“You’re wasting your time, Tom,” Arthur said, planting himself in front of the counter with his arms folded across his chest.

“The stay order is being processed upstairs as we speak.”

I walked around him and laid our marriage application flat on the counter in front of the clerk.

“We need to file an emergency marriage license under section four,” I told her.

The clerk, an older woman named Mrs.

Gable who had come to our candlelight services for twenty years, peered over her reading glasses at the signatures.

“The filing fee is forty-five dollars, Pastor Tom,” she said quietly.