Chapter 24: Husband and Wife

The party ran until eleven.

My mother cut the cake at ten, and the old machinists sang something that did not rhyme.

Ruby caught the bouquet without trying and swore at it.

At eleven, Gavin took my hand and said, "I want to show you something."

He drove the shop's old pickup, the only vehicle on the lot that wasn't blocked in.

I sat in my wedding dress with my shoes in my lap.

We went downtown.

I knew where we were going before we got there.

The tower was dark except for the lobby.

The night guard with the bad hip sat behind the front desk with a thermos.

He stood up when he saw us.

"Mr. Prescott," he said.

"Evening."

"Mrs. Prescott."

He said it carefully, and he looked at me while he said it.

"Thank you," I said.

"Ma'am, I've got the log here. If you'd both sign in."

He turned the big book around.

I took the pen.

The page was ruled in columns, with names, times and floors, and the last line before ours read Cleaning crew, 10:40.

I wrote my name.

Hazel Prescott. 11:08. Forty.

Gavin took the pen and wrote under it.

He wrote it in his square, upright hand.

Gavin Prescott. Her husband.

The guard read it upside down and smiled into his collar.

"Go on up," he said.

On the fortieth floor the carpet was quiet under my bare feet.

The office door stood open.

I walked in and looked at the desk.

It was dark mahogany, clean, with a lamp on it and a framed photograph I hadn't seen before.

It was the courthouse, five years ago, the two of us in front of the clerk's window.

Someone had found it in a drawer in his father's safe and put it in a frame.

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