“This can’t be right,” says Aunt Bess. I don’t know what her face looks like, if it’s still holding that expression from a second ago, because my eyes are planted elsewhere.
“I’m afraid it is,” says Stewart.
“What does this mean moving f?—”
The sheet of paper is so damn glossy, like that premium photo paper you buy at office supply stores. It’s a copy of the original.Marriage Licensestares back at me in that fancy old-time government script and below it is Mom’s name.
Janie Moore.
I drop the paper as if it burns me when I read the name next to hers. It sails, ever so slowly, to the conference table. My chair skids back from the strength of my legs against them, the ones that were restless a minute ago but have now solidified into rock.
My world collapses to pieces.
I’m in a brick building getting hit with a goddamn cannon. Broken shale sprinkles down over me. The shrill, overpowering boom of the heavy artillery coming in through the wall causes a ringing in my ears. I swear my vision blacks out.
I sweep my hand over my head and hate how itchy this stupid sweater is on me. Panic settles into my chest as I pace to the other side of the room, my head spinning out of fucking control.
Aunt Bess, Uncle Thad, and Stewart talk in the background, but I can’t hear a goddamn sound. My brain focuses on one thing, and that’s the person who my mom has secretly been married to all these years.
As if the universe is trying to tell me something, four very hulking words—just like yer father—pop into my head at the exact moment I overhear Aunt Bess say, “There has to be a paper trail leading back to a divorce.”
What I think she means to say is,This has to be total bullshit.
I mean, props to Stewart for finding this but…
I walk back over to the table and grab the paper again, bringing it so close to my face that it practically bops my nose. I’m hoping I read it wrong the first time.
But nope…
This is definitely happening.
“She never said a word about this,” my aunt says, and I believe her because this is the first I’m hearing about it. Janie always had a way of keeping shit to herself. “Why wouldn’t she tell us that she was married. Much less to him? Everyone who’s ever stepped foot in Harrison Heights knows he’s bad news.”
I toss the piece of paper back on the table a second time, glad to give my fingers a reprieve from its scalding heat.
I finally speak. “Would you want to go around telling your family that you married the best of the worst?”
“What was she thinking?” Aunt Bess murmurs rhetorically.
“We’ll never know the answer to that,” replies Stewart.
Mr. Captain Fucking Obvious.
“This changes how we move forward. Spouses are next in line to receive what’s left behind, Bess. I’m sorry but intestacy laws state that the one hundred and thirty thousand dollars, along with the house, will be inherited by the surviving spouse, which in this case is Clyde Lincoln.”
FIFTEEN
VIOLET
Sylvia:Who the hell took my bottle of red?
Everleigh:Not me.
Violet:Didn’t touch it.
Sylvia:One of you bitches did, and now you’re going to lie about it?
Everleigh:Hate to break it to you, Syl, but I’m pretty sure I saw you take it back to your bedroom like a week ago.
