PART 2 — THE WOMAN ON MY HUSBAND’S SECOND MARRIAGE LICENSE
Lacey Burcham.
For a few seconds, I honestly thought my eyes had stopped working.
Not because I couldn’t read the name.
Because I could.
Too well.
Lacey Burcham.
The woman Jeremy had been with before me.
The woman everybody in Lawrenceburg thought he would marry.
The woman I’d spent twenty-two years trying not to think about.
The woman I’d seen in Kroger last spring wearing a scarf over her head and looking thin enough for the wind to carry away.
Her signature sat underneath my husband’s on a marriage license dated three years earlier.
I read it again.
Then again.
Bonnie didn’t say anything.
She didn’t need to.
I could hear the fluorescent lights humming over us.
Somebody behind me coughed.
A printer started running at another window.
Normal little sounds.
That’s what I remember most.
My entire life had just cracked open, and the county clerk’s office kept going like nothing had happened.
I put one finger on Lacey’s name.
“This is her?”
Bonnie’s careful eyes met mine.
“That’s what the record says.”
“But I’m married to him.”
“I know.”
“No.”
My voice came out sharper than I meant.
“I mean I’m still married to him.”
Bonnie looked back at her screen.
“You and Jeremy Lee Tolley were married June fourteenth, 2008?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve never filed for divorce?”
“No.”
“Never had papers served?”
“No.”
“Never signed anything?”
“No.”
She took off her glasses.
“Then I think you need to speak with an attorney.”
My stomach rolled.
“How could he marry somebody else?”
Bonnie hesitated.
“I can’t give you legal advice.”
“I’m not asking for legal advice.”
I tapped the paper.
“I’m asking how a courthouse let my husband marry another woman.”
A man at the next window glanced toward us.
Bonnie lowered her voice.
“Marriage records aren’t always cross-checked the way people assume. Applications rely on information provided by the people applying. If somebody says they’re legally free to marry—”
“He lied?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
I stared at the date.
September 17.
Three years ago.
I knew that date.
Not because it was an anniversary.
Not because we’d celebrated anything.
Because September 17 was the Tuesday Jeremy told me he’d gotten stranded outside Columbia after his buddy’s transmission went out.
He hadn’t come home until almost four in the morning.
I remembered waking when he climbed into bed.
I remembered smelling hospital soap on his hands.
I’d asked him why he smelled like a doctor’s office.
He’d laughed.
“Gas station bathroom had that pink soap, Jill-girl.”
And I believed him.
Of course I believed him.
When you’ve been married long enough, you don’t investigate every strange smell.
You don’t interrogate every late night.
You build your life on thousands of tiny assumptions.
Then one piece of paper shows you how many of them might have been lies.
“Can I keep this?”
I asked.
“You paid for it.”
I folded the certificate once.
Then I stopped.
I couldn’t fold Lacey’s name.
That sounds stupid.
But I couldn’t.
So I slid the paper back into the manila envelope.
Bonnie touched my wrist before I walked away.
“Mrs. Tolley.”
I turned.
She looked like she wanted to say something.
“What?”
“If you’re going home to confront him, don’t do it until you’ve had time to think.”
I almost laughed.
“Jeremy has never laid a hand on me.”
“I’m glad.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“I’m not saying he would.”
“Then why’d you say that?”
“Because sometimes what we think we know about people changes very quickly.”
That followed me all the way to the parking lot.
Sometimes what we think we know about people changes very quickly.
I sat in my car for twenty minutes.
The envelope lay on my lap.
My phone buzzed.
Jeremy.
For one wild second, I wondered if Bonnie had called him.
Then I answered.
“Hey.”
“Get the tags?”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
His normal voice.
The voice that had asked me that morning if we were out of coffee filters.
The voice that had kissed the side of my head before leaving for work.
The voice I’d slept beside for eighteen years.
“Yeah.”
“You’re a lifesaver.”
I looked down at the envelope.
“Am I?”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You all right?”
“Just tired.”
He laughed softly.
“My hardworking Jill-girl.”
I nearly threw the phone across the car.
Instead, I asked the first question that came into my head.
“You going to Nashville Tuesday?”
Silence.
Not long.
Maybe two seconds.
But when you’ve lived with somebody eighteen years, you know the difference between thinking and freezing.
