Chapter 23: The Question

The decree came on a Wednesday, in a long white envelope with the county seal.

Roz carried it in from the mailbox with two fingers.

"It's thin," she said.

"They're always thin."

"It's not the pink one."

"No," I said. "The pink one was the mistake."

I was at the cold room door, checking the temperature on the new gauge, with a clipboard of stem counts under my arm.

The gauge read thirty-four.

I took the envelope and slit it with the pruning knife from my apron pocket.

Inside was a single sheet, stamped and signed.

DECREE OF DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE. Odell and Corliss.

The marriage between the parties is dissolved.

I read it once.

Then I read it a second time, slowly, line by line, because I wanted to be certain that nobody had left a loophole in it.

Nobody had.

"Well?" Roz said.

"I'm single."

"Say it again, bigger."

"I'm single," I said. "I'm single, and I've got a cold room, and a loan, and thirty percent of me belongs to a woman who wants it on a T-shirt."

"Forty," Roz said.

"Thirty."

The bell on the door rang.

Sam came in with his coat open and his hair damp from the rain, carrying a flat white box under one arm.

He stopped when he saw the decree in my hand.

"Is that."

"It came this morning."

"Does it say what you wanted it to say?"

"It says exactly that."

He put the box on the worktable very carefully.

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