Love Is Gone, So Am I novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: A Junk Shop for Divorces

Willa files for divorce, paints A New Chapter on the old awning and tags her own veil while Gus grumbles next door, until Celia and Vanessa walk into the jewelry shop.

On Monday morning I sat on the bench outside the post office and filed for divorce on my phone.

It took twenty minutes.

Seven years, twenty minutes, and a forty-dollar filing fee I paid out of Avis's check.

Davis had said I'd be back by Monday. I took a picture of the confirmation screen and didn't send it to anybody.

A gull landed on the other end of the bench and looked at me.

"No," I told it.

It was the second time that week I'd said no to something. It got easier.

By noon I had the brown paper off the windows of the old bookshop.

By two I had a ladder from the hardware store, a quart of deep green paint and a crick in my neck.

The awning was canvas, striped cream and a red that had faded almost to pink.

The words were still there if you squinted. A New Chapter.

I didn't change them. I just went over every letter in green, one careful stroke at a time.

"You're dripping on my sidewalk."

Gus stood at the bottom of the ladder with a mug in his hand and the loupe hanging from its cord on his chest.

"It's Avis's sidewalk," I said.

"I sweep it."

"Then you'll have something to do."

He looked up at the awning with his eyes narrowed against the sun.

"You're keeping the name."

"It was already painted. Saves me a letter."

"It saves you eleven letters."

"Thank you. I can count."

He drank his coffee. He didn't leave.

"So what is it going to be?" he said. "Gram says you're selling flowers."

"Flowers. And whatever people bring me."

"Like what?"

"Rings. Veils. Love letters. The bread maker your ex bought you because she thought you'd change."

"Nobody bought me a bread maker."

"Somebody bought somebody one."

He set his mug on the ledge of his own window.

"Let me get this right. You're opening a junk shop for divorces."

"A shop."

"Next to an engagement ring store."

"It's a good location. Very high foot traffic of people who will need me in about five years."

His mouth twitched. He fought it.

The smile lost.

"That's bad for my business," he said.

"Then don't sell them bad rings."

He made a sound that might have been a laugh and went back inside. The bell over his door rang behind him.

I finished the C in Chapter and climbed down to look.

It was crooked. It was mine.

My wedding veil was in the trunk of the Subaru.

I'd brought it to Merriam House the week before so a seamstress could copy its lace for the relaunch brochure. Celia's idea.

Nobody had asked if I minded.

I carried it inside in its garment bag and laid it over the old wooden counter.

Two yards of ivory tulle with a scalloped lace edge. The lace was my mother's, cut from her own wedding veil.

I cut a tag from a square of brown card and wrote on it with a fine black pen.

Worn once. The marriage lasted seven years.

The lace is older and better than the marriage.

It would like a happier head.

I tied it to the veil with string and hung the veil from the front window frame.

The light came through the tulle and turned it gold.

Something in my chest let go a little.

Avis came in around four, leaning on the doorframe, and looked at the veil for a long time.

"Good," she said. "Now come next door. You're doing the next one with me."

The ring sat on a fold of navy velvet in Avis's own case, in the corner by the register, where the light was best.

She handed me a tag and her pen.

"You write it," she said. "Your handwriting's better than mine and you're the one who wore it."

I thought about it.

Then I wrote:

Made by Avis Tibbetts at twenty-two, for her own wedding.

The groom married someone richer and kept the ring for fifty-eight years. His family called it an heirloom.

It has come home. Not for sale.

Avis read it with her glasses on.

She took the pen back and crossed out one word and wrote another one over it.

Richer became duller.

Gus snorted from the workbench.

"Is that true?" I asked.

"Everything's true if you wait long enough," Avis said.

She propped the tag against the ring and closed the case.

Then the bell over the jewelry store door rang.

I turned around.

Celia Merriam stood in the doorway in her cream wool coat and her pearls, peeling off her driving gloves.

Vanessa came in behind her, wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day, and looked around the little shop.

"There you are," Celia said to me. "We've come to collect what's ours."

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