“Probably,” he said.
“Why?”
“Just asking.”
“Rick’s got that job he’s trying to finish.”
Rick.
The buddy.
I’d heard Rick’s name for three years.
I suddenly realized I’d never met him.
Not once.
“What kind of job?”
Another pause.
“Deck.”
“I thought you said roofing.”
“It started as roofing.”
“Oh.”
“Why all the questions?”
“No reason.”
He chuckled.
“You miss me already?”
My throat closed.
“Something like that.”
“I’ll see you tonight. Love you.”
I couldn’t say it back.
He waited.
“Jill?”
A horn sounded somewhere behind me.
“Love you too.”
I hung up and hated myself for how natural the words sounded.
On the drive home, I didn’t think about Jeremy first.
I thought about Lacey.
Twenty-two years earlier, she’d stood outside a Dairy Queen crying because Jeremy had chosen me.
I knew because my cousin saw her.
At twenty, that had made me feel victorious.
That’s ugly to admit.
But it’s true.
I had wanted Jeremy so badly that I’d treated another woman’s heartbreak like proof that I’d won.
Lacey and Jeremy had been together almost four years.
High school sweethearts.
First everything, according to people who knew them.
Then I started working evenings at the same hardware store as Jeremy.
We flirted.
Then we kissed.
Then we did more than kiss.
By July, Lacey knew.
By August, she was gone.
Jeremy proposed to me four years later.
I used to tell myself that proved we were meant to be together.
Standing at a red light with his second marriage certificate on the passenger seat, I wondered if “meant to be” was just something people said after somebody else got hurt.
I didn’t go home.
I drove to the distribution center.
My badge still worked.
That surprised me.
I parked in employee parking and went through security.
My lead, Marcus, saw me near the lockers.
His eyebrows went up.
“Tolley?”
“I know.”
“You called out.”
“I need to talk to you.”
He looked uncomfortable.
“HR’s been looking for you.”
There it was.
The bill for missing Thursday.
I nodded.
“Am I fired?”
Marcus rubbed the back of his neck.
“They’ll talk to you.”
“That’s a yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
Funny thing.
I had imagined getting fired from that job a hundred times.
Every time the scanner beeped.
Every time my feet hurt.
Every time they raised the pick rate.
Every time somebody disappeared from the schedule after their third write-up.
I’d imagined crying.
Begging.
Explaining that we had a mortgage.
That our son Caleb needed braces.
That Jeremy’s insurance was gone.
But now?
I just stood there.
My husband had apparently married his old girlfriend while still married to me.
Losing my job couldn’t find enough room inside me to hurt yet.
Marcus lowered his voice.
“Jill, what’s going on?”
I almost told him.
Instead, I said, “Family emergency.”
“Bad?”
I looked at him.
“I don’t know yet.”
HR gave me my termination paperwork at 11:17.
Six years of twenty-two-thousand-step days ended with two signatures and a clear plastic bag for my locker stuff.
My coffee mug.
A spare pair of socks.
Ibuprofen.
A photo of Caleb at twelve holding a catfish almost as long as his leg.
And an anniversary card Jeremy had slipped into my lunch bag last year.
I found it at the bottom of my locker.
I should have thrown it away.
Instead, I read it.
Eighteen years and you’re still my best decision.
Love you always,
J.
I stared at the words until they blurred.
Then I turned the card over.
Nothing.
I don’t know what I expected.
A confession?
An address?
Lacey’s phone number?
People don’t leave explanations on the backs of anniversary cards.
I put it in the plastic bag.
Outside, I sat in my car again.
I’d spent half the morning sitting in parking lots.
I suddenly understood why people do that after bad news.
A car is the only place where nobody expects you to perform.
I pulled out my phone.
I searched Lacey Burcham.
Nothing useful.
Then I searched Lacey Burcham Lawrenceburg Tennessee.
An old Facebook page came up.
No public posts in years.
Profile picture was a field of sunflowers.
I clicked photos.
Most were private.
One wasn’t.
It had been posted three years ago.
September 18.
The day after the marriage license.
It wasn’t a wedding photo.
It was a picture of a hospital window at sunset.
No people.
No rings.
No flowers.
Just orange light through glass.
The caption was six words.
Some promises arrive twenty years late.
I stopped breathing.
