CHAPTER SEVENTY
RHETT
Wedding Day
The rink smells like sharpened steel and eucalyptus.
Nora chose both.
Rows of chairs face center ice. Clear flooring covers the surface so guests can walk safely while the ice remains visible beneath us.
Eli's old hockey bag rests beside a framed photograph near the entrance.
My mother places grocery-store flowers in glass jars, a deliberate echo of our first wedding.
Lucas stands beside me as best man, wearing a proper tie under threat.
"You understand," he says, "that remarrying the same woman is statistically inefficient."
"You dated the team psychologist and have spent a year pretending not to love her."
He looks toward Sloane, seated in the second row. "Today is not about me."
"Give it time," I say.
"What?"
"Nothing."
Music begins.
Nora enters with her mother.
I have seen her in stadium lights, hospital rooms, rain, snow, and the private blue of early mornings. Nothing prepares me for the way she looks walking toward me by choice.
Her dress is ivory. Her ring is already on her hand. She carries no bouquet, only one printed photograph.
When she reaches me, she shows it.
The dead red light above Camera Three.
The first photograph she took after hearing my words.
My breath catches.
She turns it over.
On the back, she has printed a second image: our hands on the rink boards the day we announced the engagement.
"Both are part of the story," she whispers.
"Yes."
Amara officiates because Bob Robert was unavailable and because no one understands the work better.
We wrote our own vows.
Nora goes first.
"Rhett, I do not promise to become smaller so our life feels stable. I promise to tell you when I need room, when I am angry, when I am proud, and when I choose you. I promise not to make usefulness the price of love. I promise to let our marriage be visible without making it public property."
My eyes blur.
I take her hands.
"Nora, I do not promise never to fail you.
I promise not to hide failure behind pressure, work, fear, or other people's expectations.
I promise to hear no without treating it as abandonment.
I promise to tell the truth before it becomes a crisis.
I promise to choose your freedom as part of loving you, not as a threat to it. "
Amara asks whether we enter this marriage freely.
"Yes," we say together.
The microphone is live.
So is the truth.