But holding on was getting harder every day.
Officer Cooper was the one escorting me back to my unit, because of course it was. This man had made it his personal mission to make my life miserable since the day I landed in LA County. He gripped my arm too tight, fingers digging into the soft part above my elbow, yanking me forward every time my swollen feet moved too slow for his liking.
“Pick it up, Ali. I ain’t got all night.”
“I’m eight months pregnant,” I said through my teeth. “I’m moving as fast as I can.”
“Should’ve thought about that before you caught a body.”
I didn’t respond. Learned real quick that talking back to COs only made shit worse. These people had all the power and no accountability, and they knew it. They could make your life hell with a word—throw you in solitary, deny you phone privileges,“lose” your commissary orders. I wasn’t about to give Cooper any more ammunition than he already had.
We passed the blonde CO at the checkpoint, the thick white woman with the ponytail pulled so tight it was giving her a facelift. She looked up from her magazine which was some celebrity gossip trash, and smirked when she saw me.
“Oh look, baby mama’s back from her visit.” She made a show of checking her watch. “Conjugal go okay? Or can’t y’all do that with the whole murder charge hanging over your head?”
Cooper laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.
I kept my face blank. Kept walking. Kept my hands pressed to my belly where my baby was doing somersaults, probably feeling my stress through the womb.
I’m sorry, princess. Mama’s trying. I promise I’m trying.
“You know what I heard?” Blondie continued, clearly not done. “I heard her baby daddy owns all that fancy liquor. Banks Reserve.” She whistled low. “Must be nice, having money like that. Too bad all that money couldn’t keep her out of here, huh?”
“Rich bitches always think they above the law,” Cooper added. “Then they end up in the same place as everybody else. Wearing the same orange. Eating the same slop. Ain’t no VIP section in county.”
I wanted to tell them that Prime was going to get me out. That I had one of the best lawyers in the country working my case. That I wasn’t going to die in this hellhole like they seemed to want.
But I didn’t.
Because what was the point? These people didn’t see me as a person. I was just another number to them. Another Black girl in the system. Another “baby mama” who probably deserved whatever she got.
The walk back to my cell felt endless. Every step sent pain shooting through my lower back, through my hips, throughplaces I didn’t even know could hurt. I’d been having cramps all week. The prison doctor said it was Braxton Hicks, just “practice contractions,” nothing to worry about. But something about these felt different. Sharper. More insistent.
I wished I was back in DC with Dr. Okonkwo, the world-renowned OBGYN that Prime had found for me. She ran the most prestigious maternal-fetal medicine practice on the East Coast, had delivered babies for senators’ wives and diplomats’ daughters, and had agreed to take me on as a personal favor to Creed and Sloane King, who apparently funded half her research. Prime had also hired a midwife—this beautiful Jamaican woman named Miss Della who came to the house twice a week to check on me, who massaged my feet and taught me breathing exercises, and made me feel like everything was going to be okay.
Now I had Dr. Patrice Coleman, who was kind enough but stretched thin between hundreds of inmates. Who saw me once every two weeks if I was lucky. Who didn’t have time to hold my hand and tell me my baby was going to thrive.
Cooper shoved me toward my cell door with more force than necessary. “Home sweet home, Banks. Try not to kill anybody else before lights out.”
The door buzzed open.
I stepped inside.
LaLa was on her bunk, flipping through one of those old magazines she’d somehow accumulated, her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. She looked up when I walked in, and her face immediately shifted into concern.
“Damn, mami. You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine.” I lowered myself onto my bunk carefully, pressing one hand to my lower back where the pain was throbbing. “Just tired. The visit took a lot out of me.”
“How’d it go? Your man came through?”
“Yeah. He came through.”
Even saying it made my chest tight. Seeing Prime through that glass, not being able to touch him, not being able to fall into his arms and let him hold me until everything felt okay again… it was torture. He’d pressed his hand against the barrier and I’d pressed mine against his, and we’d both pretended like we couldn’t feel the cold plastic between us.
I love you,he’d said, his voice crackling through the phone they made us use.You’re coming home. I promise you.
I believed him. I had to believe him. But sitting in this cell, wearing these scratchy-ass clothes, smelling like industrial soap and despair… it was hard to hold onto hope.