There were seven comments.
Most were hearts.
One said, “Praying for you, Lace.”
Another said, “He finally did it?”
Lacey had replied with a single heart.
Then I saw the last comment.
It had been written by someone named Dana Burcham.
You deserved your day, no matter what happens now.
I clicked Dana’s profile.
Her information said she lived in Nashville.
Sister to Lacey Burcham.
I opened Messenger.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard.
What exactly was I supposed to write?
Hello, I’m your sister’s boyfriend’s wife?
Hello, apparently my husband married your sister three years ago?
Hello, I ruined her life when we were twenty and now I need answers?
I closed the app.
Then opened it again.
I typed:
Hi, Dana. My name is Jill Tolley. I think we need to talk about Jeremy.
I stared at it.
Then I deleted it.
Coward.
I drove home.
Jeremy’s truck wasn’t there.
Caleb was at school.
The house was quiet.
I put my plastic bag from work in the bedroom closet.
Then I took the marriage certificate into the kitchen.
I laid it on the table.
I imagined Jeremy walking through the door and seeing it.
I imagined his face.
I imagined screaming.
Throwing dishes.
Demanding answers.
Then Bonnie’s words came back.
Don’t do it until you’ve had time to think.
So I put the certificate in the flour canister.
Nobody uses the flour canister except me.
Jeremy thinks biscuits come from a tube.
Then I did something I’d never done in eighteen years of marriage.
I searched my husband’s things.
Not casually.
Not looking for a missing charger.
I searched.
His dresser.
His nightstand.
His closet.
The pockets of every jacket.
The shoebox where he keeps tax documents.
Nothing.
Then I went outside to the shed.
Jeremy has an old metal toolbox under his workbench.
He keeps roofing receipts in it.
I found invoices.
Nails.
Work gloves.
Three old phones.
And a Vanderbilt hospital visitor badge.
My hands started shaking.
The badge was dated eight months earlier.
Patient floor: Oncology.
Visitor:
JEREMY TOLLEY.
I sat down on an upside-down bucket.
Oncology.
Lacey’s scarf in Kroger.
Ginger ale.
Her thin face.
The hospital parking stub.
The photograph of the hospital window.
Some promises arrive twenty years late.
Something shifted.
Not enough to make sense.
Just enough to make the story uglier and stranger at the same time.
Maybe she was sick.
Obviously she was sick.
But illness didn’t explain a marriage license.
Illness didn’t make bigamy legal.
Illness didn’t explain three years of Tuesday nights.
I picked up one of the old phones.
Dead.
The second was cracked.
The third turned on.
No password.
My heart pounded.
The screen was almost empty.
No active service.
No apps except the factory ones.
Then I opened photos.
There were nine.
All from three years ago.
The first was black.
The second showed Jeremy’s work boots.
The third made my stomach drop.
Lacey.
She was sitting in a hospital bed.
Her hair was shorter then.
Her face was pale.
But she was smiling.
Jeremy sat beside her.
Their hands were together on top of the blanket.
His wedding ring was visible.
My wedding ring.
Photo four showed a small white cake.
No decorations except two plastic rings.
Photo five showed Bonnie.
I nearly dropped the phone.
Bonnie was younger by three years, but it was her.
She stood beside the hospital bed holding paperwork.
So Bonnie hadn’t merely found the record.
She’d been there.
She knew.
I shot to my feet.
“What the hell?”
I whispered.
Photo six.
Jeremy kissing Lacey’s forehead.
Photo seven.
Lacey asleep.
Photo eight.
A close-up of two hands.
His.
Hers.
Both wearing rings.
Then photo nine.
I couldn’t understand it at first.
It was a photograph of a document.
I enlarged it.
The top line said:
ADVANCE DIRECTIVE.
Below that:
LACEY ANN BURCHAM.
And farther down, under the section for designated health care agent:
Jeremy Lee Tolley.
My husband.
I heard the garage door.
I nearly screamed.
Jeremy was home.
Two hours early.
I shoved the phone into my pocket.
The kitchen door opened.
“Jill?”
I froze in the shed.
“Jill-girl?”
His footsteps came across the kitchen.
Then stopped.
A moment later, the back door opened.
“You out here?”
I grabbed the visitor badge and shoved it into my pocket beside the phone.
