Page 34 of Deliver Me

She’d been scanned through a metal detector and sniffed by a drug detecting dog before she’d even been allowed to walk into the prison, and then they’d inspected her ID before letting her walk through door after door that clanged shut behind her with a terrible feeling of finality.

This would be her world for only a few hours, a temporary confinement that already made her skin crawl, she couldn’t imagine what it felt like to hear that sound and know you’d truly never be allowed to leave. Gabriel had been so young then, several years younger than she was now. Just thinking about it made her heart break for him all over again.

The guards led her to a large room with small tables scattered throughout, most of them already occupied by small groups that didn’t even turn to acknowledge her as she passed—they were deeply focused on the person they had come to see in the small amount of time they had together.

She found a table of her own, scratched and battered with age and hard use, and sat tensely on the edge of her seat with nothing to do but wait. She had nothing with her except twenty-five dollars to buy snacks and drinks from the vending machineand that, because there were no paper bills allowed, was sitting on the table in front of her in a Ziplock bag full of quarters. It was a sad, silent witness to her anxious trembling.

She looked around aimlessly as she waited, trying to calm her rioting nerves. The facility was somehow more intimidating than she’d imagined. Guards with guns and blank faces, walls and fences topped with barbed wire. Gabriel had been right about the pervasive hopelessness and the smell. They would only have two hours, and still she wasn’t sure if she wanted time to speed up or slow down.

Some of the others looked like they were still waiting but most seemed to already have their loved one. There were older couples, parents she assumed, and young women like her, those whose husbands or boyfriends were unfortunate enough to be on the inside. The families broke her heart the most. Toddlers and young children, mothers with clear plastic bags that held a few diapers, wipes, and a sippy cup. Sometimes the children strained away from the now unfamiliar faces, and she could see the pain it caused fathers that wanted nothing more than to spend a few precious hours with the children they barely knew. Other times they ran to them with happy and delighted squeals that made her smile until she remembered that a few hours were all they had.

Most of them were in here for nonviolent offenses. They were often poor, unable to afford to fight the system that clung to a failed war on drugs and its overly punitive sentences. She hadn’t needed to see their faces to know that a disproportionate number of them would be young Black men, because a few minutes of research was all it took to know that the war on drugs was really a war on the impoverished and the oppressed.

The weight of everything that needed to be changed about this system weighed heavily on her, but she knew that too many people looked away from the reality, unable to imagine changein the face of the mountainous bureaucracy. Loving Gabriel had given her a glimpse into a flawed world, she couldn’t turn away now and do nothing.

She lifted her head as the door once again opened and two guards entered with a new inmate, and her heart tripped over itself in surprise. He was taller than either of the men that flanked him and much broader. The pictures he’d sent her had done nothing to prepare her for his size. She was average height for a woman, but beside him she’d feel impossibly small.

Her gaze roamed shamelessly over him as he walked. He wasn’t wearing the white jumpsuit now, but a pair of dark coveralls that stretched tightly over his chest. He’d told her they would strip search him before he entered the visitation room and again when he left. That he was willing to do that, to be subjected to such an intimate violation, just to see her made her heart ache.

The harsh fluorescent lighting made his skin look almost unnaturally pale and his eyes nearly black in comparison. His dark hair was ruffled, like he’d pushed his fingers through it in agitation while he waited.

Was he worried, too? Afraid she might not show up, after all?

The relief that washed over his face when he spotted her was painfully obvious, as was the anxious crease in his brow immediately afterward.

She stood up as they got closer, hands twisting restlessly in her pockets as he approached her. Her heart was fluttering madly, each step that he took pushing it to beat faster until he stopped just beyond arms’ reach and everything else in the room fell away. She’d dreamed of seeing him a hundred times, but now that he was in front of her, she was lost, unable to even summon the courage to say hello.

“Can’t believe you finally got a visitor,” the guard to his left said gruffly. “You’re allowed to hug her when you first get hereand again before you leave. Other than that, you can hold her hand and that’s it.” Mia’s eyes swung to look at him, taking in the guard for the first time. He was a young man, probably only a few years older than her, blond with a scruffy beard and a tired expression. He didn’t seem to be joking and her heart redoubled its efforts to beat its way out of her chest.

Gabriel hadn’t known anything about what would happen once they were in the visitation area, and he hadn’t dared to hope she’d be allowed to touch him.

Gabriel turned to look at the guard to his right—an older, grumpier man with darker hair—waiting for a nod of confirmation before he hesitantly opened his arms and waited. The confidence that he had in calls and letters when he talked about what he’d do to her body if given the chance, fell away—suddenly he was a broken boy again, unsure if she would allow something as simple as a hug.

She stepped forward, nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste to reassure him. She wrapped her arms around his waist, her cheek pressed tight to his chest as he enveloped her in his warmth. He smelled like strong laundry detergent and the fabric of his coveralls was scratchy against her cheek. She didn’t ever want to let go, and she held on until he pulled away first, glancing anxiously at the guards before rubbing her arm reassuringly and letting his lips subtly graze her temple as he reached for her hand.

Mia wiped the tears from her cheeks and sat back down in her hard plastic chair. It was cracked and wobbled when she sat on it, but she couldn’t have traded sitting here with him for anything.

He stared at her reverently, his thumb tracing small circles on the back of her hand and she dipped her head, suddenly shy and unsure what to say. “I got a form,” she said hesitantly, “fromthe desk when I came in? I paid for a picture of us together. I hope that’s okay.”

He nodded, chin jerking unsteadily. “Sure, that’s … Whatever makes you happy.”

“You make me happy,” she said simply, and he smiled, his face relaxing into a bright grin that made her smile in return. “Thank you for adding me to the list and letting me visit. I know you didn’t really want to.”

“I wanted to see you,” he said softly. “I just wish it wasn’t like this. You don’t belong here.”

She glanced around at the tables that had young wives and elderly parents, the bright innocent faces of the children. “None of us do, but here we are.”

There was a moment of quiet between them, where she wished fiercely that she could do much more than hold his hand, her eyes dropping to the plush curve of his mouth, soft and pink and overwhelmingly tempting. She said a quick and fervent prayer that someday she would know what it felt like when it settled over her own.Her mind told her it was useless to hope, but her heart knew nothing was beyond the power of God.

They both laughed awkwardly when a young boy at the table next to them squealed loudly and threw his cup which clattered across the floor to land at Mia’s feet. She handed it back to his mother, who muttered a hasty apology, before looking at Gabriel with a rueful smile.

“So …” He glanced at her, honey eyes drifting over her face as he tried to fill the silence. “How is everything at home? School? Kennedy?”

“She had a bad week last week, ran into her parents at the grocery store and they wouldn’t even acknowledge that they’d seen her, but other than that she’s been better. Happier, I think, than she’s been since I’ve known her.”

He smiled, and she stroked her thumb over his hand, a moment of silent acknowledgment that she knew it mattered to him somehow and she’d be there for him when he was ready to talk about it.

“And your dad? Was he okay with you coming here?”

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