We broke for lunch. That was followed by exercise time in the yard. I’d been issued a polyester-blend coat but no boots, and the snow was six inches deep outside. I huddled against the wall and stamped my feet and tried not to inhale the periwinkle clouds of tobacco smoke that drifted through the yard.

Then it was back to the office for my afternoon shift, where I was able to dazzle my bosses with a few functions they’d never mastered on Excel. Then a dinner of meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and canned peas. It was bland but hot and filling. I’d had three hot meals today, something I rarely experienced outside.

I spent the evening in the common room. It was a space set up for cards and checkers at steel tables with four attached seats each. It struck me that throughout the criminal justice system, all the way from Interview A to here in Valhalla, the chairs were always bolted to the tables. I’d never thought of using a chair as a weapon, but obviously someone had.

One of the tables was reserved for me, with a pen and legal pad already set out. Nina pointed me to my seat, called out a name, and a young Black woman hurried into the opposite seat. She was the first of the eight “clients” I advised over the course of the evening.

Once I never would have dispensed legal advice this way. Whenever friends or strangers tried to wrest an opinion out of me at the gym or a cocktail party, I’d tell them to make an appointment and sign a retention letter, and I’d be happy to answer their questions. It had been drummed into me at Jackson Rieders never to give advice or receive confidences except in the context of an acknowledged attorney-client relationship. It wasn’t just to assure a fee. It was for self-protection. Otherwise any off-the-cuff remark could be construed as legal advice and form the basis of a malpractice suit, even when given for free.

Destitution had released me from such constraints. Nobody would bother to sue me now. So I listened to their stories, gleaned the gist of their problems, and gave them a five-minute answer and a list of issues to raise with their public defenders during their next sessions.

There was a depressing sameness to all of the women’s stories. Whether they were in for solicitation or possession with intent or larceny or even drunk driving, there was always a man somewhere behind it. A husband or boyfriend who put her out on the street, or who gave her a package to deliver, or who enlisted her to make a straw purchase of a gun or to drive the getaway car. It was their men who dragged them down, every single time. In a world without men, none of these women would be here.

My last appointment was with a pregnant nineteen-year-old who had two children now in foster care. She wanted conjugal visits with their father, and she didn’t like the answer I gave her. Addicted to love, I thought as her face twisted into a snarl and she lunged at me across the table. Nina got between us, and the girl backed down. I didn’t even know what her crime was, but it seemed clear there was a man at the root of it, just as with all the others.