Four Brothers and a Bride novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Ring

I looked at the blank line for a long time.

Ewan didn't move.

He stayed crouched in front of me in the poetry aisle with his hands loose on his knees.

It was how he'd sat all night in that chair.

"You signed it Ewan," I said.

"It's my name. It should have been on the first one."

"And if I sign this?"

"Then you're free of me. Not of them. Of me." He held my eyes. "That part was never theirs to decide."

Behind him, Cian had stopped grinning.

Fenn was holding both coffees very still.

Bram said nothing at all, which was how I knew he was the most scared.

I stood up, with the cat in one arm and the annulment in my other hand.

"Does anybody have a match?" I said.

The owner reached into the drawer under the register without a word.

She handed me the long lighter she kept for the candles when the power went out.

I walked to the back, to the little steel sink by the kettle.

I held the annulment over it by one corner.

I clicked the lighter.

The paper caught slowly at first, blue, and then all at once, orange.

Ewan's name went black and curled up.

I dropped the last corner in the sink and ran the tap over it.

When I turned around, he was standing in the doorway of the back room.

His face was doing the thing it had done on the dance floor, the thing with nothing in front of it.

"Same man every morning," I said. "You promised. I'm holding you to it."

He crossed the room in three steps and kissed me, there by the sink, with the smoke still in the air.

Out front, Cian started clapping.

"Fix the window," the owner called. "Not the kitchen."

At seven that night, their mother climbed the stairs over the laundromat in flat shoes and a cardigan, holding a bottle of eleven-dollar wine.

She stood in my doorway and looked at my one room.

The bed. The books. The window unit rattling.

All four of her sons, sitting on my floor because I owned two chairs.

"Rosalind," she said.

"Mrs. Chisholm. Come in."

I made spaghetti on the hot plate in two batches.

She ate every bite.

She said "Ewan, pass the bread," and "Fenn, you'll ruin your eyes," and "Bram, take your elbow out of the salad."

She looked at Cian, opened her mouth, and said, "Wy..."

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