A week to forget and it's not even Friday

This whole last week has been pretty lousy to tell you the truth.  I had accepted on Monday afternoon that they were going to bring him back here since the 10 days had passed without Alberto gaining his release.  This inspired a mad cleaning frenzy since I was embarrassed at the condition of our room.  I make sure Ashley’s room is clean, and the family room where she plays is clean.  I honestly don’t care what my room looks like as long as my clothes are clean and accessible and the bed is in good order.  Alberto on the other hand doesn’t like having the bedroom in a constant state of disaster.  The problem is I have been in the middle of organizing and throwing out junk for about a month now, so I have things everywhere until I find a place for them.  I am a huge pack rat, and I have a hard time throwing anything out which makes our room cluttered.  I freely admit most of the things I have are crap, but that doesn’t stop me from having to sort through every single little thing I own and still setting things aside to keep.  I still have a lot of work to do on our room, but it definitely looks better.

On Wednesday I went online to make sure he was still in jail, and it showed he was released at 8 am that morning.  I called the information line at the jail, and the guy I talked to confirmed that he was in the process of extradition.  I didn’t know what mode of transportation they were using, but I knew he would be here sooner than later.  I didn’t hear anything else for the entire day.

On Thursday morning I got a phone call while I was on my way to work from an unknown number, so I answered it using the speakerphone option.  I have a cradle on my windshield for my phone because I constantly use the GPS Navigation feature, but it’s also handy because the program that runs while it’s in the cradle will automatically put the call on speakerphone.  It was a clerk of the court regarding a bail hearing/first appearance for Alberto.  She said that Alberto had asked her to call me because he didn’t know the name or the phone number of our attorney.  I gave her Brian’s contact information and asked her a few questions about this situation.  Alberto would be appearing before the judge at 1:30 and the attorney would have to be there to argue for him.  I then called Brian’s office and sent him an email with the details.  His response said he would be there, but he was in court as of right now so he might be late.

I wasn’t going to the hearing because I figured that I would not be able to handle it.  With less than a half an hour to go, I rushed out of work and hot-footed it to the courthouse.  My phone came in handy as I hadn’t been there in about two years and I found a parking spot in the ramp across the street.  Before the hearings started, I spoke to the clerk of court and asked that they hold Alberto back as we are waiting for our attorney to arrive.  I sat through all the hearings up to the point when Brian arrived, and which point I went out of the courtroom to talk to him briefly.  I gave Brian the information he needed and frightened him with the sheer size of my immigration paperwork binder.  I guess he doesn’t like paper.  Brian then took the interpreter aside and spoke to him about the situation briefly so that they would be on the same page.  When Alberto was moved into the segregated room where the offenders were being held, he immediately scanned all the faces in the courtroom until he saw me and the attorney.  My heart fell to the floor and shattered into a million tiny pieces at the sight of him.  428 days had passed since I saw him last, and it hurt just as much to see him and know that I couldn’t touch him.

When Alberto’s name was called and the hearing began, we discovered something that I should have known was going to happen.  Immigration had placed a ‘hold’ on Alberto, so even if we were to argue for no bail or a very small amount he would not be released.  Not only that, but immigration would move him to a different jail which happens to be two hours away instead of only twenty minutes.  On days like Thursday I really, truly despise ICE.  After the hearing was done, they had to push Alberto out of the room and he kept his eye on me until the door was finally shut behind him.  On our way out of the hearing I emailed Lance to let him know what happened and that we did not negotiate on bail because of the immigration hold.  Lance said he would poke around and see what he could find out and if he could do something to vacate that condition sooner rather than later.  He later said that when ICE took control of Alberto they could potentially ‘parole’ him into the United States, but I’m not so sure we want to take that risk.  It was about that time when I began to lose it and burst into tears with Brian right there.  He said he couldn’t stand the tears and told me to ‘cut it out’.  It was then I mentioned just how long it had been since I’d seen Alberto and I didn’t get to say a single word to him.

Anyway I went back to work after the hearing because I needed something to do, and we really need the money for the weeks to come.  I realize that I looked horrible, but then again who can look ok after a crying jag.  Everyone was concerned for me because I looked like hell and it was hard for me to rein in the emotions so I could function again.  I couldn’t talk about what had happened, so it was enough that they understood it was not what I had been hoping for.  Less than 2 hours later I got a call from my mother-in-law that Ashley woke up from her nap inconsolable with swollen eyes and a sore throat.  I spoke to my supervisor and closed out my functions for the day with record speed.  I was out the door and racing for my baby as fast as legally possible.  Even at this time when Ashley needed me, I was able to control my speed because getting a ticket would be the end of financial ends meeting.  It hurt just to look at her face!  We then raced to the Doctor’s office because I’d called ahead to make sure they were still open.  They did a strep test because she had multiple issues, and when it came back negative she gave us a prescription for some eye drops.  I dropped Ashley back home with my mom and went to fill the prescription.  Now comes the painful calculation: Ashley + Sore Eyes + Eye Drops = Mamí restrains daughter while Grandma applies drops.  She wailed for 20 minutes and I just held her while I felt like I was the most horrible person in the world.

Later that night Alberto called me from jail and told me about his trip back here.  He said that the agents put him in a prisoner transport restraint system that had connected hand cuffs and leg irons with an additional chain around his waist.  He said that the people in the airport all looked at him like he was a monster or something was wrong with him because of the way he was restrained.  I told him that this was probably procedure so that he wouldn’t think about it too much.  He was finally placed in a cell after midnight.  I told him that I would see him on Saturday because Ashley and I were going to go during visiting time.  He said he was surprised to see me at the hearing, but he was glad I was there and that I had not brought Ashley with me.  He said that if she was there he most like would have broken down into tears.

I think I’m going to stop right here before I start crying again so soon.

Ciao