My husband had me sentenced to ten years for a two-million-dollar fraud I never committed, and in the courthouse corridor he pulled my grandmother’s ring off my finger and told me to enjoy it. I didn’t argue. I handed a folded piece of paper to the guard.

That was the worst four seconds of my life and I want it in the record that it was not the handcuffs.

They took me down the service stairs.

There was a young officer in front of me and an older one beside me, sixty or so, with a worn uniform and a limp, and the name on his tape was PREWITT.

At the second landing, where the stairwell turns and there is no camera on the inside of the corner, I let my foot go on the edge of the step.

He caught my arm. “Careful now.”

And I put a folded piece of paper into his hand.

I had written it in the holding room that morning on the back of a property receipt with a pen I was allowed for eleven minutes.

“Please call that number,” I said. “Tell Anders Kaszuba that his daughter has just been sentenced for something she did not do.”

He frowned at me.