.............................When the judge sentenced him I thought I would faint. I wanted to tell him that he didn't deserve all that time, but I also wanted to run up to my husband and slap his face and jump on him and yell, "How could you do this to me?" But I knew that I had to be strong but it was hard when your whole life was falling apart.
....................I could have walked away like many women have. But now, here I was, going to prison to visit him, doing what I never in a million years throught I'd be doing. I mean, when I was a child and had fantasies of what being married would be like, this was definintely not in those fantasies. A part of me wanted to run away and never look back; run away from this nightmare that was only just beginning. Run because if I stayed, all I had to look forward to was years of visiting those prisons. Years of yearning for my man only to og home to an empty bed. I loved him so much but love had nothing to do with it. I either left or stayed and endure all that lay ahead.
...............................The first time I went to visit him I was nervous and anxious on the long bus ride upstate. I thought about the visit and wondered how we would act towards each other- - there he'd be, sitting across from me in a drab green state uniform. He'd be behind a table. A small table but that small table would symbolize our now separate lives, our living in two separate worlds; the world of the incarcerated and the free. I wanted to be supportive and loving, especially with all I imagined he had to endure in prison but I knew that every time I would look into his eyes on those visits, a strong wave of bitterness would consume me. I would be reminded that because of him and his actions I would have to lie or pretend about where my husband was. And of course, everything that I wanted or dreamed for us would have to be put on hold for a very long time. I wondered, too, if I'd ever find it in my heart to forgive him.
........................We arrived at the prison around six early the next morning. We had been riding for over six hours. I gathered up my things and got off the bus a long with al the other fragmented families I stopped to look up at the extremely large building. It sure is an ugly building I noted mentally, with its gray painted walls and barbed-wire fences that held back so many men inside. I hesitated once again, then I took a deep breath and proceeded up the steps.