After the shock of the moment subsided, Vania gave me a bottle of water, a small packet of baby wipes, and a tiny pillow she had managed to put inside her purse, and then left to meet my family on the outside and continue working on getting me out of there.
As if the morning chaos hadn’t been enough, later that afternoon, some of the ladies grew concerned about another young woman and began asking if she was feeling well. She responded that she was eighteen years old, had not eaten anything all day, was pregnant, and really wanted to vomit. Everyone cleared the way and the woman rushed to the bathroom. The ladies began yelling once again, slamming their hands against the bars, and demanding that the guards bring a doctor or an ambulance. It all sounds terrifying, but for what it’s worth, at no point did I feel I was in danger. On the contrary, their concern felt reassuring. I quickly realized that we were all in this together and, should that have been me, these women would have done the same thing. For the first time that day, I began to feel the sisterhood that forms among women who find themselves in this predicament, who are deprived of their freedom and their basic human rights.
It was in that interim that Carmen was brought back down to the carceleta. She had been at her hearing, and since she had been in the carceleta for several days, she was welcomed back by inmates who had seen her during that time. It was Carmen who gave the young pregnant woman some yogurt and water when she came out of the bathroom.
A short time later, an ambulance arrived for the young pregnant woman. However, there were so many of us in that holding cell by then that none of us had realized that she had returned to the bathroom, fainted, and was bleeding. She was quickly taken away.
It must have been around 5 p.m. when the inmates were called to leave the carceleta for their ride back to prison. As they all scurried away, I realized only Carmen and I were left behind, and so did the reporters. They swiftly arrived and set up their cameras, while I lay on the now empty bench and covered my face with my father’s jacket.
It must have been around 6 p.m. when my name was called. My brother Rodrigo had sent a chicken Caesar wrap and chicken soup for dinner. I originally thought the container with the hot liquid was coffee and I almost left it in the bag, but I got curious and discovered the delicious soup. I had no appetite for the wrap Rodrigo had so thoughtfully sent me, but underneath it I found a small piece of folded paper. Please let it be a note, please! And it was! I immediately unfolded it and read:
We are all with you.We support you; you are not alone.
Everything will be OK.
We are all with you. Be strong.
I love you,
Rodri
P.S. Chicken Caesar Wrap! :-)
It is very difficult to explain what it feels like to be suddenly taken physically from your usual environment, and locked up in an underground cell, with no communication with the outside world. Reading that simple yet heartfelt note meant the world to me. For a long time, that handwritten note was displayed in a picture frame in my bedroom. In that moment, and forever, it will always be my treasure.
Later, I received a visit from another family acquaintance, also a lawyer. He had come to see how I was doing and to assure me that my children would be safe no matter what happened. I had had no reason to think otherwise until then, but as this person explained to me, with an absent father and a mother in custody, my children were apparently now legally orphaned. Because of this legality, my mother and brother had contacted my brother-in-law, Ed, and had asked him to pick up my children from school. They figured that, given the malicious way things had been unfolding, anything was possible, including the public prosecutor requesting that my children be sent to a state-run orphanage, due to our new circumstances.
Now, as if the idea of spending a night in jail wasn’t tortuous enough, I’d had a bombshell dropped on me. I was being advised that, in order to protect my children, I had to move quickly and temporarily hand over custody of my children to my mother. I thanked my lucky stars that amid the drama unfolding before my eyes, I knew that my children and I were surrounded and protected by an amazing family. My mother, my brother Turi, and my brother-in-law Ed and his wife, Vania, were all ready to step forward and become my children’s legal guardians. My mother was my first choice, but due to her age, we knew there was a possibility that a judge might not grant her that right. Luckily, because my mother is so youthful and my children love her, the judge agreed and chose her.
So, one morning you wake up expecting an ordinary day, with two beautiful children on their way to school, a full day of work ahead, activities, friends, freedom, and just when you begin to think that all your hard work in the past year to lift your family back from a terrible ordeal is beginning to pay off, it is all taken away from you, in the blink of an eye, with no sense or purpose to speak of other than to get back at your husband. I still can’t believe someone would go to such lengths for revenge.
As I was pondering this new information and my reactions, I returned to the holding cell, flabbergasted by the latest news, and then remembered I was not alone.
I honestly had never heard of Carmen before that Thursday, although she was quite famous at the time. She seemed to be very anxious, sitting, standing, walking around, and constantly searching for stuff inside the two bags on the bench. Several times that evening, we sat and spoke for a while. She told me she had been in the carceleta since Monday, without access to a shower, and she had just been awarded a judge’s order to go freshen up somewhere inside the courthouse. As she began to undo her beautiful fishtail braid, I asked her how she made it. “The other inmates did it for me,” she said.
It turns out the other inmates had taunted her when she first arrived, with remarks such as, “Well, look who’s in jail now! Baldetti’s dear friend!” But Carmen immediately set them straight, explaining that it was actually because of Guatemala’s former vice president Roxana Baldetti that she was in jail in the first place. If they’d really been friends, Carmen wouldn’t have been used as a scapegoat for crimes she didn’t commit. And her remarks and explanations paid off. When all the cards seemed to be stacked against her, the inmates believed she was telling the truth, so much so, that they went from taunting her to protecting her, even going as far as making sure she looked beautiful for her public hearings. I saw this with my own eyes the following morning when Carmen put her hair up in a simple ponytail and the inmates insisted on styling her hair with another beautiful braid before she left the holding cell to attend her hearing. The inmates later told me that they had even protected Carmen from some nasty reporters who had come by to aggravate her. They were very proud to recount how they had been showcased on the nightly news yelling at the reporters to leave Carmen alone.
At some time that evening, I remember seeing Carmen take out a toothbrush and some toothpaste.
“Would you mind sharing some toothpaste with me?” I asked as I extended one of my father’s interdental brushes, so small that it went undetected by the guards when they had searched me earlier.
“On that?” she asked.
“It’s all I have,” I responded.
She immediately pulled out a new regular-sized toothbrush from her supply bag and gave it to me. Moved by her generosity, I thanked her and asked her how she was holding up. She went on to tell me a bit about her family and friends, and how helpless she felt with such a high-profile case, where she felt she was being tried by the media rather than a jury of