Chapter 20: Choosing Him Knowing

I stood on the steps of the downtown police station on Saturday at noon, with the envelope in my fist.

A cold sun hit the glass doors.

People went in and out, a man with a bike helmet, two women with a stroller, an officer eating a pretzel.

Nobody looked at me.

I read the front of the envelope again.

To the Minneapolis Police.

I had not opened it, and I did not need to.

His name, the date, the plate, the corner, the hour.

I thought of walking up to the desk and handing it across.

Then I thought of what the officer would see.

A woman, alive and warm, in a good coat, holding a confession from a man to a death that had never happened.

There was no body in this life, no report, no skid mark on Alder Street.

There was no crime for anyone to charge him with.

There was only me, and the memory in my head, and the man who had put his name on it anyway.

I stood on the steps for a long time.

Then I turned around, and I walked back to the cab.

At nine ten that night he was on the corner.

He had come on foot, in the dark coat, with his collar up.

He stood by the bus shelter, alone, where his note had said he would be, and he did not look surprised to see me.

"You didn't go," he said.

"I went. I stood on the steps."

"And?"

"There's nothing to charge you with. There's no one the police could ask."

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Second Life Starts With Divorce from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.