CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
NORA
Six Months Married
The first crisis of our second marriage is not dramatic enough for television.
My publisher moves a London exhibition to the same week as Rhett's championship final.
Neither event can move again.
We stand in the kitchen with calendars open, the old fear arriving before either of us speaks. In the first marriage, I would have canceled London before he asked. Then I would have resented him through every game.
Rhett looks at the dates. "You should go."
"You answered too quickly."
"Because I know what I want for you."
"What do you want for yourself?"
He leans against the counter. "I want my wife in the arena. I want to look up and see you. I am disappointed you may not be there."
The honesty hurts and helps.
"I want to be there," I say. "I also want the exhibition."
"Then we stop treating one desire as evidence against the other."
We examine flights. If the London opening ends on time, I can reach Stoneharbor before game two, not game one. Weather may interfere.
"Game two," he says.
"What if you win in one?"
"A championship series does not work that way."
"I photograph hockey, not mathematics."
We laugh, tension releasing.
At Amara's suggestion, we create a plan and name the feelings beneath it. Rhett feels abandoned by the timing, not by me. I feel guilty, not coerced. Neither feeling gets to control the schedule.
In London, I stand before a wall of my work while game one begins across the ocean. Rhett's mother streams it on a tablet behind the gallery desk. Ingrid pretends this violates no professional norm.
The Breakers lose.
Rhett calls after media.
"The exhibition?" he asks first.
"Sold out. The game?"
"Terrible."
"I saw."
"You were supposed to lie."
"Second marriage, fewer lies."
My flight leaves at dawn.
I arrive at the arena before game two with my suitcase still in the car.
Rhett sees me during warmups.
Two fingers to his heart.
I answer.
Not because I sacrificed London.
Because I found a way to choose both.