Magela didn’t stop. She dressed in her brightest yellow dress, the color of Oshun, and stepped onto her balcony. She turned her confinement into a stage. She danced with the shadows of the laundry lines. She toasted the sky with her rum.

When the gates finally opened months later, people didn't just walk out; they emerged with a new step. Magela was the first one down the stairs. She looked at the sun, adjusted her dress, and realized that while God had given her a cage, she had turned the bars into a marimba.

She didn’t have much. She had a radio that only caught the weather report, a bottle of cheap rum she’d been saving for a wedding that was canceled, and a pair of worn-out dancing shoes. She started with the rhythm.

For the first three days, Magela sat. On the fourth day, the silence began to itch. She looked at her reflection in a tarnished mirror and whispered, "Si Dios te da confinamiento, Magela, tú verás lo que haces." (If God gives you confinement, Magela, you’ll see what you can do.)

"¡Oye!" she shouted to the block. "If the walls are closing in, just paint them a different color in your head!"