1. Leona Lee Davis
Leona "Lee" Davis
The last morning of my sentence started the same way every other morning had, with metal clanging against metal as an officer ran her baton across the bars while making her way down the row.
The overhead lights came on a few seconds later, followed by groans, somebody cussing about it being too damn early, toilets flushing, and women dragging themselves up from thin mattresses to start another day.
I opened my eyes and stared at the bottom of the bunk above me. For five years, chipped gray metal had been the first thing I saw every morning. Today was supposed to be different.
I had spent countless nights imagining my release. In some versions, I woke up smiling. In others, I cried so hard I could barely pack. I pictured myself counting down every final second, my heart pounding as officers escorted me through one locked door after another.
Instead, I felt numb.
I sat up slowly and placed my feet against the cold floor.
My celly Patrice was still asleep, her long arm hanging off the edge of her bunk and dangling down by me.
She was snoring loud enough to wake the dead, but it was a sound I had gotten used to.
Last night she claimed she was going to stay awake with me all night, but she had fallen asleep before midnight.
I didn’t blame her. This was only a special day to me. To everybody else, it was Wednesday.
I stood and smoothed my hands over the front of my uniform. There was no reason to fix it. In a few hours, I would never have to wear one again. Still, I straightened the shirt and tucked it neatly into the stiff waistband of my pants. Routine was hard to abandon.
My blanket got folded into the same tight square they required every morning, corners tucked, edges lined up, nothing hanging loose. After five years, I could damn near do it without looking.
“Girl, you better stop making that bed.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Patrice was sitting up now, rubbing one eye.
“I’m not trying to hear Officer Bradley’s mouth on my last morning.”
“Forget Bradley.” She waved me off. “What she gone do, give you more time for an ugly blanket?”
“With my luck?” I glanced at the door out of habit, and that got a laugh out of her.
Patrice climbed down from the top bunk and stretched. She was forty-six, though prison had added another decade to her face. Deep lines sat around her mouth, and silver had started taking over the edges of her braids.
“You sleep at all?”
“Some.”
“That means no.”
I shrugged. She knew me too damn well after almost two years of sharing a cell.
Patrice knew when I was lying, when I was angry, when I was close to breaking.
She knew I hated peaches, loved romance novels, and could braid hair well enough to keep commissary money in my account when JB’s deposits ran low.
She also knew I had stopped talking about home during my third year.
At first, I talked about Love-Lee Nails all the time.
I was reopening the minute I got home. I drew layouts on notebook paper, planned color schemes, and kept up with nail trends through magazines and whatever pictures Anika mailed me.
Then I found out the building had gone up for sale. Hannah, one of the girls who used to work for me, bought it and reopened the shop as House of Hannah. After that, I stopped making plans out loud.
Patrice leaned against the bunk. “You nervous?”
“No.” I kept my eyes on the blanket.
“You lying. You better not come back in here,” she said.
“I’m not.”
“I mean it, Leona.”
“I said I’m not, Patrice.”
“Everybody says that, then be back in here.”
“That won’t be my story!” The words came out harder than I intended.
Patrice didn’t argue. She’d seen the same thing I had. Women would leave swearing they were never coming back, then six months later we’d hear their name during count.
She walked over and wrapped her arms around me. My body went stiff before I could stop it. In prison, you thought twice before letting anybody get that close, even Patrice. I had to remind myself who was touching me before I finally relaxed and hugged her back.
“And you better write me,” she whispered.
“I will.”
“Send pictures of everything. Food. Your house. Your man. All of it.”
At the mention of JB, I went quiet before telling her, “I got you.”
Patrice pulled away and wiped her eyes before any tears could fall.
“Davis.”
Officer Bradley stood outside the cell with a clipboard pressed against her stomach.
“Pack your property.”
My entire life inside the prison fit into one clear plastic bag.
Inside were the Bible Anika sent me during my first Christmas, three composition notebooks filled with thoughts I would probably never read again, a stack of letters held together with a rubber band, and an envelope stuffed with photographs I’d looked at so many times the corners had started curling.
