Chapter 9.

9.

FCI Corbettsville is a minimum-security correctional facility near Binghamton, New York—about a two-hour drive from my house. It’s a new facility, less than five years old, designed to house nonviolent offenders. Instead of cells with bars, the inmates share spaces that resemble college dorm rooms. Everyone gets a window with a view. There are various jobs that pay sixty cents an hour, plus weekly classes in gardening, baking, cosmetology, finance, web design, and creative writing. It’s not nearly as nice as FPC Alderson in West Virginia—aka Camp Cupcake, where Martha Stewart famously served five months after lying to federal investigators. But it’s reportedly cleaner and safer than nearly any other federal prison in the United States, and this fact helps me sleep at night.

Visiting hours started at eight-thirty but by seven o’clock I was parked in a long line of cars outside the gates, because all the internet forums advised me to show up early. Once inside, I showed my driver’s license to a pair of corrections officers, and then a beautiful black Lab came trotting over to sniff my Jeep for drugs. I greeted the dog with a friendly hello and an officer immediately reprimanded me. “Don’t distract the animal,” he said. “She’s working.”

Once inside the prison, I waited in more lines. An officer surveyed my clothes and decided they met the appropriate standards (no hats, no offensive T-shirts, and above all no orange, the color worn by inmates). Then I walked through a metal detector and raised my hands over my head so I could be lightly frisked. I was surprised by the professionalism of the staff; movies and TV shows had prepared me for the worst, but the officers were unfailingly polite; they said “yes, sir” and “no, sir” and “thank you, sir.” I wondered if they recognized my name, if they knew the details of my daughter’s story, and now they were giving me some kind of preferential treatment. But from what I could gather, they were offering the same courtesies to everyone.

After about an hour of waiting, I finally arrived at a desk marked REGISTRATION . I presented my driver’s license and visitation slip to a pair of officers seated behind a plexiglass window. They were both about my age, and they had the easy, familiar rapport of an old married couple—or just two employees who had been working at the same job for a long, long time. The man keyed my information into his computer while his partner compared the photo on my license to my real-life face. Then she must have noticed my date of birth because she smiled and said, “Happy birthday.”

“Thank you.”

I expected her to follow the comment with some kind of snarky joke, but she was being sincere. She acted like visiting a prison on your birthday was a perfectly normal thing to do—and for many of the parents waiting in line with me, I suppose it was. I felt like I was back in Osprey Cove all over again—back in another strange new world filled with unfamiliar customs and social cues.

The man clicked a few buttons on his keyboard, then sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Szatowski, but I don’t see your name on her list.”

I was prepared for this moment. I knew most prisons in the United States required inmates to draft a list of preapproved people for visitation days—family, friends, attorneys, clergy. You can’t just wander in off the street and visit the inmate of your choice. Which is exactly what I was trying to do.

“I did the forms online,” I told him.

“Right, I see your security clearances. But Margaret needs to add you to her list. So we know she actually wants to visit with you.” He shrugged, suggesting that nothing else could be done. “You gotta straighten it out with her and come back. Mondays, Wednesdays, or Saturdays, eight-thirty to three.”

He pushed my driver’s license back across the counter but I refused to pick it up. I’d seen enough Reddit discussions on FCI Corbettsville to know the officers were considered “decent” and “flexible” and “sometimes acknowledge that you’re an actual human being.”

“I’m sorry for the mix-up. This is my first time.”

“Rules are on the website.”

“And I woke up at four-thirty to beat the traffic. I drove all the way from Stroudsburg.”

“Tell Margaret she needs to visit the warden’s office and add your name to her list. And then next time you won’t have any problems, I guarantee it.”

He was already looking over my shoulder to the next person in line, but I made one last push. “I understand, but I’ve been waiting here since seven o’clock. Is there anything we can do today?”

“No, sir.”

“Could you call her room? Tell her I’m here?”

“The inmates don’t have telephones. I’m sorry, but if you’re not on her list, you’re not on her list.”

His partner seemed poised to disagree. She opened her mouth like she was about to offer a solution, so I shifted my focus to her. “There’s no other family to visit. It’s just me. Is there any way you can help?”

She checked her wristwatch. A digital Timex, almost exactly like mine. “At this hour, all the women are in the yard. For morning exercise. I’ll see if I can find her.” Then she pushed herself to a standing position and told her partner to seat me at a table.

He shook his head—he seemed amused by her willingness to do more than the bare minimum her job description required—then proceeded to read my instructions: “Walk directly to table eighteen and sit down. Do not attempt to sit at any other table. Do not converse or gesture to any of the other inmates or visitors. If you need to visit a restroom, raise your hand and ask the guard. If you want to make a purchase from the vending machines, raise your hand and ask the guard. You are allowed to respectfully embrace the inmate at the start and end of your visit, but all other physical contact is forbidden. Do you understand all the rules I’ve just outlined?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Door’s on your right. Have a nice day.”

