They move me to federal holding three days later.
Not a regular prison. Medical facility. For pregnant inmates. It's as depressing as it sounds.
The walls are institutional beige. The kind of color chosen specifically to drain hope. There are fluorescent lights that hum at a frequency that gets inside your skull after a few hours. My cell has a narrow cot, a metal sink, and a window the size of a textbook that looks out onto a concrete wall. I am allowed a pillow. I am allowed a blanket. I am allowed exactly thirty minutes of outdoor time each afternoon, which I spend walking slow circles in a fenced yard while guards watch from the perimeter.
I am thirty-four weeks pregnant and I am walking circles in a yard like a caged animal.
I keep thinking: this is not my life. This can't be my life.
But the evidence suggests otherwise.
My lawyer visits. Young woman named Rachel Torres. Maya hired her. Maya also posted bail — ten million — but I'm denied. Flight risk.
