Chapter 8: Recorded

Kaitlyn's car came for her twelve minutes later.

I did the thing she told me to do the second the car turned the corner.

I sat down on the top step in the cold, with my mother's robe in my lap, and checked the county.

The county had a website for marriage records.

I typed in Reece's.

Two results came up.

The first was ours.

Callender, Andie. Pelham, Reece. Seven years ago, June. I remembered the green dress and the parking ticket.

The second one was dated this year.

Pelham, Reece. Delaine, Kaitlyn.

License issued January 9.

Ceremony January 14.

Returned and recorded January 16.

I opened the scanned copy.

There was Kaitlyn's signature, big and loopy, with a heart over the i.

There was Reece's.

Above it was a printed line, sworn under penalty of law.

Number of previous marriages: none.

Currently married: no.

He'd checked the box.

He'd walked into the courthouse five days before her party, raised his right hand and checked the box.

"Andie?"

Ruthann stood in the doorway behind me with Kinley on her shoulder.

"You're going to freeze your stitches off. What'd she mean, check the county?"

I locked the phone.

"Nothing yet."

"That's not nothing on your face."

"I know. It's not nothing. It's just not yet."

She studied me for a second, chewing.

Then she nodded once.

"Okay. Get inside before I carry you."

I didn't tell her.

I didn't tell Morgan, who was in the basement, swearing softly at my father's furnace.

I ordered a certified copy from the county with my debit card, sitting at my mother's kitchen table.

Then I saved the scan in three places and put the phone in a drawer.

It was the first thing in nine days that felt like mine to decide.

The house was freezing.

Kaitlyn had been running it on four space heaters all winter.

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