Chapter 24: Ten O'Clock

On the sixteenth of October, the courthouse hallway smelled like floor wax and old coffee.

Nothing about it had changed.

The marble was the same, the bench was the same, and the metal trash can still stood beside the clerk's window with a fresh liner in it.

I stood by the window in a simple ivory dress with a modest train.

I had bought it on sale.

My mother stood beside me in her blue dress, holding a bouquet of white roses and trying very hard not to cry on the flowers.

"You look like a woman about to get married," she said.

"I look like a woman who's been married a year."

"You look like both."

Liesl sat on the bench with Pretzel at her feet.

She wore a hat with a feather and held her cane across her knees.

The basset hound had been bathed that morning.

He smelled faintly of lavender and had a small black bow tie around his neck.

"Eight minutes," she said, tapping her watch.

"He's early," I said. "He promised."

"Men promise."

"Not this one."

At the other end of the bench, Greta and the man she loved sat holding hands.

She wore a pale yellow dress and had flour on one cuff, deliberately.

He had brought a cake in a white box, and he guarded it with both arms.

The cake was for both weddings, because Greta had decided at the start that it would be.

Beyond them sat a dozen brewers in matching suspenders, as nervous as boys at a dance.

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