Camille's First Visit (continued)

When they brought her in, my first thought was that they had the wrong inmate. I didn’t recognize her. Then she saw me and her face lit up. I’ve often wondered what my own face looked like in that moment. Did she see shock? Disbelief? Or did she see the guilt that was tearing me apart?

The truth is that, even once I knew it was her, I still didn’t recognize her. The honey blonde hair of her youth had turned dark and mousy. It looked like straw. Her bare face was rough. She had aged so much since the last time I saw her. How long had it been? Ten years? Twelve? I couldn’t remember.

I watched while she waited for the guards to remove her shackles. A chain around her waist was attached to the handcuffs that she wore. The shackles on her feet were larger versions of the handcuffs and were connected by a short chain which forced her to take very small steps. The chain around her waist and the leg irons were connected in front by another chain. I knew from my research that the shackles were not one large contraption. They consisted of individual pieces that could be used together or separately. The removal process was very slow and methodical. I hated watching it, hated knowing that she had to go through this every time she left her cell for recreation, visitation or medical appointments. I also knew that she didn’t get to leave her cell all that often and that made my stomach hurt all over again.

The guards removed the waist chain and then helped her to her knees. Once she was on the floor, and at a tactical disadvantage, her handcuffs were removed. She turned and faced the wall, keeping her hands clasped behind her back. Then her leg irons were removed. She remained in that position until the guards had left the room. Then she rose and came over to the Plexiglas. She seated herself in a molded plastic chair which was the only movable object on her side of the partition.

“Hey, Girl!” She said it as if we had just bumped into one another at the mall. It was more than a little surreal. “You’re lookin’ good these days.”

What was I supposed to say to that? I couldn’t very well return the compliment. I mumbled something about how good it was to see her and how long it had been. In that moment, I wanted to leave. I wanted to run away from that place and never come back. I wanted to remember my SueAnn the way she had been as a young girl, not as this haggard, old-before-her-time creature in front of me. But the guilt kicked in and I stayed right where I was.

I asked the standard questions – ‘Are you feeling okay?’ ‘Are you getting enough to eat?’ – that sort of trivial bullshit. I knew the rules in these places. As long as she was here, she would be fed, she would receive any medical treatment that she required and no real harm would come to her – at least for now.

Finally, she interrupted my questions. “You don’t wanna hear about this place. Besides, there really ain’t much to tell. I eat and sleep and watch a little TV. Mostly I work on my case, though.” Again, I didn’t know how to respond to that. Luckily, she kept right on talking and I was off the hook for a comment on her case. “Tell me about you. What’ve you been doin’ all these years? Norma told me you were on TV.”

I couldn’t help but smile. My family tends to be a little confused when it comes to exactly what I do for a living. “Well, I’m not actually on television. I work for a media company that owns a few cable networks.” She gave me a quizzical look. “Channels. They own TV channels.” That was better. She seemed to understand.

“Well what do you do if you ain’t on TV?” I could never tell how much SueAnn really understood and how much confusion she was faking for the sake of getting some attention. She’d been doing that for so many years that I’m not sure she knew either.