Divorce While I'm Pregnant? Fine, Let's Sign It! novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Tea

"I'll read it first," I said.

Constance gave a short laugh.

"You've never read anything in your life."

"Then I'm new at it. I'll read it at your table, with a pot of tea and your lawyer's number on the cloth. Four o'clock. Or I take it to a judge."

She looked at me for a long moment, and I held her eyes on the stairs of a Queens walk-up with my hand on the rail.

"Four o'clock," she said. "Come alone."

The Stroud townhouse had a black front door with a brass knocker shaped like a fox.

I had been inside it forty times for family dinners.

I had never once sat in the front parlor.

Constance had laid a silver tray on a small table by the window, with a teapot, two cups, and a plate of shortbread.

"Sit," she said. "You look tired."

"I am tired."

"Then drink."

I let the tea go cold in front of me and took the pale blue envelope out of my bag.

The form inside was two pages.

I read the first line, then the second, slowly, with my finger under each one.

It was written in the kind of English that makes your eyes slide, but I made them stay.

At the top it said ANNUAL VOTING PROXY (RENEWAL).

Under it was my grandfather's name and mine.

It named a proxy holder for one year.

The proxy holder was Holden Stroud.

Constance watched me read.

"There's a great deal in it that's meaningless," she said. "Boilerplate."

"What happens if I don't sign?"

"You will."

"But if I don't."

"The vote goes unrepresented at the next meeting," she said. "My son would have to explain it to a board of nine men who would not enjoy the conversation."

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