The alarm that indicated a shift change went off beside the laundry room door, shattering the quiet.Emily set down the soap, rinsed then dried her hands on the already damp and slightly musty hand towel hanging on a rusted nail by the basin.She made her way up to the main floor for “exercise” hour, which mostly consisted of the inmates milling around the centre hall, gossiping.From her usual spot, pressed against the wall near the staircase, Emily utilized this time as an opportunity to quietly observe her fellow inmates and the supervising staff.But she wondered how much longer these indoor break times could go on.
Surely, I thought, there must be some regulation which guaranteed the prisoners a certain amount of fresh air and exercise about the yard each day?But no.It seemed that we were all sentenced not only to restrictions on our general bodily liberty, but on our lungs and souls as well.The only glimpses afforded of the summer sky were the slivers of view we snatched through the cold bars of our cell windows.
It was another piece of the story she would need to research and confirm once she was out.She was growing desperate to go for a walk, even just around the prison yard.She felt caged.She was so used to walking all around Toronto, usually preferring it to other transport.She was not one of those women who could remain cloistered inside with domestic pursuits all day.It was enough to drive her mad.
After the stand-about hour, the bell blared and Emily filed into Classroom 2, in the east corridor near the factory.This was, allegedly, the typing class.But upon her first visit to the classroom, Emily had been appalled to learn that there was no instructor, just two old, dusty typewriters in the corner, not nearly enough for the twenty or so inmates scheduled for the class.All they did was chat and argue as their stomachs growled for dinner.It was ludicrous.The women referred to the time as a “lesson”purely in jest as they sat draped over the mismatched chairs, loudly gossiping; others napped, their heads resting on folded arms.The prison had begun to heat up as they moved further into July, and the room was stuffy.Several girls were fanning themselves ineffectually.
They weren’t monitored during this time; it was simply a place to stick groups of inmates on a rotation where they couldn’t possibly get up to any mischief—and of course, it was a way for the warden to tell the government inspectors that typing class was on the daily schedule.
The young woman beside Emily today was visibly pregnant.Emily had seen her during mealtimes, and they shared a shift in the factory, too.There were plenty of pregnant women at the Mercer, almost all of whom, Emily had learned, had been sent therebecausethey were pregnant.There was even a nursery on-site, just around the corner from where they currently sat.
The girl was slumped back a little in the small wooden school chair, fingers entwined on top of her belly, her face drawn, as though she were suppressing a complaint.Emily recalled her sister’s two pregnancies, how she’d feigned nonchalance in front of Harry but had nearly broken down in tears one night when she was expecting Charlie.Emily had wandered into the kitchen after Sunday dinner to fetch the tea tray and caught the end of Eleanor’s conversation with Bess.
“Feels like I’m sleeping on tree roots, no matter how many pillows I use,” Eleanor was saying.“I’ve hardly had any sleep for weeks.I know I’m supposed to love this, but I can’t wait for it to be over, Mom.”Her voice cracked, and Bess embraced her as Emily ducked back out into the living room.
Emily thought of the atrociously lumpy mattress in her cell, doubted whether this woman’s was any better.But it occurred to her it might be good to know whether anything was different for the pregnant women at the Mercer.She leaned over and smiled at the girl.“Hi.I’m Emily.”
The girl glanced up from her belly, eyes dull.“Hi,” she said.“Vera.You’re new here, eh?”
Emily nodded.“A few weeks.You?”
Vera sighed and wiped some sweat from her forehead.“I’ve been here about six months now.I’m due in a couple of months.Then I get out sometime after that, I suppose.I don’t know the details, really.My parents fixed it.”
Emily’s brow furrowed.“I’m sorry.”
Vera shook her head and looked down again, scratched at a spot on her upper lip.“My boyfriend is Chinese.My parents didn’t like that very much, even before I got pregnant.Neither did the judge.My dad reported me to the police, and now here I am.”
Emily had thought that by now her surprise at these inmates’ experiences and origins might have lessened, but hearing about how so many of them had come to be incarcerated for the most subjective moral and pseudo-legal reasons still astonished her.Though it was a good thing, really.Hopefully that meantChatelaine’s readers would be astonished, too—and outraged.
“My mother’s written a couple of times,” Vera said, “but she just talks around the fact that I’m expecting.Talks about the family business and getting me married off when I get out, the dresses she bought on sale.She doesn’t ask about the baby.Not ever.”She ran a hand over her belly again.
Emily hesitated on her next question.“And what happens after?When the baby’s born?”
Vera swallowed.“It will go to the nursery for a month until I finish my sentence, and then I’m not sure.My mother keeps talking as though there won’t be a baby with me when I get out.”Emily glimpsed a tear forming in the corner of her eye, quickly blinked into non-existence.“I—”
“Why are you talking toher, Vera?”a loud voice demanded from the front of the room.Emily’s eyes snapped to the speaker, a tall, broad-shouldered young woman about Emily’s age with a pile of blond curls on the crown of her head.“She’s friends with Crazy Annie.Probably crazy herself, too.Aren’t you?”
Emily was taken aback by the woman’s bluntness, and it took her a moment to recover.No one in her world spoke to each other like some of these women did.
“Do you suppose you could be a little kinder?”Emily suggested, working to keep the condescension from her tone.“I’ve done nothing to offend you.Has Annie?”
The woman scoffed.Her face was red with the heat.“Listen to how you talk, too.Better than the rest of us, eh?”she chided, a little smirk playing around her thin lips.“Daddy send you here ’cause you swallowed something else along with your dictionary?”
A couple of girls on either side of her guffawed, and Emily’s face burned.Though she didn’t fully understand the comment, she knew she’d been insulted.
“Oh lay off her, Thelma,” Gertrude piped up from the row behind Emily.“Just because yourowndaddy—”
“SHUT UP!”the belligerent woman shouted, and now she and Gertrude were both on their feet as several other women jeered and hissed.Never in her life had Emily drawn ire for doing absolutely nothing, but these women seemed to delight in tearing one another down.Girls began to scramble away from the angry pair, who were in each other’s faces now.Vera and Emily stood and backed away between the desks.Thelma’s eyes were bulging, but Gertrude wore an expression of taunting nonchalance.
“Get out of my face, bitch,” she told Thelma, giving her a shove.Thelma responded with a punch to Gertrude’s shoulder, and in a blink, the two were wrestling each other on the floor.
“Stop!Stop it!”Emily shouted, but she was the only one who thought they should.Most of the other girls were cheering and hooting and had picked a champion they were now egging on.
Emily liked Gertrude, and didn’t want her injured for her sake over a foolish comment.It wasn’t worth it.She lunged forward and seized Gertrude’s shoulders, attempting to pull her off Thelma.She vaguely registered more shouting from near the door, and suddenly her own arms were pinned behind her.She whipped her head around and was faced with Matron White.Two other matrons were wrenching Gertrude and Thelma apart.The other inmates had gone quiet now.
“Get off her this instant, Rains!”Matron Smith bellowed at Gertrude, who finally complied.
“She just wants an excuse to touch girls!”Thelma shot at her, wiping a dribble of blood from her lip.Her wild curls were a mess, and there were angry tears in her eyes.
