The Marriage Expiration Date

For a hundred years, every marriage certificate in America has carried a second date: the day the love runs out. Lena Marsh has issued thousands of them, and in seven days her own marriage reaches its date. When the spring flood ruins the county registry, the city hires her estranged husband, Sam, to rebuild it while she rescues the soaked records inside. Then a widow brings in a certificate that no longer says what it said the day she married, and Lena has to ask what the dates were ever really worth, and whether she'd have wanted to know.

Content notes: Dark themes and violence · Grief and bereavement · Intense marital conflict and emotional estrangement · Institutional betrayal · Non-explicit (closed-door) sexual content

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