I walk to the Eloy Detention Facility’s visitation room where the guard, a tall angular man, sits yelling loudly in a thick German accent directing detainees in and out of the area.

“I’m here to see my client,” I say sliding him a copy of the “Visitation Request” I dutifully emailed to CoreCivic personnel twenty-four hours in advance as required.

The guard looks down at a clipboard in front of him and shakes his head, muttering that he can’t find my name on his list. I squeak mouse-like, “but I’m sure I sent it, I’m her attorney, I’d like to see her today, please.” The guard is distracted by a voice crackling over his walkie-talkie and motions for me to sit down and wait.

I walk over to the folding chairs, set up in rows, trying not to make eye contact with the heavily-tattooed male detainees who occupy at least a dozen of them. Each time the guard looks away, I catch catcalls and snickers whispered in my direction. This is how the guards keep an eye on the toughest detainees. I wonder if it’s also a calculated attempt at intimidating attorneys.

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Years and thousands of miles.

Walking, hopping trains, riding buses, surviving on your wits and sacrifice and sometimes, the kindness of strangers. The fact of your presence here is a testament to your strength and smarts and will to survive.

You shrug and say it is the grace of God.

Here is the Mariposa Port of Entry. Here is straddling the two faces of Nogales—Sonora and Arizona—universes apart. But when you roll your “r”s they sound so much alike.

Mariposa. Butterfly. An earthbound grub reincarnated into an airy winged creature that flutters as free as a breeze. For a moment, it’s possible you believe that metamorphosis is available to mere mortals too.

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