he felt, their red-rimmed eyes darting around as they tried to figure out which entrance to go through.

Alex took a deep breath and faked an air of confidence. He should be able to do this, right? He had visited jails dozens of times just this year. Yes, this visit was much more personal in nature than all of his previous visits, but this jail wasn’t any different from any other jail. He would go in and be out in an hour, easy as cake.

He made his way up to the front door and strode in, nodding to one of the guards as he went up to the check-in window, which was surprisingly void of any line. There was a heavy-set, bored-looking African American woman slouching in a black rolling chair behind the window, her legs splayed and her interlaced fingers resting on her belly as she spun back and forth. She barely even glanced up when Alex cleared his throat, although she did lean forward to open a file on her computer. “Name and reason for visit?”

“Alexander Hamilton, here for George Washington.”

The woman nodded and printed out a small blue nametag. She handed it to him and waved her hand for him to step away from the counter. Alex nodded his thanks and peeled the nametag off the shiny white backing, sticking it to his shirt above his right breastbone. He reached into his pocket and pulled his wallet and his phone out, going over to the metal detector and dropping the articles into a plastic green basket. He waited for this guard to give him the all clear before he stepped through, the detector flashing green to show that he was granted access. He took his wallet and phone out from the basket and had just begun to slide them back into his pockets when the guard grabbed his arm.

“Excuse me. Mr. Hamilton, right?” the man asked, his potbelly heaving with each syllable that he spoke. He had a nametag that said “Bruno” and a balding head, his face and scalp the color of a freshly picked tomato. He was sweating profusely, and with each jump of his belly, a bead of sweat fell onto the floor,

Alex forced himself not to grimace as he nodded. “That’s correct. Is there a problem?”

“No, I just wanted to double check your relationship to Mr. Washington before you go in, so my fellow officers know where to send him. Are you here as Mr. Washington’s lawyer or as his friend? He has you on his visitor list twice.”

Alex thought about it for a moment. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to take on an ex-boyfriend as a client, but he wasn’t sure that he wanted to sit back and try to have a conversation to the sound of angry wives and sex-depraved prisoners. If George and he had still been in constant communication, maybe he could deal with it, but for their reunion? Words were likely better said in the privacy of an advising room.

“His lawyer,” Alex finally said, rocking up onto the balls of his feet to try and make himself appear more professional. He straightened his back and held his hands behind his back, clenching his right hand and holding his right wrist with his left as he tried to make the way his hands trembled less obvious. “I would like to speak to George as his lawyer.”

Bruno nodded. “Right this way, then, sir.” He held his hand out briefly away from the front doors before turning on his heel and walking down the hall at a pace that was surprisingly quick for a man of his size. Alex followed, continuing to keep his posture sharp and his eyes facing forward as though he really was just meeting a client rather potentially making one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

The hallway was long as winding, but eventually Bruno turned into a room that was halfway down the third turn. He held open the door and waved his hand, impatiently waiting for Alex to go in.

“Thank you,” Alex said, taking a big step away from Bruno’s belly and side-shuffling into the advising room. Bruno grunted in response and started to walk back down the hallway before Alex even had time to grab the doorknob. Alex muttered a string of curses regarding the man and shut the door firmly behind him. He went over to the table in the center of the room and sat down. The room was decently large, but the table was so massive that there were only a few feet of floor space that Alex could kick his feet out upon. He started to flutter his legs in and out and to jiggle his knees, both habits that he did when he felt unsure.

At the sound of a quiet knocking on the door, however, all of Alex’s movements stopped. He held his breath, and it was only from pure survival instinct that his heart didn’t pack up and walk away from its job. “Come in,” he croaked, his voice raspy and his throat dry. The door slowly began to open, and Alex craned his neck to see whether this was another guard or if it was George this time. He could see dark-chocolate skin, but he couldn’t tell if the blue sleeve he caught a glimpse of was part of a guard uniform or if it was a serialized jumpsuit.

The door opened the rest of the way, and this time, Alex’s heart really did run away.

George was just as beautiful as Alex remembered him to be.