“I think upstairs might be better,” I said as a female deputy, hefty with short frosted hair, came around the corner with her hand-held metal detector.

“Arms out,” she said to me. “Got anything metal in your pockets?”

“No,” I said as the detector snarled like a mechanical cat.

She tried it up and down one side and the other. It kept going off.

“Let’s get rid of your coat.”

I draped it on the desk as she tried again. The detector continued to make its startling sound as she frowned and kept trying.

“What about jewelry,” she said.

I shook my head as I suddenly remembered I was wearing an underwire bra that I had no intention of announcing. She put down the detector and began to pat me down while the other deputy sat at his desk and watched slack-jawed, as if he were gawking at a dirty movie.

“Okay,” she said, satisfied that I was harmless. “Follow me.”

To get upstairs, we had to walk through the women’s side of the jail. Keys jangled as she unlocked a heavy metal door that loudly banged shut behind us. Inmates were young and hard in institutional denim, their cells scarcely big enough for an animal, with a white toilet, bed and sink. Women played solitaire, and leaned against their cages. They had hung their clothes from bars, and trash barrels were close and crammed with what they hadn’t wanted for dinner. The smell of old food made my stomach flop.

“Hey mama.”

“What we got here?”

“A fine lady. Umm-umm-umm.”

“Hubba-hubba-hubba!”

Hands came through bars, trying to touch me as I went past, and someone was making kissing sounds while other women emitted harsh, wounded outbursts that were supposed to be laughs.

“Leave her in here. Just fifteen minutes. Ooohhh come to mama!”

“I need cigarettes.”

“Shut up, Wanda. You always needin’ something.”

“Y’all quiet on down,” the deputy said in a bored singsong as she unlocked another door.

I followed her upstairs and realized I was trembling. The room she put me in was cluttered and disorganized, as if it might have had a function in an earlier time. Cork boards were propped against a wall, a hand cart parked in a corner, and some sort of pamphlets and bulletins were scattered everywhere. I sat in a folding chair at a wooden table scarred with names and crude messages in ballpoint pen.

“Just make yourself at home and he’ll be up,” she said, leaving me alone.

I realized that cough drops and tissues were in my pocketbook and coat, neither of which I had with me now. Sniffing, I shut my eyes until I heard heavy feet. When the male deputy escorted Keith Pleasants in, I almost did not recognize him. He was pale and drawn, thin in baggy denims, his hands cuffed awkwardly in front of him. His eyes filled with tears when he looked at me, and his lips quivered when he tried to smile.

“You sit down and stay down,” the deputy ordered him. “Don’t you let me hear no problem up here. Got it? Or I’m back and the visit’s history.”