Chapter 11
When the officiant handed us the marriage certificate later, during the small quiet moment set aside for signing, I watched the clerk's hands more carefully than I had the first time I lived through this exact minute. I noticed the extra half second before she slid the paper across, the briefest hesitation, like she was checking something against a list only she could see. I noticed and said nothing, tucking it away the same way I'd been tucking everything else away since the bureau, since the hotel charges, since the balcony.
The reception rolled forward in a blur of dancing and toasts and too much champagne, guests spinning past in expensive dresses, someone's cousin singing off key into a microphone, my mother crying happy tears into my father's shoulder across the lawn. I
