Concertina wire across the top of a barbed wire perimeter fence

Scenes of Prison


40. A Modest Flirtation?


I was alone in the office shortly before noon on a pleasant spring day when Daniel, a co-worker, came into the office and closed the door behind him.

“Larsen, you’ve been married for a long time,” he said. “They just walked my wife out of the institution. She was involved romantically with an inmate.”

The pain in these words as he spoke them was palpable, and the trouble this event now introduced into his marriage made any troubles of mine pale in comparison.

“I should just kick her out and be done with her,” he said, but it wasn’t clear that he had settled on this course of action. They did have young children. Daniel was very agitated, and he needed to talk this out right now.

“My wife, involved with an inmate . . . “ He sat down on the edge of a chair and repeated this statement a couple of times, muttering it to himself in disbelief. He squirmed and shifted from side to side. He was clearly uncomfortable.

“What should I do?” he said. “What would you do if you were me?”

I felt as though I’d been thrust into the position of his father. He was inviting me to save his marriage if I could. There was much at risk, so I knew I had to choose my words carefully. He had laid out this trouble to me, but I didn’t really know Daniel, and I’d never met his wife. I didn’t immediately answer his question, but my silence served to encourage him, and the facts of his life began to pour out.

As he started to speak, I remembered Lucy and her ordeal in the mop closet, and I wondered if Daniel’s wife had also met a Prince Charming in the prison. I shuddered to think that she might have also met Prince Charming's companion, Horace.

Daniel had been with us about a year, and soon after beginning as a caseworker, his wife had been hired for a different job inside the prison. It was a financial windfall for them, and they could manage the demands on their family more easily since they both worked at the same location.

As he spoke, a troubling, unspoken, question emerged between us. Had there been a sexual relationship between the inmate and his wife? That was a question too painful for him to speak out loud to me, and I didn’t ask it. It hung silently in the closed office air threatening to torpedo any generous or merciful interpretation of the facts that I might propose.

I also realized that there were other conversations going on elsewhere in the prison at that very moment among inmates who were describing the compromising details of the relationship that had now been exposed and were laughing at the pain they had brought to Daniel and to his wife.

I also thought of Daniel’s wife, who had clearly lost control of what she had probably imagined was only a harmless flirtation. This harmless flirtation had now blown up into a catastrophe in her life. She had lost her job, and she was unlikely to ever again be hired in another correctional facility. Her marriage and family were suddenly in danger of collapsing, too.

“Your wife forgot where she was and let down her guard,” I said. “She was tempted by the flirtatious attention of an inmate, and she believed that she could control the situation. She has now lost her job. Her marriage, home, and her relationships with her children and with you hang in the balance depending upon what you do right now.”

It was a sobering summary of the facts of his wife’s life at that moment.

“Reverse the situation,” I said. “How would you manage your own temptations if you worked in a setting where a young, attractive woman flirted with you every day? Is it conceivable that you might possibly let down your guard?”

Daniel was not expecting this question, and he was thoughtful for a time, thinking it over. I waited for him to speak.

“So you think I should forgive her?” said Daniel.

“I suspect that’s what you would want her to do if you were the one who needed forgiving, so yes, I think forgiveness is the only reasonable path forward.”

“Would you forgive your wife if she had an affair?”

“Yes, I would,” I said.

There was more conversation about marriage and trust. If this marriage was going to survive, Daniel and his wife had much to discuss and much to resolve. There were tears to be shed, apologies to be offered, forgiveness to be extended, resolutions to be made, and promises to be accepted about the future. Employment in the prison was now removed from the equation for her along with the inmate.

By the time our conversation drifted toward a closing, Daniel was calm and was sitting quietly across the desk from me. He rose to his feet.

“Thanks, Larsen,” he said. “I know what I need to do.”

Daniel walked to the door, closed it behind him and left me alone in the office. He didn’t tell me what decisions he had made or what he was intending to do. It was the last time I saw Daniel in our prison. He couldn’t continue to work at our facility because of the harassment and ridicule he could expect from inmates who would soon learn all the details of the relationship, details embellished in every retelling. They would remind him of the affair at every opportunity, and they would make his life miserable. He was transferred to another prison.

I next saw Daniel a few years later when our paths crossed at the Training Academy, but it was awkward to inquire about his marriage, so I was left to continue wondering what happened. Marriage can be a touchy subject. Sometimes, surviving is not thriving.

Discussion

  1. Are you flattered when an attractive person of the opposite gender flirts with you? How strong is your resolve to keep control of your own reactions when this happens?
  2. Are you easily tempted?

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