I turn quickly, lowering my voice so only he can hear me. “I’m confused. Isn’t there some sort of waiting period? A few days between when we get a marriage license and when we can officially get married?”

“Not for people like us.”

His eyes are almost bored as he looks down on me. My panic is obviously not shared.

“Oh…okay.” I look into the courtroom, then back down the hall as if assessing my escape options.

“But if you’d like to back out, all you need to say—”

I straighten my spine and whip my gaze back into the courtroom. “No. Of course not. I just wasn’t sure of the procedures. Let’s…get married.”

Chapter Two

I’m not someone who imagined what their wedding would be like at a young age. No binge-watching Say Yes to the Dress, no pining after dream venues or Vera Wang gowns. Even still, I can admit I didn’t see this arrangement in my future: a quick walk down the center of a courtroom, a hasty signature on a prenuptial agreement, and now I’m standing across from a man I’ve exchanged only a handful of words with. Honestly, I chatted more with my Uber driver on the way over here.

I catch whiffs of classic wedding words. Judge Mathers repeats vows and says my name to prod me to repeat them. I think I say the right thing, but I can’t be sure. The whole affair has taken on a dreamlike quality, like at any moment, Walt’s head will dissolve into a thousand snakes and then I’ll wake up in a sweat, trying to determine what it all means.

“Would you like to exchange rings now?” Judge Mathers asks Walt.

He shakes his head. “Not today.”

This doesn’t faze the judge, but it fazes me.

I clasp my hands together and brush my thumb over my naked ring finger, trying to decipher why the absence of a ring that would symbolize absolutely nothing hurts my feelings. It’s not about the ring itself. I don’t covet diamonds. In fact, I wouldn’t care what stone the ring was made of. I suppose I just wanted something. A sign that this farce of a wedding was built on something more than business alone. I now realize that was pretty juvenile. My mom laid out the terms clearly enough last night, and the sheer desperation in her voice is something I’ll never forget.

“Broke” is a word I’ve never heard Julianne Brighton utter before yesterday. Over the course of one phone call, I learned just how much my parents had been hiding from me and my siblings over the years. My parents had hit the end of the road. Up to their ears in debt and out of options, they were facing imminent consequences: their homes, cars, clothing—all of it would be repossessed by the bank. They would be left without a dime and with no way to take care of themselves or my younger siblings. In their tight-knit social circle, there’s no doubt they’d face public humiliation; their reputations would be forever tarnished. At first as I listened to her describe their circumstances, a small voice inside of me said this would be a good thing, a much-needed dose of reality, but that bitterness dried up as my mom continued to cry and let me in on their despair. I had no idea how much debt they’d accrued. I had no idea someone could be so far past the point of no return. My father had taken loans from the banks, and when that was no longer a viable option, he’d borrowed from his friend, Walter Jennings Senior.