Chapter 10: What the County Had

Cal's POV

The petition was a dozen pages long.

The second page made me want to put my fist through the workbench.

It said June had been "deceived as to the identity of the other party."

It said she had a condition that kept her from recognizing persons.

It said a woman who could not tell her husband from a stranger had never really married at all.

June read it at the stove with her coffee going cold.

She read with her finger under each line.

When she got to the second page she set the pages down very neatly.

"He wrote my face blindness into a lawsuit," she said.

"He didn't write it," I said. "A lawyer did, because Gene told him to."

"Same thing."

"It's garbage either way." I took the pages and squared them.

"I'm going to the county records office. I want to know what Hoyt filed, and what he didn't."

"I have a client at ten. A Steinway with a sticking G."

"Go tune it."

"Cal." She touched my sleeve, lightly, and asked first. "Is it all right to say I liked the lantern?"

"It's all right," I said, and left before she could hear how my voice went.

I am not a man who talks much.

My ex used to say it was easy to leave me, because I never asked for anything.

She said it standing in my kitchen with her keys in her hand.

I had thought about that for four years.

Last night I had asked June for nothing, and she had pulled my shirt off in the dark.

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