Chapter 6: The Locked Drawer

Rodney's POV

Delphine was eating cereal on her kitchen counter when I came in, with her feet on a stool and a laptop open beside the bowl.

The laptop showed Emme sitting on her front steps.

Delphine had paused it on Emme's face.

"Look at that," she said. "She's actually very pretty on camera. I never noticed."

"Del."

"I should have put her in the gala video. We'd have gotten a million more views."

"Del, I need you to sign something."

She chewed and swallowed.

"Hi, Rodney. Good morning. How was the tower?"

I put the folder on the counter.

It held the annulment petition, twelve pages, with the yellow tabs where she had to sign.

She looked at it for a moment and then back at the laptop.

"It's not a good week for it," she said.

"Emme gave me seven days."

"Emme gave you seven days." She smiled at the screen. "And what did she give me?"

"A chance to say it was a mistake."

"But it wasn't. It was a prank. It was a perfectly good prank, and I got four million people to watch it."

"It was a marriage license."

"You signed it. You could have said no."

I could have.

I had stood in the courthouse in September with my mother's hand on my elbow and Delphine's wet face turned up to mine.