“And the guards don’t know?”
“Of course, they know.”
“But they never check? They never look under the covers?”
Juanita eyes me up and down and smiles.
“You should know, chica,” she says. “The only thing anyone cares about is how things look. No one gives a shit about what’s real.”
hannah
five
After spending three weeks with Sam and the girls, it’s hard coming back to my empty one-bedroom condo in Hoboken. There’s a pile of legal research assignments waiting for me at the law firm, which lifts my spirits a little, but my normal life suddenly feels small and boring. So when I see the Alderson return address on the plain white envelope in my mailbox, it provides a welcome bit of excitement.
“I know I’m asking a lot,” Beth writes, “but could you come visit me soon? I really need to talk to someone, and you’re the one person I know who’ll listen without judgment.”
Beth’s letter combines both guilt and flattery, an intoxicating mix. It breaks my heart to think about Beth having to be separated from Sam and the girls for nearly ten years, but it also warms my heart to think that Beth—the beautiful and powerful Elisabeth Lindstrom with her 1,001 Facebook friends—would seek out my company above all others.
That weekend, I rent a car and wake before dawn to make the seven-hour-plus drive to Alderson. Pulling into the prison parking lot, a song comes on the radio that I haven’t heard in decades, the falsetto voices singing something about love and money. The digital display scrolls the name Bronski Beat, a band that was popular my freshman year in college. It’s tempting to sit and listen through to the end of the song, but the dashboard clock shows it’s already getting late. I take a deep breath, pull the Ziploc bag out of my purse and turn off the engine. I walk up the pathway to the visitors’ building, where a uniformed female guard sits at the reception desk. She motions for me to enter.
“Step forward,” the guard orders.
“I’m here to visit Elisabeth Lindstrom.”
“Do you have your form?” she asks. “Because if you don’t have a form, you’ll have to go back outside and fill one out.” Having done my research, I hand the guard a Bureau of Prisons visitors’ form, neatly filled out in ink with Beth’s full name and federal inmate number and my identification information. The guard looks the form over and checks my driver’s license, then makes me turn out my pockets to prove I’m not smuggling in anything.
“Okay, then,” the guard says. “Sign your name in the register and wait for your inmate.” At the end of the reception desk is a large ledger along with one of those ballpoint pens on a chain that you only ever see at the post office or bank.
The visiting room is so crowded, there’s hardly a place to sit. All the inmates are dressed in identical khaki shirts and pants. A few women sit one-on-one with their husbands or boyfriends; others are surrounded by small groups of friends or family. In the far corner, a pimply but pretty inmate holds a sleeping toddler and talks to an older woman visitor while picking at a bag of nacho-flavor Doritos. Crossing the room to an empty chair, I suddenly feel self-conscious of my gallon-size bag of coins. Beth had told me to bring plenty of change to buy snacks from the overpriced vending machines, so I dutifully went to the local bank branch office and asked the bored-looking teller for a hundred dollars in quarters. I had no idea just how heavy that much change would be. Here, inside the walls of the Alderson visitors’ building, I feel like I’m flaunting my wealth in twenty-five-cent increments.
An unmarked door behind the reception desk opens, and a strikingly beautiful African American woman emerges. An adorable little girl with deep dimples and two tightly wrapped braids jumps from the lap of a weary-faced woman and calls out, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” The younger woman scoops up her daughter and bursts into sobs, and I’m on the verge of tears myself even though the mother and child are complete strangers to me.
About ten minutes later, the slender figure of Beth appears in the window. She strides down the hill toward the visitors’ building and disappears through a side door. A few minutes pass until Beth enters the visiting room through the unmarked door. She surprises me again with the intensity of her embrace.
“Hannah, I’m so glad to see you,” Beth says.
“It’s nice to see you, too.”
“Let’s go sit in the back,” Beth suggests, scanning the crowded room. “We should have more privacy there.”
As Beth leads the way past the vending machines and into the back room, I’m struck by her confidence. Despite being new to Alderson, Beth walks the visitors’ building with such grace and ease. Then again, Beth has always moved with grace and ease. I guess it’s what comes from a lifetime of privilege.
In the back of the visitors’ building is a large room with padded vinyl chairs, a couple microwaves and a gray metal cabinet filled with board games and jigsaw puzzles. Distracted by the library cart of Alcoholics Anonymous booklets, I bump into a muscular man pulling a burger out of the microwave. His arms are tattooed up and down.
“Pardon me, ma’am,” the man says. He holds my elbow to gently steer me away from the open microwave door. He closes the door, grabs a pile of dirt-brown paper towels from a nearby dispenser and walks over to a grandmotherly-looking inmate who takes the hamburger from him and starts gobbling like she hasn’t eaten in weeks. It’s humbling. I was the one at fault and yet this man—someone I would have been afraid to meet in a dark alley and probably dismissed as poor white trash if I met him in a Walmart—exhibits more gallantry than my brother or any of his country-club friends have ever shown me.
I walk over to Beth, who has located two chairs in a quiet corner.
“Is this okay with you?” Beth asks, gesturing to the seats.
“You sound like the hostess at some fancy hot spot,” I say. “Next thing, you’re going to ask me if I want still or sparkling.” We both laugh. It feels good to laugh with Beth.
“Speaking of which, I’m dying for a Diet Coke,” Beth says.
“Oh, of course,” I say. I reach into my Ziploc and offer her a handful of quarters. Beth shrinks back as if the coins were made of kryptonite.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” I say. My new surroundings had me so flustered that I forgot the cardinal rule of prison visitation: inmates aren’t allowed to touch money. I look around to see if any of the guards saw me.
“That’s okay,” Beth reassures me. “Let’s go together.” Beth spreads her fleece jacket on the chairs to reserve them, and we walk over together to the vending machine room. We buy two Diet Cokes, a small package of Chicken of the Sea tuna with Ritz crackers and a bag of Life Savers Gummies.