Left in the Blizzard: My Twin Stole My Husband, I Rule the City novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Formality
My husband slides divorce papers across his mother's table so he can marry my twin, and when I refuse to sign the second paper, he drives past me in the blizzard.
My husband of three years slid the divorce papers across his mother's dining table.
He wanted to marry my twin sister instead.
"Marit's carrying my child, Signe," Anders said.
He set a pen on top of the papers, lined up neat with the edge.
His mother stood right behind his chair with one hand on his shoulder.
Karin Thorsby, mayor of Duluth, in her charcoal suit and her camera scarf.
She didn't smile.
She didn't need to.
My sister sat on the window seat with her coat still on.
Her hand rested on her stomach, where nobody could miss it.
Behind her the lake had gone white, and the snow was coming sideways off it.
I had written the storm plan for this blizzard myself, at six that morning.
Eighteen inches by midnight. Every plow in the city called in.
"It's a formality," Anders said.
He used his gentle voice, the one he used on waiters who got his order wrong.
"Mom won't release Grandpa's trust unless the heir is legitimate. So I marry Marit. The baby's born. I divorce her, and I come home to you."
He said it.
He probably had.
Four days ago I sat alone in a clinic on Superior Street.
The tech went quiet with the wand on my belly.
Then she turned the screen toward me and counted.
One. Two. Three.
I had carried that picture folded in my wallet ever since, waiting for a good night to tell him.
I would rather swallow glass than tell him now.
"How long?" I asked.
Anders blinked. "How long what?"
"How long have you been sleeping with my sister?"
Marit looked at the window.
Anders looked at his mother.
"Since April," Karin said. "Don't make it ugly, Signe. It's already done."
April.
The month Anders told me he was too tired to try for a baby.
The month Marit stopped coming to Sunday dinner.
I picked up the pen with my left hand.
Anders watched me closely.
Karin slid a second sheet on top of the papers.
I knew the form before I read it.
I had refused to sign it for three weeks.
"Route certification," she said. "For the Thorsby contract renewal. Four years. The council votes next week."
"I know what it is."
"Sign both, and the condo is yours. Paid off. You'll never have to deal with any of us again."
I looked at the line with my name under it. City Snow and Ice Engineer.
All December, the calls had come in from the hills.
Streets the contractor's trucks swore they'd cleared.
People who couldn't get to dialysis. A school bus that turned back.
Every time I asked for the truck logs, the mayor's office lost my email.
"Just sign it, Signe," Marit said from the window. Her first words since I walked in. "For once in your life, make something easy."
I turned around and looked at her.
Same face as mine.
Same eyes, same chin, same scar through the left eyebrow from the dock in Two Harbors, when we were nine.
She had held my hand in the ambulance that day.
She looked away first.
I pulled the divorce papers out from under the certification.
I signed every page where Anders had stuck a yellow tab.
On the last one, under my married name, I wrote Sandvik, and I underlined it.
Anders reached for the papers.
I slid them to him.
Then I took off my ring and set it down on the certification, right on the empty signature line.
"That's my answer," I said.
Karin's hand tightened on her son's shoulder.
"You're making a mistake. You work for me."
"I work for the city," I said. "You'd be amazed how many people forget that."
I picked up my parka and my bag.
"Signe." Anders stood up. "Come on. Where are you even going to go in this?"
"Out," I said. "I know all the roads."
Nobody followed me to the door.
The wind took it out of my hand and slammed it against the house.
My green Subaru was already a white lump in the driveway.
I dug the windshield clear with my sleeve and my teeth chattering.
The mayor's street was plowed to bare pavement, of course.
It always was.
Then I turned down the hill.
The hill had been on the city's route for twenty years.
In October, Karin's office moved it to the contractor's list, and I'd had to redraw the map myself.
There was more than a foot of snow on it.
No tracks. No blade marks. No sand.
I felt the back end go before I could do anything about it.
The car turned slowly, almost politely, and slid nose-first into the drift at the bottom curve.
The engine coughed and died.
I sat there with both hands on the wheel.
Then the cramp came, low and hard, and I bent over it and held my breath.
"Okay," I whispered. "Okay. Stay. All of you stay."
Headlights swept across the snow behind me.
A black SUV came down the hill in low gear.
Anders's SUV.
I pushed my door open against the drift and waved both arms.
It slowed beside me.
The passenger window came down, and the warm air from inside hit my face.
Marit was in the front seat.
Anders leaned across her.
"Jesus, Signe. Are you okay?"
"I'm stuck. I need a ride down to Superior Street."
"Anders," Marit said. "I'm cramping."
She pressed her hand to her stomach and closed her eyes.
He looked at her.
He looked at me, waist-deep in the drift.
"You're the snow lady," he said. "Call your plows."
The window went up.
I watched the taillights go on down the hill without me.
They turned left at the bottom and were gone.
My phone said eleven percent.
I called the city dispatch line, the one I'd had on speed dial for five years.
The dispatcher knew my voice. "Signe? Aren't you off today?"
"I'm in a ditch at the bottom of the hill above Fourth. Nobody's touched it."
Keys clicked.
"That's weird," she said. "I've got it right here. Thorsby unit nine logged that street plowed at 2:10."
I looked at my watch.
It was 3:20.
The snow was already up to my door handles.
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