The Lake House Had One Bed Left for Our Parents' Wedding Week, So I Shared It With My Soon-to-Be Stepbrother novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: A Formality

"Marlene printed it for me," said my father. "She says email isn't secure."

He had the sheet flattened on the kitchen table with a salt shaker on one corner and his coffee mug on the other.

I sat down across from him with my hair dripping onto my collar.

Jack had peeled off at the porch steps, as agreed, and gone around the side of the house with a nod so cold it could have chilled the beer.

My father had not noticed that we came up from the dock together.

My father did not notice most things that weren't wiring.

"You swim this morning?" he asked.

"A little."

"Good. Fighting wears a person out." He tapped the page. "Read that. You're the one who reads the fine print."

It was a printed email, three short paragraphs.

DEAR JIM, it began, in Marlene's chirpy capitals, JUDY IS SO STRESSED ABOUT EVERYTHING, SO LET'S KEEP THIS OUR LITTLE SURPRISE.

Bring a pen Friday after the rehearsal dinner.

Judy signs first, you sign beneath her as consenting spouse, and then it's done and she can relax and enjoy her wedding.

It's a formality about the house, just to make sure it stays in the family, the way Daddy always wanted.

I read it twice.

"Consenting spouse," I said.

"That's what she called it."

"Dad, what does Marlene say this does?"

"Keeps the lake house in the family."

"Which family?"

He blinked at me.

"Ours."

"Whose?"

"Judy's. Everybody's. Honey, it's a house, it's not a hostage situation."

I put the page down.

I process insurance denials for a children's hospital, and I have spent seven years learning exactly how a polite paragraph can take everything you own.

"Here's the thing about the word spouse," I said. "When it comes after the word consenting, it usually means the person signing gives something up. Not Judy. You."

"What would I give up?"

"Your claim to the house you're about to marry into. Forever. Before the wedding, so nobody can say you didn't agree."

My father scratched his sunburned neck.

"Well, I never wanted the house," he said. "I wanted Judy."

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