Chapter 1

Mark left before we could finish the paperwork.

His phone rang while the clerk was checking our information. He looked at the name on the screen and stepped away from the counter.

I knew before he answered.

“What's wrong?” he asked. His voice changed in a way it hadn't changed for me in months. “Don't move. I'll be there.”

He put his driver's license back in his wallet.

“Lily hurt her ankle.”

I looked at the clerk. She had stopped typing.

“We're almost done,” I said.

“She fell on the stairs, Grace.”

“Is someone taking her to urgent care?”

“I'm going to see what happened.”

“We could finish this first.”

He was already looking toward the door.

“We'll come back.”

Then he left.

For a few seconds, I stayed at the counter with my identification in my hand. The clerk waited. Behind me, somebody laughed softly at something their partner had said.

“Would you like to step aside while you call him?” she asked.

I nodded.

There were chairs against the wall and a small table with a fake plant. I sat beside it and called Mark.

No answer.

I sent him a message. Then another, asking whether he was coming back before our slot ended.

The little delivery mark appeared. Nothing else did.

Finally, I called Lily's number.

Mark answered.

“Grace, stop calling. She's trying to rest.”

“Are you still coming?”

“I told you, she hurt her ankle. I can't just leave her.”

I watched a couple walk toward the exit, laughing over the documents in a cream envelope.

“This is the seventh time.”

“The office isn't going anywhere.”

“Neither is her apartment.”

He sighed.

“I can't do this with you right now.”

The call ended.

On the wall, a poster showed a smiling couple against a mountain view. Colorado made it possible to marry without an officiant. Mark and I had picked that because it was supposed to be simple: get the license, sign together, take a picture outside, have lunch, tell Grandpa.

Six times before this, even simple had been too much.

I opened our messages. A month earlier, he'd said he'd never make me wait there again. I'd saved the message because I wanted something to look at when I started feeling foolish for believing him.

Now I had it in front of me, and it didn't help.

The clerk came around the end of the counter.

“I can't issue the license with your partner gone,” she said gently. “Do you want us to stop the application for today?”

I looked down at my left hand. No ring yet. Mark had said we'd choose one after we got through the part that mattered.

“Yes,” I told her.

Then I took out my phone again.

There was somebody else I could call.