Chapter 3

I went back to the bedroom and pulled the box of wedding keepsakes from the bottom of the closet.

Inside were the ribbon from my bouquet, cards from our guests, and the marriage certificate Nathan had given me.

It had been a small wedding, held at a rented house by a lake. He'd found the officiant and handled the paperwork. Afterward, he'd said everything was taken care of and told me to just enjoy our honeymoon.

I sent Lydia a photo of the document and asked whether she was sure.

She called me back soon afterward. The number on the certificate didn't match any valid record, and the information for the person who'd signed it didn't check out, either. She would keep looking into it, but I needed to protect my accounts and personal documents first.

When Nathan followed me in, I was setting the paper back on the bed.

"What are you looking for?"

"The record of our marriage."

His eyes fell on the document, and he stopped.

Looking at him, I realized I didn't need Lydia to investigate any further.

"Even this was fake?"

"Claire, hear me out."

He reached for me. I moved away.

"When Vivian and I first divorced, she was in a really bad place. She kept saying she couldn't go on. I promised I wouldn't legally remarry until she was ready to move on."

I stared at him, barely able to process what he'd said.

"So you staged a fake wedding for me?"

"The wedding wasn't fake. I love you, and I'm the one sharing a home with you. We just haven't finalized the paperwork yet."

"It's been a year, Nathan. How long were you going to wait? Were you just going to keep lying to me as long as she wasn't ready?"

His patience was wearing thin.

"Do you have to put it like that? Didn't you used to say you didn't even care about marriage? That you just wanted to live with someone who made you feel safe?"

I stood there with my ears ringing.

When I was little, my father would get drunk, smash things, and hit my mother. He gambled away their savings and used her paychecks to cover his debts. The day an ambulance took her away, I thought I'd never see her again.

She survived, but her health was never good afterward. I'd told Nathan I might never get married.

He'd spent two years convincing me he wasn't like my father.

Now he was using the fears I'd trusted him with to tell me I had no right to care that he'd lied.

"You know that's not what I meant." He lowered his voice. "Our life together isn't fake. Is a piece of paper really more important than all of that?"

I folded the document and put it in my bag.

"Give me back the money I earned. I'm going to see Mom."

Vivian stood in the doorway and immediately laughed.

"There it is. All that, and it still comes down to money. Her mother's perfectly fine where she is. Can't you see she's using this to pressure you?"

Nathan rubbed his forehead and took out his phone.

"You need money to get there? I'll give you the fare. Stop arguing about everything else."

His message soon appeared in the group chat. "Send Claire twenty-five. She's going to see her mom."

Vivian glanced at it, opened her wallet, and tossed a five-dollar bill onto the bed.

"She can take the bus."

I picked up the bill and left the apartment.

Mom lived in an assisted living community on the outskirts of the city. Her retirement income paid for her apartment and meals. Nathan had promised to cover her specialist follow-ups, medications her insurance wouldn't pay for, and transportation.

When I arrived, the woman at the front desk was trying to reach me.

"Claire, your mother hasn't been doing well lately. We need to go over the plans for her treatment with you."

She took me into the office and showed me several notices. Mom's specialist appointment had been canceled, and there had been problems getting her prescriptions refilled. The person listed as responsible for payment kept asking for more time.

That contact was Vivian.

"How long?" I asked.

"A few months. Your mother said the family knew, and she didn't want to give you more to worry about."

I didn't wait to hear the rest. I turned and ran to the end of the hall.

Mom's door was ajar. I pushed it open and found her collapsed beside the bed, one hand still reaching toward the phone on the table.

"Mom!"