CHAPTER SIXTY
RHETT
Month Ten
I do not propose.
This requires planning.
The ring is in my safe: Nora's original wedding band, cleaned but unchanged, beside mine. I look at it once a week and close the door.
Sloane asks why I am waiting.
"Because I don't know whether remarriage is what Nora wants or whether I want a symbol that tells me the danger passed."
"Has the danger passed?"
"No. Relationships remain capable of ending."
"How does that feel?"
"Like weather. Real. Not controllable. Survivable."
She nods. "What could you ask instead of proposing?"
That evening, Nora and I walk from her studio to the harbor. I carry the book she signed. She carries two cameras because one is apparently loneliness.
At the pier, I say, "I want to talk about marriage."
She stops.
"No ring," I add. "No question requiring an answer tonight."
"All right."
"I want to marry you again someday. Not to erase the divorce. I want the second marriage to acknowledge that the first ended for a reason. I want vows we can actually practice. I want legal protections for your work, separate professional identities, and a home we choose together."
She listens without interrupting.
"I also want to know what you would need before considering it," I continue. "And whether considering it is something you want at all."
She looks toward the water.
"I need a full year," she says. "From the day of the leak. Not as punishment. I need to see every season. Playoffs, off-season, launch, regular season. I need the change to outlast crisis."
One year.
The anniversary is two months away.
"Okay."
"I want us to choose a home together if we remarry. The penthouse can be part of the decision, not the default."
"Okay."
"I want premarital counseling, even though we already failed advanced marriage."
"Okay."
She turns toward me. "You may disagree."
"I don't. But I want one thing."
"What?"
"When the year arrives, you ask yourself what you want. Not whether I have earned enough points. I don't want marriage as a reward for improved behavior."
Her eyes fill.
"Okay," she says.
No proposal.
No answer.
The most hopeful conversation of my life.