CHAPTER NINE
NORA
Day Five
Rhett's first playoff game begins at seven.
At six fifty-eight, Maren finds me rearranging the same stack of photographs for the third time.
"Your television is off," she observes.
"It often is."
"During a Breakers playoff game?"
"I contain multitudes."
She turns it on.
The arena fills the screen, bright and roaring. Rhett skates out last because captains always do. His face appears in close-up, controlled enough to fool anyone who has never watched him sleep.
I know the small signs. The flex of his left hand means anxiety. The way he presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek means anger. Tonight he does both.
The commentator mentions "a difficult week off the ice."
Maren mutes the television.
"Thank you."
"I did it for me. Sports metaphors are a threat to language."
The puck drops.
For twenty minutes, Rhett plays as if motion can outrun consequence. He is fast, brutal, exact. He assists the first goal and blocks a shot that catches him above the boot. When he limps to the bench, my body moves forward before I stop it.
Maren sees.
She says nothing.
In the second period, he takes a hit into the boards. His helmet snaps against the glass. I am standing before the replay begins.
He gets up.
Of course he gets up.
"Sit down," Maren says.
"He hit his head."
"The medical staff has eyes."
"They also have a playoff schedule."
Rhett argues with the trainer, then disappears down the tunnel. The camera follows until the feed returns to the game.
My phone remains silent.
It should. I required silence.
I hate my own rules for working.
Eight minutes later, he returns. The broadcast reports that the hit was shoulder-first and he cleared evaluation. He scores with forty-two seconds left.
The arena explodes.
I do not breathe until the final horn.
During the postgame interview, a reporter tries to ask about me. Rhett says, "Tonight belongs to the team," and walks away.
Maren unmutes the television. "Reasonable again. Disturbing pattern."
I pick up my laptop.
Ingrid has sent a welcome packet and a proposed itinerary. Stockholm. Helsinki. Tampere. Oslo. Troms?. Places I once marked in travel magazines and then forgot to want.
A second email waits beneath it.
NorthStar Sportswear would like to discuss a confidential resolution regarding recent unauthorized references to my private life. Their attorney uses words like goodwill and mutual benefit. The attached number is more than I earned last year.
In exchange, I must agree not to discuss the brand's request that Rhett appear unmarried.
I forward it to Maren.
She reads in silence.
"They are paying for your signature," she says.
"They paid for my absence first."
"Do you want to negotiate?"
I imagine buying new equipment for the rink with the money. Travel grants. Tutors. A repaired roof.
Then I imagine every child in the program learning that humiliation can be converted into funding if the check is large enough.
"No."
Maren's mouth curves. "I hoped you'd say that. I drafted a rejection while you were staring at the television."
Later, alone in the guest room, I open the audio folder on my phone.
There are hundreds of recordings. Interviews. Arena ambience. Eli laughing in a video I converted after his death. Rhett leaving messages from hotel rooms because sometimes hearing him was the only way I could sleep.
I find one dated eighteen months ago.
Our wedding night.
The recording begins with fabric rustling and my own laughter.
"Why are you recording this?" Rhett asks.
"Because you refused a videographer."
"We got married in a courthouse with a clerk named Bob."
"Robert. He was very formal."
Then Rhett's voice, closer to the phone:
"Nora Bennett, I have loved you since you insulted my slap shot and stole my fries.
I will love you when hockey is finished with me.
I will love you when no one knows my name.
I will love you badly sometimes, because I am stubborn and frightened and not nearly as controlled as I pretend.
But I will keep learning how to love you better. "
In the recording, I go quiet.
Then I whisper, "That's not fair. Mine was about tax benefits."
He laughs and kisses me.
I stop the audio.
He warned me he would love me badly.
I mistook self-awareness for protection.
My thumb hovers over his contact. I want to ask whether his shoulder hurts. I want to tell him NorthStar tried to buy my silence. I want him to know I accepted the job.
Wanting is not the same as choosing.
I set the phone facedown.
Then I take my wedding ring from the pocket of my camera bag and place it in the drawer beside the signed contract.
Not on my finger.
Not discarded.
Evidence can wait until the rest of the story is developed.