The Burning Road to Divorce After the Fire novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Signed Twice

Melanie took the phone back, and I made her send me a copy before she drove down the grade.

I sat on the barn steps with the screen lit in my lap until the stars came out.

Kurt sat two steps below me and did not speak.

At last I said, "He saw my name."

"I know."

"He pressed decline and he smiled."

"I know."

"I keep waiting to cry."

"You don't have to."

"I want to hit something," I said, and he held out his bandaged hand, palm up, and I laughed and shoved it away.

Then I turned around on the step and looked at him in the lantern light.

He had ash in his hair and his collar open and the tired face of a man who had spent three days telling the truth.

For two weeks I had thought he stayed because he owed me.

I had been waiting for the day the debt was paid and he walked down the hill.

"Are you here because you feel guilty?" I asked.

"No."

"Say it again."

"I was guilty on the road," he said. "I'm here because you laughed on that cot, and I haven't been able to think about anything else since. I'm here because I want you, Lainey, and that is all it is."

I stood up and held out my hand.

He took it.

I led him up the stairs.

Inside, the room smelled of smoke and kerosene and the cedar boards.

I turned around and put my back against the door.

"You said nothing until it's signed," I said.

"I did."

"I signed. I put my name on the petition at the courthouse. I signed it twice, and I wrote a check."

"That is not what I meant."

"It's exactly what you said."

He laughed, helplessly, with his hand over his eyes.

"God help me, you're right."

"Take your shirt off, Captain."

He did.

The scar ran from his wrist up the inside of his left forearm to the elbow, a long pale ridge, and his chest was broad and burned brown at the neck.

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