Chapter 24: Name on a Form

The decree came in a long white envelope on a Tuesday in November, with the morning mail.

Dee brought it into the kitchen between two fingers.

"Court of the Commonwealth," she read. "Do you want me to open it, or do you want to set it on fire?"

"Give it here."

I wiped my hands on my apron and took it.

The shop was warm, and the ovens were going, and the front window was fogged white with the first cold morning of the year.

Nathaniel sat on a flour bucket by the back door with a coffee, because he had decided that was his seat.

He did not say anything.

He watched me slide a thumb under the flap.

There was a single sheet inside, stamped, with a judge's signature at the bottom.

JUDGMENT OF DIVORCE ABSOLUTE.

Under it, the date, and the line I had waited a month to read.

The parties are no longer married.

I read it twice.

Then I laughed, short and startled, and put my hand over my mouth.

"Is it what you wanted?" Nathaniel said.

"It's what I said I'd do, in a hotel doorway at one in the morning." I held the page out to him. "I served him on Day 7."

"And the court took its time."

"The court can have its time."

I reached up behind my neck and untied the baker's twine.

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