The Lady from Chicago

You come downstairs at seven to the smell of coffee and the sound of Colt Branson not looking at you.

He's at the stove in a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbow, flipping pancakes with the concentration of a bomb technician. The kitchen is painted yellow, a cheerful buttery yellow that doesn't match anything else about him. His hair is wet from the shower. The couch in the living room has a folded blanket and a pillow on it, squared off like a soldier's bunk.

You think about the texts last night. The rules. The things you typed in the dark that would have been impossible to say to his face.

"Morning," you say.

"Coffee's on." He doesn't turn. "Mugs above the sink."

You pour. He's made it strong enough to strip paint. You drink it anyway, leaning against the counter, watching the muscles in his forearm shift every time he flips a pancake.

"So," you say. "About last night."

"We said what we said." He finally looks at you. Something in his face is less closed than it was yesterday, like a window someone forgot to latch. "Holds in daylight. Far as I'm concerned."

"Okay," you say softly. "Me too."

He nods once and goes back to the pancakes. You both pretend that was nothing.

At nine, a silver hatchback rattles up the drive, and a small woman with a long silver braid climbs out of the driver's side. She opens the back door and a child climbs down.

She's six, and small for it, in a purple puffy coat and rubber boots with frog faces on the toes. Dark blond braids, one coming undone. A missing front tooth. And her father's eyes, that impossible blue, fixed on you with the steady suspicion of a tiny judge.

She walks right past you to Colt and wraps herself around his leg. He puts one big hand on her head.

"Bug," he says. "This is Ava. She's going to live with us for a while. She's my wife now. Remember, we talked about it."

"Like Mommy was," Clover says. Not a question.

The kitchen goes so quiet you can hear the clock.

"Different," Colt says carefully. "But yeah."

Clover studies you for a long moment. Then she lets go of her father, unzips her coat, pulls a folded piece of paper out of the inside pocket, and holds it out at arm's length, like she's feeding something that might bite.

You crouch down and take it.

It's a drawing in marker. A stick woman in a red triangle dress with very long brown hair and a big black rectangle in one hand. Behind her, a tall gray building with about a hundred windows. Across the top, in careful wobbly capitals: THE LADY FROM CHICAGO.

"Grandma said you're from Chicago," Clover says. "That's your suitcase."

"It's a briefcase," you say. "For papers. But honestly? This is better than my real one." You look up at her. "Can I keep it?"

She considers. "You can put it on the fridge," she says, as if conferring a great honor, and runs upstairs.

The silver-braided woman is watching you from the doorway with sharp, kind eyes. "Marlys Branson," she says, and shakes your hand with a grip like a farrier. "Colt's mother. Sorry I missed the wedding. I'd have brought a better ring." She glances at the pawn band on your finger and then at her son, who suddenly has urgent business with the pancakes. "Welcome to the circus, honey."

Raelynn comes down at ten in a silk robe the color of champagne, and she's lovely to you all day. That's the terrible part.

She's lovely when she tells you Clover doesn't eat pancakes with butter, only with syrup, "but you couldn't have known." She's lovely when she reorganizes the spice rack you hadn't touched, "the way Laurel liked it." She's lovely when she tucks Colt's collar straight at lunch and leaves her hand on his shoulder a beat too long, and he steps away from it so fast he nearly knocks over a chair.

"She's grieving," Marlys murmurs to you, drying dishes. "Three years and it's still all over her. Give her a little rope."

"How much rope?"

Marlys's mouth twitches. "Not enough to hang you with."

On Saturday afternoon you call Ellis Marquardt from the little office off the kitchen, where Colt keeps the ranch books and a printer older than you.

"A ranch," Ellis says, in the tone other men use for a crime scene. "In Montana."

"It's a family obligation. A year, Ellis. I can work remotely. I'll bill every hour. The Kittering trial isn't until March and I'll be back for it." You're not sure that's true. You say it anyway.

A long, expensive silence. "Fine. Remote. For now. Spencer will cover your court appearances."

Spencer. Your ex. Of course.

When you hang up, you open a document and type what you've been thinking since the courthouse, because writing things down is how you keep from panicking. A memo to yourself, in the format you'd use for a client.

EXIT OPTIONS. Condition requires twelve months' residence. After month twelve the condition is satisfied and the interest vests. Marriage can then be dissolved by annulment or no-fault divorce. Crewe has offered $4.2M for the half interest. Recommended: satisfy the condition, vest, sell. Return to Chicago by next November.

It's cold and clean and sensible. It looks like somebody else wrote it.

You print it on Colt's ancient printer, two pages, and take it upstairs to put in your briefcase. Then Clover appears at the bedroom door wanting to know if lawyers can arrest people, and you spend an hour explaining the difference between lawyers and police while she draws handcuffs on her own wrists in marker.

That night, when you open the briefcase, page one is there. Page two isn't.

You check the printer tray. The floor. Under the bed. Nothing. You tell yourself it doesn't matter. It's your own memo. Nobody else would care.

Raelynn leaves Sunday after church, hugging Clover too long and Colt even longer. She hugs you too. Her perfume is something expensive and floral, and she whispers in your ear, warm as honey, "Good luck, sweetheart."

On Monday a mail truck comes up the drive, and the carrier makes Colt sign for an envelope.

He reads it standing on the porch. You watch his face go from neutral to stone.

"What is it?"

He hands it to you without a word. Letterhead from a Bozeman law firm. In re the Estate of Mavis Mrozek Sayles. Petition of Crewe Highcountry Resorts, an interested bidder, to declare the marriage of Colt Branson and Ava Mrozek a sham entered into solely to defeat the conditions of the will.

Paper-clipped to it, a short note from Merle in fountain pen.

Under the will I'm obliged to verify your residence. Given the petition, I'll be doing so without notice. I would make sure the house looks lived in. By both of you. M.B.