I stepped inside the visitation room, which had bright, cheerful colors and large windows admitting lots of natural light. It reminded me of the cafeteria at Holy Redeemer Hospital. There were vending machines dispensing everything from sodas and coffee to chips and even cold sandwiches. As I crossed the room to the table marked eighteen, I glanced at the other visitors, trying to discern all the various relationships on display: inmate and spouse, inmate and child, inmate and attorney. “Just seven more months, honey,” I heard one woman saying. “In seven more months, all this will be over, and you’ll be back home where you belong.” Elsewhere in the room, a baby was crying, and a surprising number of people had bowed their heads to pray together—in English and Spanish and languages I didn’t recognize.

I sat down at table eighteen. There was a large TV playing the Today show with the volume muted and the subtitles on. Al Roker was interviewing a Second World War veteran who had found late-in-life fame as a TikTok celebrity giving out life wisdom: “I don’t think children are meant to be molded,” he was saying. “I think they’re people waiting to be unfolded.” There were a couple of digital clocks spaced around the room, to help visitors keep track of the time, but none of the clocks were in sync. One said 10:05, another said 10:06, and another said 10:03—but according to the Today show, the actual time was 10:19.

As I waited, the broadcast cut to a commercial with Chris Pratt and Aubrey Plaza promoting the Chrysler Reactor with the new-and-improved Miracle Battery Infinity. Despite all the controversy of the past year, Capaciti was on track to have another year of record sales. Customers didn’t seem to care that the FBI had launched four simultaneous raids of Osprey Cove, the apartment at Beacon Tower, the Gardners’ home in Cambridge, and Capaciti’s research headquarters. A team of special agents had arrested Errol, Catherine, Gerry, and Maggie, but of course my daughter was the only one serving any time—three to five years for conspiracy to obstruct justice and being an accessory to murder after the fact. Catherine Gardner was “receiving treatment” at a beachside rehab center in West Palm Beach while Errol and Gerry remained free on millions of dollars in bail, filing appeal after appeal and using every last loophole available to the 0.001 percent. I didn’t expect they would ever be properly punished. But I took some comfort in knowing that Dawn Taggart’s body had been recovered from the bottom of Lake Wyndham, so her mother and uncle could finally lay her to rest. Better still, Hugo was promptly apprehended and extradited back to Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he was awaiting trial for scores of human rights violations. Many speculated that he would be the first Congolese prisoner sentenced to death since 2007, but I was trying not to get my hopes up.

Eventually the woman from registration entered the visitation area to find me. Her face was somber—she looked like a surgeon emerging from the ER to deliver some bad news. “I found Margaret in the exercise yard, and I told her you were waiting here. But she’s decided she isn’t going to come see you.”

I felt bad for putting her in the middle of an awkward situation. I stood up and said, “Thank you for trying.”

“One thing you could do is write her a letter,” she offered. “Tell her what you’re feeling on paper. Let her know you’re interested in supporting her.” She was trying to be helpful, which I appreciated. So I didn’t mention all the letters I’d already sent over the past few months. Or the cards for her birthday and Christmas and just because. Always with a personal note but never any pocket money, because the prison wouldn’t allow cash by mail.

“I’ve met a lot of parents in your situation,” the woman continued. “So don’t leave here feeling like you’re alone, okay? Because you’re not the only one.”

I left the building and walked out into the sunshine. It was still early, a beautiful clear morning, and suddenly I had my whole day ahead of me. Vicky had planned a special dinner for later in the evening, and she’d invited a couple of my friends from UPS. Plus Tammy and Abigail would be there, and after dinner I was sure we’d play charades or Pictionary or some other party game, because that’s how we always celebrated our birthdays together. I knew I was fortunate to have so many wonderful people in my life. But I also knew at some point I would look around the dinner table and remember who was missing.

I crossed the parking lot and unlocked the door to my Jeep, then turned to take one last look at the prison. It was an imposing concrete building with three levels of cells, and a window in a stairwell allowed a glimpse inside the facility. I could see dozens of female inmates in orange jumpsuits ascending the stairs, moving in an orderly single-file line. And I noticed something peculiar: nearly every single woman turned to glance outside, to steal a quick look at the world beyond their walls. They were all different ages and races, but they all shared that same impulse. Most looked to the horizon—toward Route 81 way off in the distance—but every so often, an inmate locked eyes with me. Checking to see if I was someone she knew.

“Excuse me, sir?”

A corrections officer was walking toward me. A young woman, about my daughter’s age, dressed in a blue collared shirt, a black necktie, and a black hat.

“Have you finished your visit?”

“Yes.”

“Then I need you to exit the parking lot. We have another group of visitors coming at eleven, and they’re going to need parking spaces. So they can go inside and see their loved ones.”

My wristwatch said it was only 10:32, but evidently this kid was the law-and-order type. I liked that she took the extra time to explain the rules to me. She was tough but fair. Someone had raised her right. I apologized, opened the door to my Jeep, and got inside.

Then I looked back at the window. The inmates were still filing past. All returning to their cells, I guessed, after a session of morning exercise. I’d already counted some forty women, and there were only a hundred or so in the entire facility. I got out of my Jeep and called to the guard. “Excuse me? Officer? Could I ask a favor?”

She stopped and turned around.

“Can I stay five more minutes?”