Page 78 of His Virgin Vessel

"I think I should start visiting more regularly," Corinne said. "I feel happier now than I have in weeks. I think it's actually good for me."

"No, we discussed that, Corinne..."Dugas began.

"But Asa didn't get a say," Corinne pointed out. "It's our relationship that's been broken up like this, and I think he deserves for his opinion to be heard."

After her victory over where she got to live, Corinne was clearly feeling confident. The thing was, I was with her father on this one. It wasn't so much that I thought visiting me and maintaining that very visible connection put Corinne in danger, although that was a factor. It was more than that. Corinne was a young woman, at the start of her life, and I was an older man, at the start of a long jail term. I didn't want her to waste her potential waiting for me. I wanted her to go back to the city and give art another try, which she could hardly do if she felt chained to my prison. I wanted her to get out and experience life, which, again, was somewhat precluded by forever having a partner who was 'unavailable.’ I didn't want her to go out and find herself another man, but that was probably what she should do. I had made my decisions, and now I had to pay for them, which I did gladly, because those decisions had led me to her. But I didn't want her to have to suffer because of the life I had led. I was lucky enough to know the love of a wonderful woman. If that proved only to be for a matter of weeks, then so be –it. It was worth it. But she had the option of so much more. She could be anything, and she could do anything. Or, she could drag herself along to a prison once a week and dream about a future that could only begin when I got out. I wouldn't do that to her.

I wasn’t the most eloquent man in the world, but I tried to say all that to her and make her understand as best I could. When I had finished, Corinne spoke.

"You want me to have whatever I want. What if what I want is you?"

"That's what you want now," I said. "But after six months, you might well feel differently. Only, then you might feel a loyalty to me that you can't break. I'm not taking the chance."

"But..."

"Look, when I get out, then feel free to look me up. Maybe then we can be friends. Maybe more. Maybe we can even pick up where we left off. But I don't know what's going to change for you between now and then. And I want things to change for you. I want you to have the exciting, fulfilling life you deserve. I don't want to do anything that might get in the way of that happening. Live your life as if I'm not in it. Because I won't be."

"That is good advice," Brian Dugas said, happy that I seemed to be back on his side.

"Is it?" Corinne asked, in a voice that could have cut glass.

"Better yet," I added. "Live your life as if I was never in it. Then you don't feel any ties. And, if we meet again, at a happier time in the future, then it can all be new again. Like we're starting from scratch."

"Live my life as if you were never in it?" Something seemed to be amusing Corinne now. I couldn't imagine what, but a little voice located somewhere toward the back of my mind was telling me that I ought to know, reminding me of something I had heard and forgotten.

"Yes," I said.

"Live my life, as if you were never in it," Corinne repeated, shaking her head and now laughing to herself as she spoke. "That's going to be a bit of a challenge."

"Initially, sure," Dugas said. He seemed as confused as I was by Corinne's growing amusement. "But you'll get used to it, once there's nothing to remind you of him."

Corinne burst out laughing. "Sorry. I'm sure you're right. Nothing to remind me of Asa. Absolutely. Can I ask you two wise, old men one question?"

"Sure," I said, wondering if she was losing it a little.

"Anything," Dugas agreed.

"If I can't visit Asa - not at all - then how is my son or daughter - though I kind of feel like it’s a daughter - going to get to know his or her daddy?"

I hoped that I looked less stupidly dumbfounded than Brian Dugas did, but that might have been too much to hope for. I could feel my mouth hanging slackly open and my eyes goggling wildly at... the mother of my child.

I was going to be a father.

It was a shock, and, yet, I also felt strangely as if I had already known, or ought to have. I had never really thought about being a dad. My own father had been so awful that it was not something to which I had ever aspired. If I had ever entertained the idea, then I had imagined that I would be everything as a father that my own dad had so pointedly failed to be. I would be great at it. Now, it seemed that I was becoming a Dad under the worst possible circumstances. My child was going to get to know me as that man behind the glass that he saw once a week and who everyone talked about in hushed tones. That was not the sort of father that anyone wanted to be.

On the other hand, I was going to be a daddy. With Corinne as the mommy. The circumstances might be several million miles from ideal, but the person with whom it was happening? This was the dream. Not a dream I had ever had, and, yet, as soon as I heard it, it felt like a dream fulfilled.

"Are you happy?" Corinne asked earnestly.

"I shouldn't be, but I am!"

She understood what I meant, and we were both on our feet and in each other's arms.

"Dad?" Corinne turned to Sheriff Dugas. The confidence with which she had delivered this bombshell had now evaporated to be replaced by nervousness.

Brian Dugas had initially looked as knocked back off his feet as I had felt. His expression had now morphed slowly into something more set and determined, though what that might mean, I could not say.

"Dad?" Corinne tried again.

Dugas turned that stony stare at us. "Right." That was all he said, but he said it in the same tones that Moses must have used when walking up to part the Red Sea.

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