I looked up at the building, which, to my immense relief, wasn’t surrounded by a fence or barbed wire. It was long, white, and boring. It looked like a suburban high school. I was in a fog as I pushed a call button on the door and heard the buzz that meant I could open it. I walked into what looked more like a bank lobby than a prison. A woman in uniform with short, curly red hair sitting behind the desk said, “ID, please.” I tried to smile at her as I handed her my license, but I couldn’t quite do it.

“What’s that?” she asked, taking my bag as I walked through a metal detector.

My new housemates had been so kind as to put together some treats for Bill. “Oh, just clean sheets, body wash, some snacks, things like that. Do you want to go through it?”

Her smile conveyed that I was the dumbest person she had ever met. “Ma’am, you can’t bring that in here.”

Now I was confused. “Why?”

“This isn’t Legally Blonde. This is prison. You can leave that on the counter and get it when you leave.”

I was embarrassed, mostly because she had read me so clearly: we had based this whole thing on the scene in Legally Blonde when Elle Woods visits her exercise instructor in prison. So, yeah. The woman rifled through my bag and handed me the two paperback books I had packed for Bill. One was Killers of the Flower Moon, a tale of the grizzly Osage murders. But I knew he would get the subtext of the flower moon, remember our perfect night on the beach, hopefully be transported there. “Here,” she said. “You can take these.”

I changed the subject. “Um, what do I need to do if I want my daughter to be able to come visit my husband?” Nausea roiled in my stomach. Stop it, I scolded myself. This was the reality. I had to handle it. Plus, this would be over so soon. I hoped.

She handed me a stack of papers. “Fill these out.”

“Thank you,” I said, quietly, my throat feeling dry. As I wrote, I said, “I mean, I’m sure we don’t even need these. There’s no way they can just keep holding him here. He didn’t even do anything wrong in the first place. So my daughter will just see him at home and…” I realized I was rambling, and the look she was giving me was so oh you poor thing, you think he’s innocent that I wanted to smack her.

A man, also in a uniform, smiled jovially at me. “You ready, Mrs. Sitterly?” he asked.

I wanted to say no. I wanted to run away. I wanted to see Bill, but I didn’t want to see him.