The infirmary had been crowded. The woman who had been jumped by a fellow inmate and had her neck slashed with the toothbrush/knife bled quite a lot and needed stitches. Three other women had gotten into a fight. One had her head bashed against a toilet. The other took a broomstick to the eye. The third tried to slug the first woman, slipped, and somehow broke an ankle.

So there was no room for a woman who had given birth with, apparently, no problems. Of course, no one had checked on Betsy again after Dr. Rothney and Clarissa left in a huff after she told them what would happen to them in the future, with the doctor’s girlfriend stealing the guitar collection and the nurse being pregnant by a lying husband.

Betsy’s body was aching, her spirit and mind shattered. At first, huddled on her cot in her cell in a ball, when the bleeding grew heavier, she didn’t want to do anything to stop it. They had taken her baby. They had taken Rose. She would undoubtedly be found guilty in her upcoming trial and be in jail for twenty years, maybe more. The newspapers were in a frenzy about her and Johnny. Young lovers, they said, wanting to steal Johnny’s father’s money. She was the ring leader, the liar, the manipulator! They were criminals! The public outcry was high. These youths today are out of control! Drugs and more drugs!

There was only a slim chance she would get out for good behavior, so what was the point? Why live? Why try? So she let the blood between her legs run, she let the fever shake her, she let her body die.

But her roommate, a woman named Rainbow, as she told Betsy, “because I invented colors,” cried out for help, and when help didn’t come, Rainbow started reciting colors in alphabetical order, her voice shaking as her tears fell, “Lime green. Mauve. Scarlet . . .”

In the midst of her devastation, her loss, Betsy thought, Why is Rainbow here? She’s sick in the head. Why is she in jail? No one came when Rainbow repeatedly yelled for help. The guards told her to “shut up,” so she went back to her color recitations, her body trembling. Two hours later, when one of the guards finally ran a check, Betsy was passed out, cold, white, dying, and accepting of her death. Rainbow had wrapped her body around Betsy to warm her up. She held her close, whimpering, repeating colors to comfort Betsy.

When a guard finally did her rounds to check on prisoners, she was initially mad because Rainbow should not be in bed with Betsy! Women may not sleep together! That’s against the rules! Then, when Rainbow sat up and pointed at the blood all over the mattress and on Betsy’s jail scrubs and even on Rainbow and Rainbow said, “Blood red,” the guard finally hit the alarm.

She rushed in and told Rainbow to move. Rainbow told her that she saw black when she looked at the woman. “Black in your heart,” Rainbow cried. “I kept calling for help and you all ignored us like gray slugs. You’re a black-hearted woman.”