A wounded deer leaps highest.
EMILY DICKINSON
Labor Day ~ 6:23 p.m.
Jack ran a hand through his hair then replaced his hat as he waited at the Swayze front door. It’d been a long night and morning, with comforting McKinney and then assisting with the burial. Against his thigh, he tapped the manila envelope containing the annulment papers. With everyone in town for the parade, he hadn’t been able to discreetly visit the district attorney until the floats and carnival were being dismantled.
The door opened.
The Swayzes’ housekeeper, Mrs. Byers, looked over the wire spectacles perched on the tip of her pert nose. “Good afternoon, Dr. Kent. Where’s your gift?”
“Gift?”
“You could’ve at least brought flowers after deserting her on her wedding night.” She shook her head with a tsk, tsk.
Jack had no response. He’d been working. Coral understood.
Mrs. Byers reached across the threshold to pat his arm. “There, there. I know you had a rough night with Eugenia’s passing. That you are here now is all that matters. Our poor girl’s been overwhelmed all day. It’s good you finally showed up. Ladies started arriving at nine, bringing gifts, offering well wishes, inquiring where the groom was.”
“I thought it was proper not to call on a newly married couple until after the said couple sent wedding cards welcoming visitors.”
“It’s also proper for parents of the bride to host a reception following the wedding,” she retorted, her disapproval evident, “which occurred in a jail. Etiquette must be adjusted in circumstances as this.”
“Coral’s best interests are my primary concern.” His answer seemed to mollify her.
She stepped back to give him room to pass. Jack entered the reception hall and immediately removed his hat. The house smelled like a flower shop. Voices and sounds of clinking china came from the living room.
“This way,” Mrs. Byers said, motioning him to follow.
Jack had taken two steps when he glanced into the dining room on the left. He did a double take. Ribbon-wrapped boxes covered the damask cloth draped over the table, as well as on two temporary tables near the front window. On the sideboard sat two folded quilts, a floral arrangement in a crystal vase, and a small crate that looked to hold four wine bottles, which he doubted. Doniphan was a dry county. Had to be cider vinegar. Another crate on the floor held rosebushes ready to be planted. Next to it were two rolled-up rugs. The number of gifts were beyond what anyone would give in celebration of an anniversary. They were more like ones for—
Dread settled like a rock in his stomach.
He and Coral had been married a day and a half. How had anyone had time to purchase or make a gift? He’d wager everyone had been watching or participating in the parade. Coral would have attended. If any altercation between a Kent and Davies had broken out, he would have heard about it by now.
“Dr. Kent,” came Mrs. Byers’s soft voice.
Jack gripped the manila envelope tightly and followed her to the living room. They stopped at the threshold. She took his hat and said something about crumpets and cucumber sandwiches. Jack absently nodded. Coral sat on the left side sofa, a prettier picture he’d never seen. On her head was a straw hat with an oversized red ribbon. Her red-orange hair lay in a fat curl over her shoulder looking more vibrant against the white of her shirtwaist. In the lap of her blue skirt was a sleeping white French bulldog pup oblivious to the dozen women wearing grandiose hats, giving marital advice, and taking tea. From where Coral was sitting, with the ladies in front or on her right, she was in the ideal spot to hear whoever spoke to her.
“You don’t say,” Coral said, her blue eyes sparkling with merriment. “I’ve never heard that story about Jack before.”
Jack could see Coral smiling as she sipped tea. A genuine smile that reached her eyes. She’d known these women all her life. They seemed to genuinely care for her. And if the number of gifts were any indication, the town was supportive of their marriage. The real question was—
Were any of those gifts from a Kent or a Davies?
He’d wager not a one was.
Mrs. Sanderson, who wrote the social column for the Weekly Republican, was the first to notice him. “Speak of the devil.”
Every lady turned his way, all voices fell silent.
Pink eased up Coral’s neck and cheeks, making her porcelain skin glow. The way she looked at him, with an unveiled joy that he’d come back, literally stole his breath. It was the very look he wanted to see on his wife’s face. Jack never wanted to tear his eyes away. He was fairly certain his heart stopped beating.
