Coming Home by Brittney Griner & Michelle Burford

Author:Brittney Griner & Michelle Burford [Griner, Brittney & Burford, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2024-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

After a long, bumpy ride in the square-box truck the following day, I returned to detention. My next hearing would be July 7. That gave me a lot of time to get more scared, as well as to avoid Olya. “My mom saw you on television,” she announced as soon as I walked through the door. She’d just returned from one of her allotted phone calls. I shrugged, pretending not to care, but her comment bothered me as much as her nosiness did. I was already stressed. I didn’t need a reminder that my face and accusations were all over the world. One reporter had been so determined to record the proceedings, Alex said, he’d climbed a tree near the courthouse window and begun filming. A guard ordered him down. If there was any upside to the exposure, it was that Relle got to see me for the first time in over four months. She’d later tell me how worried she was when she saw my bugged eyes. I looked as half dead as I felt.

Alena was eager to hear every detail of the day, and I couldn’t wait to share. We tried to whisper, but I’m sure Olya heard. “So what happened when you first arrived?” Alena asked. I told her about the media circus. I also mentioned the way I got leashed. “That rarely happens,” she said. “You only see that kind of treatment if someone commits a heinous crime.”

Alex visited soon after the first hearing, but we didn’t really get to debrief. With the trial now the talk of Russia, we knew we’d be more closely monitored. In code, he assured me we’d have our chance to rebut the foolishness we witnessed on day one. “We just need to continue respecting the judge and proceedings,” he said. This was how things went in Russia, my attorneys said repeatedly. The name of the game was enduring the charade as a way to minimize the sentence. Alex gave me a take-back letter from Lindz.

On the eve of the trial, the #WeAreBG campaign had continued its intensity. My family and friends gathered for a prayer vigil outside the Russian Consulate in New York. Janell Roy, a childhood friend who had been like family to me since our days growing up in Houston, teared up while speaking to the crowd. “February seventeenth was the last time I talked to my sister,” she said with a quiver in her voice. “It hurts.”

Relle was at the vigil, even as she supported crusades elsewhere. In Harlem, dozens gathered holding “Free Brittney Griner” posters while shouting, “Say her name,” the chant used to raise awareness of Black women brutalized and killed by police. Relle called the organizer, who held her cell to the mic. “I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for saying my wife’s name,” she told the crowd. “No justice for any of us if there’s no justice for BG.” And also no sleep for Relle. Throughout

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