Chapter 6: Thirty Days

Adeline arrived at the courthouse at eight fifty-five on Monday morning.

I had been sitting on the stone steps since eight.

She wore the black coat I'd bought her two winters ago, and she had my wedding ring in her hand.

She came up the steps slowly and stopped one stair below me.

"Did you sleep?" she asked.

She said it lightly.

I stood up and held the door.

We checked in at the family window together.

The clerk, a woman with a gray braid, looked through our papers and then up at the two of us.

"Are you both filing voluntarily?" she asked.

I said yes.

Adeline looked at me and didn't answer.

The clerk waited, and then said it again, patiently.

"Ms. Prescott, are you filing voluntarily?"

"Yes," Adeline said.

She said it to the counter.

She signed where the clerk pointed, and her pen skipped on the last line.

"There's a thirty-day waiting period before the decree is final," the clerk said. "You'll both need to confirm in person."

"Thirty days," Adeline repeated.

She turned toward me, and her face had arranged itself.

She had decided this was another stage of the game.

"I'm giving you thirty days to think about this, Elias," she said. "If you don't come back to finish the process, we call the whole thing off."

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