Sweetheart Wife novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Room Two

At the courthouse a clerk sends Willa into Room Two by mistake and she signs, only to meet the groom's eyes.

I did not sleep that night.

I sat on the edge of a motel bed on Meeting Street with my duffel at my feet and a list on the nightstand.

The list had one line on it.

"Find out what they filed."

For seven years I had believed what Delilah told me, which was that my father wanted no contact.

I had never seen a police report.

I had never seen a charge.

If a theft complaint with my name on it existed, it sat in a public record somewhere in this city.

At eight on Thursday morning I walked into the Charleston County courthouse with my wet hair twisted into a knot.

A sign by the elevator said Records, second floor.

I took a number and sat on a bench between a man with a parking ticket and a woman with a baby.

The woman looked at my left hand and then at my face.

"Bad night?" she asked.

"Bad week," I said.

She nodded.

The clerk at the records window was sixty if she was a day, with reading glasses on a beaded chain.

"Name?" she said.

"Willa Habersham. I need to see any criminal complaint filed under my name seven years ago."

She did not look up.

She typed for a long moment, and then she stopped typing.

"Habersham, Willa," she said slowly. "Honey, you're on my list for this morning already."

"I'm what?"

"You're early. He said nine thirty."

She peeled a sticky note off her monitor and held it up.

The note said, "Habersham, Willa. Room 2. Nine thirty."

"I think that's a different Willa Habersham," I said.

"Is there another one?"

She smiled at me over the glasses.

"Room Two, down the hall, on your left."

"Don't be nervous. Everybody's nervous."

I opened my mouth to say I only wanted a file.

Then a security guard behind me said, "Ma'am, you're holding up the line."

I was tired, and my head was ringing, and I had been told where to go for most of my life.

I walked down the hall because it was easier than arguing.

Room Two had a wooden door with a brass plate on it.

I pushed it open.

It was a small paneled room with a long table, a vase of white mums and a flag in the corner.

A different clerk, a young one with a lanyard, stood behind the table holding a folder.

A man stood beside her with his back to me.

He was tall, in a dark suit that fit him across the shoulders.

He did not turn around.

"Ms. Habersham," the young clerk said brightly. "Wonderful, you're early. Mr. Middleton was just saying you'd come."

"I think there's been a mistake," I said.

"No mistake. Your paperwork is all in order."

She slid a pen across the table and turned the top page toward me.

The page said "Certificate of Marriage" in black type across the top.

I stared at it.

"This isn't," I started.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out without thinking.

It was the estate lawyer's office. "Reminder: Friday, 5:00 p.m. Payment in full."

Friday was tomorrow.

I had no money and no house and no one on my side.

The young clerk smiled at me in a kind, impatient way.

The man in the suit still had not turned.

I do not know why I did it.

I think I wanted, for the first time in seven years, to be the one who moved first.

I thought, whoever he is, he has to be better than Dale.

I picked up the pen, and I signed.

The pen scratched the paper, and the man beside me took a slow breath.

He signed under me.

The clerk stamped the page.

"Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Middleton," she said.

Then the man turned around.

He had black hair and dark eyes, and a pale burn scar ran from his right wrist up under his cuff.

I had seen that scar before it was a scar.

I had been nineteen, standing in the dark on River Road with smoke in my mouth.

"Hello, Willa," Jonas Middleton said.

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