His Cousin Was His Real Wife, So I Took My Father's Name Back novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Single
A county clerk tells Clara she was never married; her husband's recorded wife is his cousin from the guest room. On the steps, a stranger says Conrad Hallett has been looking for her for twenty-four years.
At ten past three on a Thursday, a clerk at the county records office told me I had never been married.
I had come for one piece of paper.
Kyle's bank wanted a certified copy of our marriage certificate clipped to a loan form.
Kyle was too busy at the warehouse to fetch it himself, so he had handed me the folder the night before.
"Just a signature, babe," he had said. "And the certificate. Banks are picky."
The clerk typed my name and frowned.
He typed it again.
"There's a Clara Mackey in the system," he said. "Born where you were born, living on Linden Road. No marriage attached."
"Mackey was my name before the wedding," I said. "We were married four years ago in June, at Saint Brigid's, with sixty guests."
"Ma'am, the county has you down as single."
"Then the county lost it."
"Would you like me to look up your husband instead?"
"Yes. Kyle Dunning."
He typed. He stopped.
He looked at me over the monitor, and I watched him decide whether to say it.
Then he swung the screen toward me.
KYLE ROBERT DUNNING. LICENSE ISSUED MARCH 3. CERTIFICATE RETURNED MARCH 14. STATUS: RECORDED.
SPOUSE: BROOKE ELAINE HANEY.
Brooke was Kyle's cousin.
For a full year she had been sleeping in my guest room.
"March," I said. "That's three months before my wedding."
"Ma'am, you can sit if you want."
"I want copies."
"Fifteen dollars each, certified."
"Three. One for me, one for a lawyer, one to leave on the bank's desk."
My hands did not shake, which surprised me more than anything on that screen.
The clerk slid my folder back across the counter and tapped the top page.
"I'd read this before anybody signs it," he said. "It's a personal guarantee on a four hundred and twenty thousand dollar loan. There's one signature line, and it's yours."
I looked at the line.
There was no space on it for a husband.
The night before had been Joan's birthday.
She is Kyle's mother, and for four years she had been the closest thing I had to one.
I cooked for eight and carried the gravy boat to the table twice, because Joan asked for it twice and then didn't touch it.
"You're a saint, darling," she said both times, and squeezed my wrist. "Sit. You'll wear yourself out."
There was nothing to sit on.
Brooke was in my chair.
When I bent to set down the platter, Joan reached up and tucked my hair behind my left ear, as she did most Sundays.
Her thumb found the small notch in the lobe where a dog bit me when I was little.
She had touched that notch the first day we met.
Across the table, Brooke handed Kyle the salt, and their fingers stayed together a moment too long.
I saw it.
I told myself that was what family looked like.
After the cake, Kyle set the folder beside my coffee and kissed the top of my head.
Now I stood outside the county building with three certified copies in my bag.
The sky had gone gray while I was inside.
I pulled off my wedding ring and read the inside of the band.
There was nothing engraved there, no date, no initials. I had never checked.
If I walked into the house on Linden Road with a bare hand, Joan would see it before I got my coat off.
She would take my face in both hands and ask what was wrong, so gently.
I was not ready to give any of them my face.
So I put the ring back on.
"Miss Mackey?"
A man stood three steps below me in a wet gray coat.
He was not watching the street. He was watching the door I had come out of.
It had been years since anyone used my maiden name to my face.
"I'm sorry," I said. "Have we met?"
"No. I apologize for this. I've waited since you went in, and I didn't want to speak to you inside a records office."
He took his hands out of his pockets slowly, so I could see they were empty.
"My name is Simon Hallett," he said. "My uncle, Conrad Hallett, has spent twenty-four years looking for you."
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