She Bought My Husband for Seven Days, So I Took Back Everything novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Final Decree

The judge signed the decree at ten past nine on a Tuesday, in a room with a flag and eleven chairs.

It took four minutes.

I had pictured it for weeks, and it was over before I had finished my tea.

Brent stood at the other table in a gray suit that he had bought for the occasion, with his cap folded in his jacket pocket.

His mother sat behind him in the front row.

She wore her pearls again, and she held her handbag with both hands.

"Mr. Garner, you understand that you are waiving any claim to the child unless Mrs. Garner offers it?" the judge asked.

"I do, your honor."

"Is there anything you wish to say to the court?"

Brent looked at me for the first time that morning.

"Only that she owes me nothing," he said. "Not a call, not a photograph, and not a thank-you. I want that in the record."

The judge looked at him over her glasses.

"So noted."

She signed.

The clerk stamped the page, and that was all.

I had been Brent Garner's wife for nine years, and I was not anymore.

I waited for the grief to come.

What came was a quiet that went all the way down.

In the hall, the deputy was waiting by the water fountain with his hat in his hand.

"Mrs. Garner. I wanted you to hear it from me." He cleared his throat. "Ms. Dunbar entered her plea yesterday afternoon. Fourteen counts of forgery and one of theft. The judge gave her four years and full restitution to your mother-in-law."

"Four years."

"She'll serve most of it. The house goes to pay what she owes the clinic and the pharmacy."

"The clinic?"

"The director filed a complaint of her own. The state board of health took her volunteer file. She will never be near another waiting room." He hesitated. "She asked to see you before they took her."

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