Chapter 22: What Gavin Owes

The divorce decree came on the last Friday of June, in a long cream envelope, to the library circulation desk.

I opened it in front of the head librarian and a boy returning four books about sharks.

Gavin's lawyer had quit the case ten days after Founders' Day.

Nobody had to tell me why.

Somebody had posted the slideshow online, and the whole county had watched it.

The judge's signature was at the bottom, black and square.

"Granted," I read aloud.

The head librarian clapped once, quietly, and the boy with the sharks looked up.

"Is that good?" he asked.

"It's the best," I said.

I was still holding the paper when the door opened and Gavin walked in.

He wore a plain gray T-shirt, and he looked ten pounds lighter.

He didn't smile.

For the first time in five years, he walked up to me without a smile.

"I came to give you this," he said.

He laid a cashier's check on the desk beside the decree.

It was made out to Willa Tennant, for sixty thousand dollars.

"The lot's sold," he said. "The bank took the rest, and Marine's closed."

"I'm not telling you for sympathy."

"I'm telling you so you'll know it cleared."

I picked it up and read the number twice.

I'd imagined this moment for weeks, and in every version I felt triumphant.

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