Then I closed the toolbox.
Too late.
Jeremy appeared in the shed doorway.
He looked at me.
Then at the toolbox.
Then back at me.
Neither of us spoke.
His face changed.
Just slightly.
But I saw it.
Fear.
Not guilt.
Fear.
“Why are you home?” he asked.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
He glanced toward my car.
“You didn’t go to work?”
“I did.”
He waited.
“What happened?”
“They fired me.”
His face fell.
“Jesus, Jill.”
He stepped toward me.
I stepped back.
That hurt him.
I saw it.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“That thing where you say nothing when there’s clearly something.”
I almost laughed.
The hypocrisy was so enormous it didn’t fit in the shed.
He stared at the toolbox again.
Then his eyes came back to mine.
“What were you looking for?”
I decided right then not to show him the certificate.
Not yet.
“Extension cord.”
“That’s in the garage.”
“I forgot.”
Jeremy didn’t believe me.
I could see it.
But he nodded.
“Okay.”
He walked back toward the house.
At the door, he stopped.
Without turning around, he said, “Did somebody call you today?”
Every hair on my arms stood up.
“Who would call me?”
He turned.
For a second, neither of us moved.
Then Jeremy forced a smile.
“Nobody.”
That night he made dinner.
Jeremy never makes dinner unless hamburgers on a grill count.
He made spaghetti.
The sauce came from a jar.
He burned the garlic bread.
Caleb talked about a girl named Emma through most of dinner.
I barely heard him.
Jeremy barely spoke.
Every few minutes, I caught him watching me.
After Caleb went upstairs, Jeremy started washing dishes.
I stood at the kitchen island.
“Who is Rick?”
His hands stopped in the sink.
“What?”
“Your buddy in Nashville.”
“You know Rick.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I’ve told you about him.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
He turned the faucet off.
“What’s happening, Jill?”
“Give me his last name.”
Jeremy dried his hands slowly.
“Why?”
“Because you’ve worked with this man every Tuesday for three years and I’ve never met him.”
“Rick Halpern.”
“Phone number?”
He stared at me.
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
He reached for his phone.
My heart started pounding.
Then he stopped.
“I don’t like this.”
“Neither do I.”
“What happened at work today?”
“Nothing that has anything to do with Rick.”
“Then why are you interrogating me?”
“Phone number.”
He gave me one.
I typed it into my phone.
I didn’t call.
Not yet.
Jeremy watched me.
“Happy?”
“No.”
I walked upstairs.
At 10:30, he came to bed.
He lay beside me without touching me.
I pretended to sleep.
At 11:12, his breathing changed.
At 11:40, I heard a vibration.
Not his normal phone.
A different vibration.
Short.
Twice.
Jeremy got out of bed.
I kept my eyes closed.
He stood there for several seconds.
Then he walked into the bathroom.
The door clicked shut.
I sat up.
Light showed underneath.
I could hear his voice.
Barely.
“No.”
Pause.
“I can’t tonight.”
Pause.
“I know.”
Longer pause.
Then:
“She doesn’t know.”
My blood went cold.
Another pause.
Jeremy whispered something I couldn’t hear.
Then louder:
“I said I’ll handle it.”
He came out five minutes later.
I was lying down again.
He slipped into bed.
I waited until his breathing settled.
At 1:07 a.m., I went downstairs.
I took the old phone from my pocket.
I took the marriage certificate from the flour canister.
I sat at the kitchen table.
Then I searched the phone again.
This time I checked text messages.
There was only one thread.
No contact name.
Just a number.
The messages were three years old.
The first one was from Jeremy.
I’m here.
The reply:
Room 614.
Then:
Did you bring it?
Jeremy:
Yes.
Reply:
And Jill?
Jeremy:
She doesn’t know.
My hands went numb.
I kept scrolling.
There weren’t many messages.
Most were practical.
Medication.
Appointment times.
Hospital rooms.
Then I reached the day of the marriage license.
Lacey:
Are you sure?
Jeremy:
I promised you.
Lacey:
Not about the promise.
About her.
Jeremy:
She can never know.
Lacey:
She deserves to know.
Jeremy:
No.
Lacey:
Jeremy.
Jeremy:
I won’t let this destroy her too.
I stared at those words.
Destroy me too?
Too?
