Married to My Ex's Uncle novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Visiting Hours

Greta tells her brother in prison everything, and learns the uncle she's marrying has visited him every month for nine years.

On Sunday morning Greta drove two hours south to Oshkosh with the sandwich bag in her glove box.

She'd slept four hours on the couch in her yard office.

Her wedding dress was in a heap on the shop floor beside a transmission.

The visiting room at the prison smelled like floor wax and burnt popcorn.

She got two coffees out of the machine and sat at the bolted table nearest the window.

Nils came through the far door in his khakis and smiled at her the way he always did.

He was thinner than at Easter.

His hair was buzzed so short it looked white.

"Mrs. Hollenbeck," he said, and spread his arms.

"Don't."

He hugged her anyway, the one hug they were allowed, and held on a beat too long.

Then he sat down and took a sip of the coffee and made a face.

"Nine years," he said. "Nine years of this coffee. When I get out I'm suing the machine."

"You'll lose. It's got a good lawyer."

"Everybody's got a better lawyer than me."

He grinned at her across the table.

"So. How was it? Did Tanner cry? I bet he cried. He's a crier."

Greta put her cup down.

"He didn't show up," she said. "He was upstairs in room twelve with Kristi."

Nils's grin went away.

She told him.

The text, the video, the walk, the microphone.

When she got to the cufflink he put both hands over his face and laughed so hard the guard looked over.

"You said that? Into the mic?"

"Into the mic."

"Dad would've stood up and clapped."

"Dad would've thrown a chair."

"Dad would've thrown a chair and then clapped."

He wiped his eyes.

Then he looked at her more carefully.

"And Kristi," he said quietly.

"And Kristi."

"Since second grade."

"Since second grade."

He reached over and put his hand on top of hers, which wasn't allowed, and the guard let it go.

"I'm sorry, Gret."

"I'm not done," she said. "Somebody stood up."

"What do you mean, stood up?"

"Tanner said nobody on the peninsula would marry a killer's sister. And somebody in the back row stood up and said he would."

Nils stared at her.

"Who?"

"I'm getting to it."

"You're getting to it? Who stood up?"

"Nils. Listen to me first."

She leaned in and lowered her voice.

"The Miss Margit wasn't scrapped."

He went very still.

"It's in a boathouse on the Hollenbeck shore," she said. "Under a tarp. I saw it yesterday."

"Greta."

"The windshield frame's dented on the driver's side. Right where a head would hit it. And there's blood on it, Nils. Old blood."

She showed him the photos on her phone, low under the table.

He didn't look at them for long.

He looked at the window instead, at the fence and the gray sky.

"You didn't have a mark on your face that morning," she said. "I was there. I sat next to you all day."

"I don't remember that morning."

"I do."

"I don't remember any of it." His voice was flat now. "I remember a beer on the dock at eleven. Then I remember a deputy shining a light in my eyes, and my hand on the wheel."

"Somebody put your hand on that wheel."

"Gret."

"Tanner had stitches through his eyebrow by lunch. He told everybody he fell on the dock."

Nils pushed his coffee away.

"Stop," he said.

"I haven't sent it yet. I'm going to send the scraping to a lab. A real one, a private one."

"Stop. Please."

He said it so gently that she stopped.

"Look at me," he said.

She looked at him.

"You were going to marry that man to keep him paying for my lawyer," he said. "Don't tell me you weren't. I'm not stupid."

She didn't answer.

"You've got a yard that's drowning," he said. "You've got two guys who need their paychecks. You've got your whole life out there, and you keep spending it in this room."

"It's my life."

"Then live in it. Don't wreck it over a boat."

"It isn't over a boat. It's over you."

"Same thing. Three more years and I'm out anyway. I can do three years standing on my head."

He smiled at her, and it was almost real.

"Now," he said. "Who stood up?"

Greta looked at her coffee.

"I said yes," she said. "To him. We're doing it at the courthouse Friday."

Nils put his forehead down on the table.

"Oh my God," he said into the steel. "You're marrying a stranger for a boat."

"He isn't a stranger. He's Tanner's uncle."

Nils lifted his head.

"He's the one who used to be a priest," Greta said. "Lukas."

Her brother looked at her with the strangest face.

"Luke?" he said. "He's the only one who's come every month for nine years. He never told you?"

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