“Well then,” Mrs. Sanderson said, “I’m satisfied. Let’s go, ladies.”
The women joined in paying salutations to Coral, who stood and accepted every hug, even with the sleepy-eyed pup cradled in her arms. Once they finished with Coral, they made their way to Jack with orders he take good care of his bride. Soon the living room had emptied of all but them.
“Cute pup,” Jack said to break the silence.
Coral raised the pup to her shoulder. “Isn’t she adorable? Mr. Byers found her this morning in a wicker basket along with a note of congratulations for the happy couple.”
“We can’t keep a dog.”
“Why not?”
“Because our marriage is null,” Jack said. He turned and caught the tea tray before it slid from Mrs. Byers’s grasp.
Coral sat silent on the end of the sofa. Null meant having no legal binding effect. If what he said was true, then they didn’t need death to part them.
They only needed an official declaration of nullity from the court.
Jack carried the tray into the living room and sat it on the coffee table. He took a seat on the sofa while the Byerses sat in the two high-backed velvet chairs. As he ate the fruit salad, crumpets, and miniature cucumber sandwiches, he fielded Mr. and Mrs. Byers’s questions about consent and duress, detailing the specifics of what the district attorney told him. While they had entered the marriage with good will, openness, honesty, maturity, and emotional stability, their action hadn’t had full free will because of external pressure.
They’d been under duress.
Thus null.
Thus void.
Coral hadn’t entered the marriage with openness and honesty, either. Though she was sure he had diagnosed her partial deafness, she had not informed him of her handicap. She should have. She’d had the time in the thirty minutes prior to the wedding. Her embarrassment had stopped her.
She didn’t need to be embarrassed.
Her family knew. They were supposed to love and accept her, but after losing her hearing in one ear, her father had only increased his belittlement, treating her like she was stupid and less of a person when she didn’t hear what was said. Meals with the whole family together often ended in hot tears—hers and her mother’s—until Coral learned not to draw any attention to herself. When she moved in with the Swayzes, no Davies questioned her decision. No one begged her to come home.
No one cared.
Unable to bear the sudden warmth in the room, Coral stood. “Excuse me, I need to…”
She hurried out of the room, across the reception hall, and into the dining room before any tears could fall. She gripped the edge of the cloth-covered table. Breathed deep. Blinked. She looked to the left. Then the right.
Oh my.
Her mouth fell open. Eyes widened.
Good gracious, there had to be two hundred gifts. At the very least. When had the Byerses set up the tables? Coral didn’t know. She’d been occupied with entertaining the constant stream of visitors. Had there been that many to call? Impossible. Half of the gifts had to have come from Wathenans who delivered them and left without saying a word. Had to.
But why?
The pup squirmed and whined. Coral placed it on the wooden floor, and it darted immediately to the living room, back into the wicker basket near the opened French doors. Coral returned her attention to the dining room table. Near the edge, in a basket, stuck between jars of preserves was an envelope with Inez Potter’s elegant script.
Dr. and Mrs. Jack Kent
She reached for the card, only to draw back. Inez was too kindhearted to include a spiteful note, yet she couldn’t bear to read Inez’s words wishing them joy and happiness. Were things different, Inez could be the one looking at a card like this one—same inscription yet in Coral’s penmanship. Inez should have married Jack instead. Inez had feelings for him. Inez loved living in Wathena as much as Jack did. Most of all, Inez wasn’t a Davies who would have to force Jack to choose between his family and his wife.
Inez still had a chance for a future with Jack, once this unfortunate, not-of-their-full-free-will marriage was nullified.
Every gift in the room had to be returned. Even the pup.
An announcement would need to be placed in the papers. Coral drew in a sharp breath. Mrs. Sanderson! Tonight, before anything could go to press, the society columnist had to be notified. What if she’d already made telephone calls to other papers in the county? Coral would have to contact them, too.
