CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
RHETT
Month Five
My mother leaves surgery with a plate in her ankle and a new commitment to insulting hospital food.
Nora video-calls during recovery. Mom tells her the surgeon is twelve and cannot possibly be licensed. Nora asks the surgeon his age when he enters. He is forty-one and delighted.
For three days, I stay in my mother's apartment. I cook, clean, and learn that care is easier when the person receiving it is allowed to remain in charge.
Nora and I reschedule our date for Sunday.
She appears on-screen from a rented cottage beside a fjord. Behind her, mountains rise from dark water. She has completed the principal photography. The final month will be editing, interviews, and exhibition preparation.
"I come home in five weeks," she says.
Home.
She says it without defining the address.
I keep my reaction from becoming pressure. "Stoneharbor should prepare."
"It has survived worse."
"Do you know where you'll stay?"
"Maren's guest room initially. Then I may rent a place near the studio."
The answer hurts.
I let it.
"The penthouse remains available," I say. "Not as an invitation to resume anything. Just access to your property."
"I know. Thank you."
We eat dinner together through screens. I tell her about Lucas volunteering at the clinic whenever Sloane is present and claiming coincidence. Nora tells me Adrian has started dating a Swedish editor who corrects him publicly.
"You sound pleased," I say.
"I support editorial standards."
After dinner, she asks, "What do you want when I return?"
I have rehearsed versions of the answer.
"I want to keep dating. I want ordinary time. Grocery stores. Your studio. My games when you choose. I want to meet with a couples therapist before we discuss living together. I want you to have your own place as long as you need it."
"Do you want to remarry?"
My heart strikes hard.
"Eventually, yes. Not because divorce was a mistake. Because I want to build a different marriage if we prove we can sustain a different relationship."
She is quiet.
"What do you want?" I ask.
"I want not to know yet."
"Okay."
"That doesn't disappoint you?"
"It does. Disappointment is not an emergency."
Her eyes shine.
"Sloane said that?"
"No. I may be developing independent thoughts."
"Concerning."
We end the date with both of us tired and smiling.
Five weeks feels longer than an off-season.
It is also finite.
I have learned the difference between waiting and postponing.
Waiting respects a future decision.
Postponing avoids one.