Free Inside These Walls by Rebecca Coleman

rate in the office was incredible. Patients were always getting double-billed because employees would quit and walk out without properly recording what they had done that day. I spent most of my days on the phone straightening things out. And getting my rear end squeezed.”
    Her eyes have squinted up in an incredulous way. “And you put up with that?”
    “Oh, it was 1982, 1983. And I was used to it. I know it sounds terrible now, but—” I shrug. “At the time it just seemed like something you tolerated for a steady paycheck.”
    She nods, but I can tell it doesn’t make sense to her. “So, you said you’re getting married,” I try. “How are the wedding plans going?”
    She bobs her head with deliberate enthusiasm—compensating for her earlier confusion, I suppose. “Really well. It’s only three months away. My mom is taking care of most of it. I mean…you know, my adoptive—”
    “It’s fine. She’s your mom.”
    Her smile is broad and relieved. “Yeah, she’s figuring out what style of monogram to put on the almond boxes and what flowers go where and all that stuff. She wants to do it, and that’s fine with me. Things have been crazy at work, so I don’t really have the time.”
    “What do you do? As a job, I mean?”
    “I’m a graphic designer for a kids’ stationery company. Like, for stickers and pencil cases and folders and things like that. I didn’t go to art school, though.” Her smile is tight, almost apologetic. “We just sent the fall designs to Production. If I see one more cartoon cupcake I’m going to puke.”
    I try to repress a laugh, but it comes out anyway. I worry, between her eye-roll and my laugh, the inmates at the mural are going to think they’re being mocked. That wouldn’t end well for me, but I don’t want to break the flow of conversation by pointing that out to Annemarie.
    “Well, I’m trying to gather up some more information for you before your wedding,” I say. “I’ve been in touch with a few people who are helping me pull it together.”
    “That’s nice of you. We’re not planning to wait too long after the wedding to start working on kids, so I really appreciate your help with that.” She fidgets uneasily with the corners of her photographs. “If you want to give me my father’s family’s information, I can save you the trouble of tracking down that part.”
    I hesitate. “I’m not sure I have it.”
    “Do you know where he is?”
    I answer that question honestly. “No.”
    She nods. I know what’s coming next. His name, tell me his name, my father’s name . I feel my body stiffen in anticipation of it. This is the question for which I still have not yet worked out an answer. The only thing certain about my response is that I will not tell her the truth.
    But instead she says, “They have Scrabble here.”
    I blink once. “What?”
    “Scrabble. Are you any good at Scrabble?” She gestures to the space behind me, and when I pivot my head to look, I see a stack of board games piled up on a shelf below the copies of the Bible and Koran. “I’m pretty bad, but it beats playing checkers.”
    My reply is very serious. “I, too, hate checkers.”
    “Well then, let’s play.” She slides out from the side of the bench and retrieves the Scrabble box. “There are worse ways to spend an afternoon.”
    And she’s right, there are. I lose badly, but I don’t care. At the end of the hour, when the officer comes to collect me, Annemarie looks disappointed, and she puts her arms around my shoulders in a light, tentative hug. And I feel a little more of myself tear away with that, because it was so easy once I no longer loved anyone on the outside, and now I do.
    * * *
    Back in my cell, after Janny has been taken away for a medical appointment, I lie on my bed with my hands behind my head and daydream about how Annemarie’s childhood with me would have been different from hers with the Leskas. I would have put her in piano lessons, but