“What did he do?”
“Marriage licenses, mostly.”
Margaret removed her glasses.
“He really never told you?”
“No.”
A sad smile crossed her face.
“That sounds like Larry.”
For illustrative purposes only
Part 5 — Hundreds of Weddings, Never His Own
Margaret led me down a hallway to one of the courthouse’s small civil ceremony rooms.
I recognized the wooden arch immediately.
“This is where Larry and I got married.”
“I know.”
I turned.
“You know?”
“He came here the afternoon before your ceremony.”
“Why?”
Margaret smiled faintly.
“He said he was nervous.”
I almost laughed.
“A man who worked around weddings for nearly thirty years?”
“Exactly what I told him.”
She walked toward a cabinet, unlocked the bottom drawer, and pulled out a heavy binder.
“He sat in that chair for almost an hour.”
She pointed beside the arch.
“Just looking around.”
My throat tightened.
Margaret opened the binder.
Inside were old marriage records protected by clear plastic sleeves.
She turned to one.
Two names appeared at the top.
A wedding from decades earlier.
Near the bottom was a signature.
Larry.
Beside it was one word.
Witness.
Margaret turned the page.
Another couple.
Larry’s signature.
Witness.
Another page.
Another year.
Larry again.
Witness.
I stopped her.
“What is this?”
“People would sometimes come here without friends or relatives,” Margaret explained. “They needed someone to witness the ceremony.”
She touched one of Larry’s signatures.
“He hated the idea of anybody getting married with no one beside them. So he would step out from behind the counter and stand there.”
She turned more pages.
Different couples.
Different years.
The same narrow L.
The same uneven y I had seen on his letter.
“How many?”
“Hundreds, probably.”
Margaret smiled.
“He used to joke he’d attended more weddings than anyone in the courthouse without ever having to remember an anniversary.”
A laugh escaped me.
Then another question came.
“Was Larry ever married?”
Margaret’s smile faded.
She closed the binder.
“Once.”
My heart thudded.
“To whom?”
Margaret looked directly at me.
“You.”
I sat down.
For twenty-eight years, Larry had watched people walk through that building carrying separate names and leave legally connected to another human being.
When they had nobody there to stand for them, Larry stepped forward.
He signed.
Witness.
Again.
Again.
Again.
His name was recorded beside hundreds of beginnings.
But never once beside the word husband.
Never once beside spouse.
Until me.
Margaret opened another drawer.
“There’s something else.”
She pulled out a clear sleeve containing a copy of our marriage certificate.
“Larry asked me to keep this accessible after the marriage was officially recorded. He said if you ever came asking for me, I should show you.”
There were our names.
Sarah.
Larry.
And beside his:
Spouse.
My eyes blurred.
I remembered his shaking hand.
The way he had folded his certificate.
The way I joked that he was behaving as though it were a real wedding.
And his answer.
First marriage. Let me have my nerves.
My chest hurt.
“Why me?” I whispered.
Margaret sat beside me.
I told her about the letter.
The burial story.
Larry’s confession that he had turned loneliness into a practical problem because he knew I would respond to practical problems.
Margaret didn’t defend him.
“That wasn’t fair to you.”
I looked at her.
“He should have told you the truth.”
“Then why didn’t he?”
She glanced toward the marriage certificate.
“Larry could ask for coffee. He could ask for socks. He could ask you to call a shelter.”
Her voice softened.
“But asking another human being to choose him simply because he was lonely?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t think he ever learned how.”
I stared at the word spouse.
“What was I actually saying yes to?”
Margaret looked toward my purse.
“I think Larry wanted to answer that himself.”
The rest of his letter was still inside.
Part 6 — What Larry Really Wanted
I left the courthouse.
