I couldn’t call him.
I kept reading.
“If I gave you a problem you could solve, I knew you’d solve it.”
That was the line that hurt.
Because he was right.
I had spent two years offering Larry things.
Coffee.
Food.
Socks.
Phone numbers for shelters.
That was the line that hurt.
Once, when temperatures dropped below freezing, I’d spent half my lunch break calling around for an available bed.
Larry had thanked me every time.
I’d never considered that he might have learned exactly how to ask me for something.
Larry had thanked me every time.
At the bottom of the page he’d written:
“Before you decide what kind of jerk I was, go back to the courthouse where we got married. Ask for Margaret. Tell her you’re my wife.”
I nearly threw the letter away.
“Tell her you’re my wife.”
Instead, an hour later, I was standing in the courthouse lobby.
Couples filled the plastic chairs.
A woman in a white jumpsuit fixed her lipstick while her fiancé held her bouquet. A toddler crawled beneath two chairs while his father tried to catch him.
I was standing in the courthouse.
Three weeks earlier, Larry and I had sat in that same row.
He’d rubbed his palms against his pants over and over.
“You’re shaking,” I’d told him.
“I’m dying. I’m allowed to shake.”
“You’re shaking.”
I’d accepted that explanation.
Now I wondered what else I’d accepted because it was easier than asking another question.
At the records counter, a clerk pointed me toward an older woman in red glasses.
“Margaret?”
She looked up.
“Yes?”
I’d accepted that explanation.
“I’m Sarah. Larry’s wife.”
Her hands stopped over the keyboard.
“Larry?”
I nodded.
Her chair rolled backward.
“Oh, honey.”
She came around the counter and hugged me.
I stood there stiffly.
“I’m Sarah. Larry’s wife.”
When she released me, her eyes were wet.
“When did he pass away?”
“A week ago.”
She looked away.
“I knew he was sick. I didn’t realize it was that close.”
“You knew Larry?”
“I knew he was sick.”
Margaret frowned. “Of course.”
“How?”
She glanced around the courthouse.
“He worked here.”
I stared at her.
“Here?”
“For 28 years.”
“Then how did he end up outside?” I asked.
“He worked here.”
“His health failed after he retired. Medical bills took his savings, and when he lost his apartment, he was too proud to call any of us.”
“What did he do?”
“Marriage licenses, mostly.”
Margaret removed her glasses.
“He never told you?”
“No.”
“What did he do?”
“That sounds like Larry.”
“What does that mean?”
She hesitated. “Come with me.”
She led me down a hallway into a small civil ceremony room.
I recognized the wooden arch against the wall.
“This is where we got married.”
“Come with me.”
“I know.”
“You were here?”
“No. But Larry was, the afternoon before.”
I turned toward her.
“Why?”
Margaret crossed to a cabinet and unlocked the bottom drawer.
“I asked him the same thing.”
“You were here?”
She pulled out a thick binder and placed it on a table.
“He sat right there for almost an hour.”
She pointed to a chair beside the wooden arch.
“What did he want?” I asked.
“Nothing.” Margaret smiled faintly. “He said he was nervous.”
“What did he want?”
I almost laughed.
“A man who worked around weddings for 28 years?”
“That’s what I told him.” She rested one hand on the binder. “He looked at that arch and said, ‘Tomorrow I’m standing on the other side of the desk.'”
“Tomorrow I’m standing on the other side of the desk.”
The memory of Larry’s shaking hands came back.
I had blamed the illness.
Maybe I’d been watching something else.
Margaret opened the binder.
“Look.”
An old marriage record lay beneath the plastic sleeve.
I had blamed the illness.
Two strangers’ names appeared at the top.
Near the bottom was a signature I recognized immediately.
Larry.
Beside it was one word.
Witness.
Margaret turned several pages.
Another couple.
Larry.
Witness.
