Dumped at the Courthouse, Married by Noon novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: Slot Nine, Again
"Then we do it again," Emmett said.
We were standing in my mother's pantry, the three of us, because she had pulled him in by the sleeve.
He was holding a jar of pickled beets.
"Do what again?" my mother said.
"The wedding. With you there."
"It's January."
"I mean on the sixteenth of October. A year to the day. Same courthouse, same hallway, same pen."
I stared at him.
"You want to marry me twice?"
"I want to marry you once with a witness who isn't a basset hound."
"Pretzel signed the register."
"He signed in his own way."
My mother put a hand over her mouth.
"I'll wear the blue dress," she said.
I started to laugh and, a second later, to cry.
"The year was a term," I said, wiping my eyes on my sleeve. "You tore it up."
"I did."
"So this isn't a renewal."
"It's an invitation."
He set the jar of beets on the shelf and got down on one knee on my mother's linoleum, in his good wool coat.
"Jean Almquist," he said. "Will you let me do it properly? With your mother. With a cake. With nobody's money on the line."
"Yes," I said. "Obviously. Get up. There are beets."
On Monday, I walked into the Ramsey County Courthouse on my lunch hour in my scrubs.
The same clerk sat at the same window, in the same glasses on the same chain.
She looked up and her whole face changed.
"The bride who threw her ring in my trash," she said.
"Hi."
"Everyone on this floor knows you."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. A woman threw a bouquet in the same can a month later and said she was inspired." She slid a form across the counter. "What can I do for you, Mrs. Rausch?"
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