Chapter 24: The Second Vow

We got married the second time on a Tuesday, in a courthouse on Front Street, with a clerk who chewed gum.

I picked the day.

I picked the room, which had a flag, a fake ficus and a window onto a parking lot.

Marcy stood up with me in her yellow blazer and cried the whole way through.

Tobias wore his charcoal suit, and he had tied his shoes.

He knelt on the courthouse carpet in front of the clerk, with everyone staring, to double-knot them.

"I only did it because you asked," he said.

"I asked for a lot of things."

"I know. I intend to do all of them."

The clerk asked if we had rings.

I held up my hand, and the plain gold band with its small stone caught the window light.

"We have one," I said. "I'll keep it."

Tobias kissed me before the clerk said he could, and she popped her gum.

That was the whole wedding, and it was mine.

In the weeks after, the news came in small pieces, and I let it.

Gavin pleaded guilty to fraud and tampering with a prescription.

The judge gave him six years.

He signed away his rights to the child in the courtroom, with his lawyer's hand on his shoulder.

He did not look at me when he did it.

I had been given a chance to speak.

I spoke for four minutes about thirty-six Sundays, and then I sat down.

Philippa took a plea too.

She was sentenced to three years and a fine, and she asked, through her lawyer, for permission to write to me.

I said no.

I did not say no forever.

The house fund came back to me in a cashier's check.

I put it in an account in my own name, with a label I typed myself.

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