Unremarried Widow by Artis Henderson Page A

me. I gave him a nervous smile.
    â€œThat’s us,” he said.
    â€œYou all can follow me back.”
    We walked through the lobby with its Texas seal on the wall, over beige carpeting that absorbed the sound of our footsteps. I hooked a finger in the collar of my shirt and pulled, trying to vent my neck as the secretary led us into the courtroom chambers.
    â€œThe judge will be right in,” she said.
    I leaned into Miles and he placed his hand on the small of my back the way he did when I was scared. The judge stepped into the room. He had traded his judicial robes for a pair of stonewashed jeans and low-heeled cowboy boots. He was a large man with round cheeks that were red, as if someone had just pinched them. I could see the appeal. He had a thick drawl and I imagined he kept a Stetson hanging on the back of his office door.
    â€œHow you all doing?” he said. “Ready to get this done?”
    We nodded.
    â€œGood. I can see you all are holding hands. That’s a good sign. Sometimes we get people in here and one of them looks like they might bolt out the door. It’s good to hold on to each other. Keeps you both here.”
    Miles gave my hand a squeeze.
    â€œYou all want to go ahead and face one another,” the judge said. “I’m going to run through this. It’ll be quick. You got rings?”
    â€œNo, sir,” Miles said.
    â€œThat’s all right. Don’t need them anyhow.”
    The judge covered all the bases and asked if we agreed to the terms.
    â€œYes,” I said in a tight voice.
    â€œYes,” Miles echoed.
    â€œThen by the power vested in me by the state of Texas, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Go on and kiss now.”
    We gave each other a chaste peck and the judge shook both our hands. We walked out the way we had come in and the secretary handedus our marriage certificate. We left the carpeted office and followed the linoleum back to the front entrance, walking without speaking, dazed as if we had just survived a wreck. On the steps to the courthouse we stopped and looked at each other.
    â€œHoly shit,” I said. “We’re married.”
    Miles pulled a camera out of his uniform pocket and stopped a man walking into the building.
    â€œWould you mind taking a picture for us?”
    We stood together in front of the courthouse wall and the man took a close-up shot as we smiled big brave smiles into the camera. When the newspapers ask for a photo of Miles, this is the one I send. They crop me out so that Miles is alone, looking unaccountably happy on the courthouse steps.
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    Spring gave way to early summer and we were suddenly, finally done with Fort Hood. We loaded Miles’s truck and hitched my car to the back in a drill we were starting to perfect. I sat beside Miles in the cab of the pickup and we both felt free. Free of Killeen, free of Fort Hood. Yes, we were headed back to Fort Bragg and all the coarseness of that place, but in the interim—in the liminal space between one base and the next where the future was stacked with limitless possibilities—we were free. Or I was free. And Miles beside me with his uncomplicated air and easy laugh, I think he was free too.
    Our second time at Fort Bragg, we stayed out of Fayetteville. We rented a trailer north of the base off a dirt road that ran beside a cornfield. The earth had been newly planted when we arrived and young seedlingspushed out of the dirt in neat rows. Insects hummed in the fields during the early afternoons when the heat set in and the trailer baked beneath the sun. Our place had brown carpet that had once been plush, old furniture that had seen generations of tenants, and pink toilet seat covers that made me think somebody’s grandma had once lived there. We unloaded the boxes we had packed in Killeen; the Crock-Pot made its way onto the counter and the dish towels went into a side drawer. I pulled out my rolling pin, our salt and pepper