“That your girl?” the lady said. “She’s just gorgeous.”

Gloria slid some of my hair behind my ear with her fingernail. When she touched me I tried not to move. “Don’t I know it,” she said. “She’s the spit of me.”

“No joke there, Glory.” Then the lady went to another table and a man in a blue coat got up and hugged her. He had a cigarette inside his mouth and it wiggled up and down when he talked.

“Glory. Isn’t that lovely?” Gloria said. “That’s what they were calling me, from the first day. Just to boost me up. They know I don’t belong here.”

I don’t belong here.

I squeezed my hands together. “Oh,” I said. I sounded like a squeaking mouse, but Gloria laughed.

“Of course you’re nervous, darling. You and me never could tolerate hubbub, could we? Always enjoyed peace and quiet.” She shrugged. “But. You adjust.”

I nodded again. She reached over and held onto my hand. Her skin was warm, and around my mouth went tingly and my fingers felt strange. I checked my middle. Dr. Westerly told me when I started to feel shaky, I should listen to my lungs. Make sure they were getting air all the way in the bottom. I took a deep breath through my nose, like we practiced, and blew it out through my mouth.

“Have you been getting my letters?”

I glanced at my sneakers. Gran let me pick them out myself.

“You haven’t! I can’t believe it. Do you know I’ve written you every single day? Trying to explain so you’ll understand.”

I shook my head. I tried Dr. Westerly’s trick again, but it wasn’t working.

“That woman!” She let go of my hand and went back in the plastic chair. “Always interfering. What does she think? Stealing my letters is going to change something? You’re here, aren’t you? She probably tried to stop it, but I know my rights. It’s piss in her eye.”

I took more slow breaths and I tried to stay very, very still. When we drove to the jail Gran told me over and over Gloria was a regular person. She couldn’t hurt me or read my mind. We weren’t attached by strings. “If she pushes, you don’t have to bend.”

When Gloria talked again, her voice was quiet. “I tried to hate you, you know. I really did. For what you did to me. How could you destroy me like that? But being separated from a daughter does something to a mother, Bids.” No one had called me Bids in a long time. “Of course you don’t understand, but it makes things all clear. These months being stuck in here, I’ve changed my mind and I’ve changed myself. People can do that when they got a lot of muscle upstairs.” She pointed at her forehead.