The Imperfect Marriage novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Closing

The executor's office was above a bank on Superior Street.

It smelled of floor wax and old paper, and a brass clock ticked on the wall.

It was Saturday, the fifteenth day.

I had slept five nights in my childhood bedroom on Lake Avenue, under a poster of a band I stopped liking at sixteen.

My father came home from Rochester on Wednesday with his pump in a bag and a nurse's phone number on the fridge.

Ross had not called once.

I had not wanted him to, and I hated how loudly I noticed.

I walked in at ten sharp in my navy peacoat.

Ross was already there, in the charcoal coat, standing at the window.

He turned when the door opened.

He had not slept.

I could see it in the skin under his eyes, and in the way he held his shoulders.

Lowell's father sat across the long table beside a lawyer with a fat pen.

He looked like a man at a dinner he had paid for.

Lowell was not there.

The executor took the head of the table and set her gavel down beside her teacup.

"We are here to close the estate," she said. "Mr. Stenbeck is married. The terms are met."

Lowell's father smiled.

"Provisional terms," he said. "As I understand the second page."

My head came up.

He looked straight at me, pleased.

"She didn't know," he said to the lawyer, almost fondly. "I told my son."

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