Anika’s college graduation, birthdays, cookouts, ordinary days I should’ve been there for.
My favorite was an old picture JB had dug up and sent me. Me and him at seventeen, standing in front of his first car with matching foolish grins on our faces. I turned it over and ran my thumb across the words he’d written on the back.
Still us. Always.
I slid the picture back into the envelope, praying he really meant it because I was about to find out.
Patrice walked with me as far as she was allowed.
A few women called goodbye from their cells.
Some wished me luck while others watched silently, their expressions hard to read.
Leaving brought something ugly out of people.
Some women smiled for you. Some looked like they hated your guts. A few managed to do both.
At the end of the unit, I stopped and looked back at the gray walls, metal stairs, and rows of faces. I had really spent five years underneath them fluorescent lights.
I expected to feel something bigger about leaving, relief, anger, victory, hell, something. Mostly, I was tired.
“Go,” Patrice called from behind the gate.
I looked back at her one last time, nodded, then followed Officer Bradley down the hall. Every door opened with a buzz and closed behind me with a slam.
Processing took longer than it should have. Fingerprints, signatures, questions I had already answered. A woman behind a scratched plastic partition eventually slid my identification card and release paperwork through the narrow opening.
“Verify your information.”
I looked down at the card and barely recognized myself.
The picture had been taken shortly after sentencing.
My cheeks were fuller then, my eyes softer, and my hair was pressed straight and parted down the middle because I still cared enough back then to make sure I looked good for pictures.
My front tooth was still whole too. That was before one bad day in the yard left me with a chip I’d catch myself feeling with my tongue.
The woman staring back at me looked scared, and I hated her a little. Not because she was weak, but because she had no idea what was coming.
“Everything correct?”
“Yes.”
The clerk handed me a debit card with the little money left in my account, then pointed me toward a changing room.
JB had sent me something to wear home. Dark jeans, a soft cream sweater, and brown ankle boots. Nothing flashy or likely to have everybody staring at me the second I stepped outside.
I stripped out of my uniform and stood under the harsh light in my bra and underwear, staring at myself in the scratched mirror. I was twenty-nine now. I’d gone in at twenty-four.
There were faint lines near my eyes that hadn’t been there before.
My body was smaller, leaner from years of eating food that rarely tasted like anything, and my hair fell past my shoulders in the thick braids I’d done two nights earlier.
Prison hadn’t killed me, but standing there looking at myself, I couldn’t tell how much of the old me was left.
I pulled on the clothes JB sent. The jeans felt strange around my legs, the sweater smelled like a department store, and the boots were so clean I hesitated before putting them on.
Everything fit, which meant Anika must’ve told him my size. Between the two of them, there wasn’t much that slipped through the cracks.
JB had done what he could while I was inside. He visited when he could, kept money on my books, and sent letters even after I stopped answering most of them. He never missed my birthday or Christmas and never let more than two weeks pass without hearing my voice.
Still, loving somebody while I was locked up was different from being outside with them. I didn’t know what me and JB would be once there weren’t prison walls between us, and I was tired of trying to figure it out from inside that place.
The final gate opened shortly after nine.
I stepped forward, then paused because I couldn’t stop looking up.
For five years, the sky had always come with fences and razor wire.
Now it just didn’t. It stretched farther than I remembered, and for a second, it felt like the whole world had gotten bigger while I’d been gone.
I closed my eyes and let the sun warm my cheeks.
For five years, I’d only gone outside when somebody else allowed it.
I walked inside painted lines, surrounded by guards and fences, with even fresh air scheduled into my day.
Now nobody was counting the minutes or telling me where to stand.
I could’ve stayed right there soaking it in forever.
Then I heard my name.
“Lee.”
My eyes opened, and there he was. JB stood across the parking lot beside a black truck polished so clean the sunlight flashed against the hood. For a second, neither of us moved.
I’d seen him plenty of times over the last five years during visitation, always with correctional officers nearby and somebody keeping track of how much time we had left. This wasn’t that. There was nobody standing between us and no guard waiting to tell us our time was up.