CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
NORA
Summer
Rhett's championship ring arrives in a box large enough to contain ego permanently.
He places it beside our wedding rings for one photograph, then locks it away.
"You don't want to wear it?" I ask.
"It weighs more than a small child."
Summer slows the city. We open the foundation's expanded girls' program. My second book enters production. The new house collects marks: a dent in the hallway from moving a desk, sauce on the kitchen wall, skate scratches near the back door.
One afternoon, I find Rhett in my studio hanging a framed photograph.
"Unannounced entry," I say.
He freezes on the ladder. "The door was open."
"Still requires invitation."
He climbs down immediately. "You're right. I am sorry. I thought because it is in our house—"
"The studio is my work space."
"Yes. I should have asked."
The apology is clean. No claim that intention cancels boundary.
I look at the photograph he was hanging.
The dead red light on one side. Our engagement hands on the other. The double-sided print from the wedding, placed in a glass frame that allows both images to be seen.
"Why here?" I ask.
"I thought it belonged with the work. That was not my decision to make."
I consider the wall.
"Ask me."
"May I hang it here?"
"Yes. Lower. The light reflects at that height."
He adjusts it under instruction.
Marriage does not make boundaries unnecessary.
It gives us more opportunities to practice them.