What had destroyed Lacey?
Cancer?
Losing Jeremy?
Something else?
The next message came from Lacey.
If I don’t make it, tell Caleb the truth.
I stopped.
Caleb.
My son.
My sixteen-year-old son.
I read it again.
If I don’t make it, tell Caleb the truth.
There are sentences that frighten you.
And then there are sentences that divide your life into before and after.
I couldn’t move.
My thumb hovered above the screen.
Jeremy’s response was underneath.
I almost didn’t want to read it.
But I did.
No. He’s sixteen. He doesn’t need to carry what we did.
Lacey:
He has a right to know.
Jeremy:
Jill is his mother.
Lacey:
I know.
Jeremy:
Then leave it alone.
Lacey:
You promised me.
Jeremy:
I promised I’d take care of you.
Lacey:
That’s not the promise I’m talking about.
My heart was beating so hard I could hear it.
Caleb was born in 2010.
Two years after Jeremy and I married.
Lacey had supposedly been gone for six years by then.
What truth could she possibly have about my son?
I scrolled.
The next several messages were missing.
Deleted, maybe.
Then one final message remained.
From Lacey.
Three years ago.
Two days after the marriage license.
Thank you for giving me my name back.
Jeremy never replied.
I sat there until nearly three in the morning.
Then I did the one thing I should have done that afternoon.
I opened Facebook Messenger.
I found Dana Burcham.
And this time I didn’t delete the message.
My name is Jill Tolley.
I’m Jeremy’s wife.
I found the marriage license.
I know he married Lacey.
And I found messages mentioning my son Caleb.
Please tell me what is happening.
I pressed send.
The message showed delivered.
I waited.
Nothing.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Twenty.
At 3:26 a.m., three dots appeared.
Dana was typing.
Then they disappeared.
Then appeared again.
Finally, one message came through.
Jill, I have been waiting three years for you to find out.
My mouth went dry.
Another message appeared.
Do not confront Jeremy yet.
Then another.
There are things you need to see before he knows you know.
I typed:
Is Lacey alive?
The typing dots appeared.
Stopped.
Appeared again.
Dana answered:
Yes.
I covered my mouth.
Lacey was alive.
I typed:
Is she still sick?
Dana:
Very.
Me:
Why did she marry my husband?
No answer.
I waited.
Dana started typing again.
Then stopped.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I nearly dropped it.
I answered in a whisper.
“Hello?”
A woman breathed on the other end.
“Jill?”
I knew that voice.
Older.
Weaker.
But I knew it.
“Lacey?”
She began crying.
Not loudly.
The kind of crying someone does when they’ve spent years trying not to.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
I couldn’t speak.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Why did you marry my husband?”
Silence.
“Answer me.”
“I can’t tell you over the phone.”
“You’ve had my husband every Tuesday for three years, and now you can’t tell me over the phone?”
“No.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
“Jill—”
“Did you?”
“No.”
I laughed.
It came out ugly.
“You married him but you didn’t sleep with him?”
“It’s not what you think.”
“People always say that when it’s exactly what you think.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“It is so much worse than what you think.”
I went completely still.
“What does Caleb have to do with you?”
Nothing.
“Lacey.”
She started crying again.
“What does my son have to do with you?”
“Jeremy made me promise.”
“I don’t care what Jeremy made you promise.”
“You will.”
“What does that mean?”
She took a shaky breath.
“Can you come to Nashville tomorrow?”
“Why?”
“Because there’s something here you need to see.”
“What?”
“Something Jeremy has kept from you since before Caleb was born.”
I gripped the phone.
“Tell me now.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I’m hanging up.”
“Wait.”
I stopped.
Lacey’s voice dropped almost to a whisper.
“Jill, do you remember the night you came to Nashville in February 2009?”
My stomach tightened.
I remembered.
Of course I remembered.
It was the night Jeremy and I had our worst fight.
The night I’d driven away from our apartment and disappeared until morning.
I’d told Jeremy I’d slept at my cousin’s house.
I hadn’t.
I had gone to Nashville.
But there was no possible way Lacey could know that.
“How do you know about that?”
I whispered.
Lacey didn’t answer immediately.
When she finally did, her next words made the kitchen seem to tilt around me.
“Because, Jill…”
She took a breath.
“…you came to see me.”