Dishes clattered.
Coral looked into the hall. Mrs. Byers left the room with a tray full of teacups, while Mr. Byers carried out the four wooden folding chairs brought in for extra seating, the pup bounding along behind them. Jack leaned against the dining room’s door frame, looking as dapper as ever in his charcoal pin-striped suit. He tapped a manila envelope against his thigh.
“I’ll help you return the gifts tomorrow.”
“Do you realize how much this community adores you?”
“The gifts are kind of them,” he stated, “but—”
“What will they think when we give them back?”
His brow furrowed. “They will think we married to save everyone from a misdemeanor conviction—”
“Quite selfless of us,” she murmured.
“—and they will realize they overstepped their bounds when they brought gifts without being invited,” he finished in an irritated voice. “We aren’t the ones at fault here.” He pushed off the door frame and walked to the center table. He laid the manila envelope on Inez’s basket of preserves. “There are three copies. I filled out everything. All you have to do is sign next to my signature. I will file the documents with the court in the morning.”
Coral picked up the envelope, unwound the string, and withdrew the papers. She skimmed the document. “When the court nullifies our marriage, it will have officially never existed, and what we sacrificed to spare our families will be in vain.”
“No, it won’t,” he said, his voice flat. “The DA recognized his culpability and agreed not to file charges.”
A simple solution to an unwanted marriage.
Her parents would be pleased. Then again, even when she did something to earn their approval, they found fault.
Coral stared absently at the pages with his signature. During the last two years, her focus had been working to earn the funds to leave Wathena. When she wasn’t working, she was sleeping. Once the court approved the annulment, she could leave without any encumbrance. She could resume her plans. No one in Cleveland would know about her utterly short marriage to Jack.
Coral would know.
Coral would remember standing before the judge and God and making—in free will—a vow to love, honor, and cherish Jack until death did they part.
How could a court decision null it away?
Her memory wasn’t a chalkboard easily erased. Or muddy socks to be laundered clean.
Nor was her conscience.
She looked to Jack. “Yesterday when you promised me we would try and make this work, you knew what the judge had said about our marriage being voidable. You weren’t under duress then. Why did you lie to me?”
His face reddened. “I didn’t lie.”
“You didn’t?” she said with a bitter chuckle. She held up the papers. “Your signature—your action—contradicts you. Not telling the truth is a lie.”
“I wanted to tell you yesterday!”
“Why didn’t you?” she shouted back.
“At that time I didn’t know what the right thing to do was.”
“Didn’t know?” That earned her a glare. Coral stared at him, shaking her head. His callousness hurt. “Jack, the right thing usually begins with a person doing what he said he would—” Her voice cracked. “In our case, it means honoring your vows.”
“If I honor my vows,” he said in crisp, angry words, “then you are doomed to a life you yearn to escape. You made that clear.” He stopped next to her. “I am the reason we are in this mess. It’s my responsibility to fix it.”
She shook the papers in his face. “An annulment is the only fix you can think of?”
“What else is there?”
“Leave with me.”
He slapped a present, indenting the box. “My patients are here!”
Now that was the Jack Kent she remembered, the one with the renowned temper. She’d been a fool thinking he’d changed.
If an annulment was what he wanted…
Papers in hand, she darted past him, through the hall, and to the secretary at the back of the living room. She found a pen. Signed her name. Dated the paper. Leaving the pen where she’d found it, she returned to Jack now standing in the reception hall with envelope in hand.
“Here you go.”
He took the papers she offered.
She narrowed her eyes, unable to stop the consuming anger at him. And at herself for waking up this morning and praying God would grow love in her heart for her husband—the very man who wanted nothing to do with her. “It is not your job to make me happy, nor is it your responsibility to fix my problems. I can—and will—take care of myself.”
“Coral—”
“Stop! I am finished with talking.” She whirled around, lifted the front of her skirts, and ascended the stairs as gracefully as she could manage. She called over her shoulder, “Your patients need you more than I do.”