He described, with great humor, our untraditional courtship, and why neither of us really thought it was important to get married, although we’d been to twenty-seven weddings together. But something had changed.

THERE was never a tipping point, no eureka moment when I realized that doing the most traditional thing possible was a good idea. Some guys say they know immediately She’s the One. Not me. Whether it’s a sweater or software, it takes some time for me to know if I want to keep something, one reason I always save receipts. I can’t say there was an instance when I looked into the pale blue eyes of the girl I met over corned beef hash at a cafe in San Francisco and thought, “This is it.” Now, after eight years, I know.

When did I know? Was it the way she helped me deal with the death of my grandfather? The relief I felt when she finally answered her cellphone on Sept. 11? That great hike in Point Reyes? Because she sobbed with joy when the Sox finally won? The way my nephews greet her like a rock star when she walks into the room?

Perhaps I should have known right from the start, that morning in the middle of our cross-country trip, when she required one last stop at Arthur Bryant’s in Kansas City for a half slab of ribs for breakfast (and 10 minutes into the feast saying to me, “Hey, baby, why don’t you pop open a beer?”).

Or did I not truly know until seven years later when we found ourselves forced apart for more than a year? Who can say? It’s the big moments, maybe, but it’s the little moments as much or even more.

I could of course conjure up every one of those instances in perfect detail, right down to the chewy tang of those ribs and how good that beer had tasted.

Slow as ever, yet indeed as sure as it gets, it dawned on me: She wants to get married. And if that’s true, then I want to get married. To her. This is perhaps the least original idea I’ve had in a long time, but I needed to get here myself, on my own terms. And after all these years one thing I actually had going for me was the element of surprise.

So what the hell, let’s do it. I still don’t believe marriage is the only path to happiness or completeness as a person, but it’s the right thing for us. So I asked her. Or, more accurately, what I said, sitting next to her on that silly island in a scene straight out of Bride’s magazine, was something about love and commitment and not going anywhere and here’s these rings I got you, and if you want actually to make it official, that’s cool, and if you don’t, that’s cool, too. And if you want to have a wedding, I’m into it, and if you don’t, who needs it. She’s still unclear what it was I was asking, exactly, but when she got done laughing, she said yes. And then she threw off her clothes and jumped in the water.

My friends joke that I’ve been to 27 weddings and now it’s finally time for one funeral-for my singlehood. Which is sad like any funeral, sure, but this death is no tragic accident. I look at it more like euthanasia I’m performing on myself, a mercy killing.

I’m ready, babe. Pull the plug.

Even here, without him, I couldn’t imagine any sweeter Christmas present.

I ALWAYS found New Year’s Eve a bore on the outside, but on the inside it held greater interest, and I was very conscious and grateful that it would be my only one at Danbury. It made sense that turning the calendar forward would make a prisoner feel more optimistic. Watching those numbers tick suggested progress.

Much more than any New Year, even the Millennium, it felt for me like something was coming to a definitive end. Pop cried as we counted down at midnight-it was her thirteenth New Year’s in prison, and her last. As I watched her, I tried to imagine the conflicting rush of emotions when you considered so much survival, regret, resilience, and lost time.

It seemed like half the Camp was focused on getting Pop home in one piece. She was supposed to be finished working in the dining hall-weirdly, prisoners do earn and accumulate vacation days in the BOP-but she didn’t even make it one day. I caught her back in the kitchen and had a fit, but she just told me to go fuck myself. She didn’t know what to do with herself if she wasn’t working. The funny, salty, heavily accented earth mother who had helped me through so much was a bundle of nerves-she was less than two weeks from leaving for the halfway house.

So I felt terrible when I got the call on January 3-“ Kerman! Pack out!”

Packing out meant you packed up your shit, because you were going somewhere. The prisoner is provided with army-issue duffel bags to temporarily hold her possessions. I elected to give most of my accumulated treasures away: my hot-pink contraband toenail polish, my prized white men’s pajamas that Pop had given to me, my army-green jacket, and even my precious headset radio. All my books went into the prison library. Given my secrecy until this point, my fellow prisoners were surprised by my impending departure. Some assumed I had won early release, but those who heard that I was going on Con Air were full of curiosity, concern, and advice.

“Wear a sanitary pad. They won’t always let you use the bathroom. So try not to drink anything!”

“I know you’re picky about food, Piper, but eat whatever you can, because it might be the last edible meal you get for a while.”

“When they shackle you, try to flex your wrists so there’s a little more room, and if you try to catch the marshal’s eye when he’s chaining you, maybe he won’t cuff you so tight your circulation goes. Oh, and double up your socks so the restraints don’t make your ankles bleed.”

“Pray they don’t send you through Georgia. They stick you in a county jail, and it’s the worst place I’ve ever been in my life.”

“There are tons of cute guys on the airlift. They will love you!”

I went to talk to the Marlboro Man. “Mr. King, they’re shipping me out on a writ, to Chicago.” I actually succeeded in making him look surprised.

Then he laughed. “Diesel therapy.”

“What?”

“Around here we call the airlift ‘diesel therapy.’”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Well, you take care of yourself.”

“Mr. King, if I come back before my release date, can I have my job back?”

“Sure.”

AS IT turned out, I didn’t get shipped out for two days. I called Larry one last time-other prisoners had warned me not to say anything about the details of prison travel over the phone: “They’re listening, and if you give specifics sometimes they think that you’re planning to escape.” Larry was bizarrely chipper, and I felt like he didn’t really understand what was happening, even though I told him I might not be able to talk to him for a long time.

I bade goodbye to Pop.

“My Piper! My Piper! You’re not supposed to go before me!”

I hugged her and told her she was going to be fine in the halfway house, and that I loved her.

Then I walked down the hill and began my next misadventure.