Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult

rented an apartment for years; but it’s a good distance from Reid’s house in Newport. Clutching the copy of the marriage certificate I got from the town hall, I walk the length of a covered portico from the parking lot into the building.
    Every few steps, I hear a bird.
    I stop walking, look up, and notice the speaker and the motion sensor. The courthouse has some weird nature recording following me with every step.
    It’s kind of fitting, actually, to be headed in to file for divorce and to learn that something I thought was real is just smoke and mirrors.
    The clerk looks up at me when I enter the office. She has curly black hair—and that’s just her mustache. “Yes?” she says. “Can I help you?”
    These days, I don’t think anyone can. But I take a step toward the chest-high counter. “I want a divorce.”
    She flattens her mouth in a smile. “Honey, I don’t even remember our wedding.” When I don’t respond, the clerk rolls her eyes. “Just once. Just once I’d like someone to laugh. Who’s your attorney?”
    “I can’t afford one.”
    She hands me a packet of papers. “You own property?”
    “No.”
    “You got kids?”
    “No,” I say, looking away.
    “Then you fill out the paperwork, and bring it to the sheriff’s department down the hall.”
    I thank her and take the packet out to a bench in the corridor.
In re: the Marriage of
Plaintiff: that would be me.
And Defendant: that would be Zoe.
    I carefully read the first item to be filled out: my residence. After hesitating, I put down Reid’s address. I’ve been there for two months now. Plus, the next item is Zoe’s address. I don’t want the judge to get confused and think we’re still living together and decide not to grant the divorce.
    Not that it works like that, but still.
Number three: On _____, in _____ (city), _____ (country), _____ (state), the Plaintiff and Defendant married. An official copy of the marriage license is attached to this complaint for divorce.
    Zoe and I had gotten married by a justice of the peace with a speech impediment. When he asked us to repeat our vows, neither of us could understand him. “We’ve written our own,” Zoe said, in a flash of inspiration, and, like me, she made them up on the spot.
    On the divorce form, there are four spaces for children, and their birth dates.
    I feel myself break out in a sweat.
Grounds for No-Fault:
    I have only two choices here, and they are listed for me. Carefully I reprint the first option: Irreconcilable differences that have caused the irremediable breakdown of the marriage.
    I do not really know what all that means, but I can guess. And it seems to describe me and Zoe. She can’t stop wanting a baby; I can’t stand the thought of trying again. Irreconcilable differences are the children we never had. They’re the times she would sit at dinner, smiling, when I knew she wasn’t thinking about me. They’re the baby name books stacked for reading by the toilet, the crib mobile she bought three years ago and never unpacked, the finance charges on our credit card bills that keep me awake at night.
    Just above the spot where I sign my name is a vow: The Plaintiff prays for an Absolute Divorce.
    Yeah, I suppose I do.
    I’d worship anyone and anything who could turn my life around.
    In a way, I get along better with my sister-in-law than with my own brother. For the past two months, every time Reid asks me if I have a master plan, a goal to get back on my feet, Liddy just reminds him that I’m family, that I should stay as long as I want. At breakfast, if she cooks an uneven number of slices of bacon, she gives me the extra, instead of Reid. It’s like she’s the one person who really gives a crap whether I live or die, who either doesn’t notice that I’m a colossal fuckup or, better yet, just doesn’t care.
    Liddy grew up with a father who was a Pentecostal preacher, but when she’s not acting all churchified, she can be pretty cool. She collects Green