Chapter 23: Mistakes and All

The decree came on the third of January, in a plain envelope, with snow on the dock outside.

I was in the lake house kitchen, thirty weeks along, rolling pastry on the table where I had once said yours.

My belly pressed against the wood, and the baby kicked the board twice.

The boatyard man brought the mail in with a stamp of his boots and went straight out again.

I wiped the flour off my hands and opened the envelope with a butter knife.

The judge had signed it on the second.

I was not Casey Brancato anymore.

I read the one line three times, and I sat down on the nearest chair and laughed until I cried.

Renzo came in from the yard with snow on his shoulders.

He saw my face and stopped in the door.

"It's final," I said.

He took off his gloves one finger at a time.

"Then I'm to ask you," he said.

"No."

He went still.

"I'm going to ask you," I said, and I stood up with my hand on the small of my back. "I've been practicing."

I said it in Italian, slowly, and I got the verb wrong.

I said it again, and got the ending wrong.

He stood there with snow melting off his collar.

His face did something I had never seen on a grown man.

"Did I say something terrible?" I asked, in English.

"You asked if I would be your wife."

"I meant husband."

"You said wife."

"I told you I'd make mistakes."

"Say it again," he said. "With the mistakes."

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