“Your man is probably out there with Vanessa right now. He don’t care about you. He don’t love you!” JoJo stood up and Cookie countered; both women rising off the steel picnic table bolted to the floor. They wore orange jumpsuits with black numbers stenciled on their backs.

“That’s enough!” the guard rose too from behind her computer screen instinctively placing her hand on her baton. Everyone in the unit stopped, and there was a quiet moment of anticipation that may have faded into disappointment, but JoJo made a mistake. She turned to the guard and rolled her eyes, not in mockery but with the smirk of a co-conspirator, and if the truth were told—that’s what did her in. “Well, he don’t!” she said. And that’s how JoJo ended up in the box on her first day in jail.

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

                                               Psalm 32:1&2