Chapter 24: Not Carried Alone

On Monday morning I counted four hundred dollars onto the kitchen counter in twenties.

Magnus looked at the pile and then at me.

"It's the fourteenth," he said. "The first payment isn't due until the first."

"I'm early."

"You're a hundred and forty-five payments from done."

"Then I'd better get started."

He put the money in a coffee can on the shelf that said Boat Fund in his father's handwriting.

"Marked paid," he said gravely.

"Write me a receipt."

"I'll write you a receipt."

He did, on the back of a lumber invoice, and he signed it with a flourish, and I kept it.

Moby watched this from his bed with great suspicion.

We drove to the county building in the flatbed with the blue folder on the seat between us.

It was the same one.

The corners were soft now, and the tab still read Marriage License Application, because he had never thought to relabel it.

I had asked him why he'd kept it.

"I told myself I was waiting for someone to put in it," he said.

The county building smelled of toner and wet boots.

We climbed to the second floor together.

My coworker from the clinic was already sitting on the bench outside the clerk's door, with a bag of chips open on her knee.

"I'm the witness," she said. "I don't care that you don't need one."

"Where did you get chips?"

"Vending machine." She held the bag out to Magnus. "You can't eat these in a county office. That's why they're good."

He took one.

We were halfway down the hallway when the sheriff's door, at the far end, opened.

Greta came out first, in her pressed cardigan, with her pearls on and her purse held in both hands.

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