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.

Then another.

Beside it was one word.

The dates jumped forward.

Different people.

Different years.

The same handwriting.

“What is this?”

“People sometimes came in without anyone else,” Margaret said. “Larry would step out from behind the counter and witness for them.”

The same handwriting.

She turned another page.

“He hated the thought of somebody getting married with nobody standing there.”

I touched one of his signatures.

It was strange seeing Larry’s handwriting from decades before I’d known him.

Same narrow L.

Same crooked y.

“How many?”

I touched one of his signatures.

Margaret shrugged.

“Hundreds, probably.” She smiled. “He used to joke that he’d attended more weddings than anyone in the building and never had to remember an anniversary.”

A laugh escaped me.

It disappeared when the obvious question arrived.

I touched one of his signatures.

“Was he ever married?”

Margaret closed the binder.

She didn’t answer.

“Margaret?”

“Once.”

My eyes searched her face.

“To who?”

She looked directly at me.

“You.”

I sat down.

***

For 28 years, Larry had watched strangers enter that building as two separate names and leave legally connected.

“Was he ever married?”

Whenever they had nobody beside them, he stepped forward and signed as their witness. His name appeared again and again, but never beside the word spouse.

Not until me.

Margaret opened another drawer.

Never beside the word spouse.

“There’s something else. Larry asked me to pull this after the marriage was recorded, in case you ever came looking for me.”

She removed a clear plastic sleeve and placed it in front of me.

Inside was a copy of our marriage certificate.

My name.

Larry’s.

And beside his:

SPOUSE.

“There’s something else.”

I remembered how carefully he’d folded his copy after the ceremony.

How he’d asked the clerk twice where to sign.

How I’d teased him.

“You’re acting like this is a real wedding.”

I’d teased him.

Larry had gone quiet for a second.

Then he’d smiled.

“First marriage. Let me have my nerves.”

I’d laughed.

Now I couldn’t.

***

Margaret sat beside me.

“Did Larry tell you why he wanted to marry you?”

I’d laughed. Now I couldn’t.

“He told me a reason.”

I explained about the letter.

The burial story.

The way he’d admitted making the situation sound worse because he knew I would help.

When I finished, Margaret didn’t defend him.

“That wasn’t fair to you, dear.”

“He told me a reason.”