CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
RHETT
The Night Before Opening
The media lab is finished at eleven forty-three the night before opening.
Nora and I stand in the main studio surrounded by new cameras, clean tables, and the smell of paint that the contractor claims is harmless. On the wall hangs a code written by the first student advisory group:
ASK BEFORE YOU TAKE. LISTEN BEFORE YOU FRAME. PEOPLE ARE NOT CONTENT.
Theo added a fourth line in smaller handwriting.
SNACKS ARE FOR EVERYONE.
Nora photographs the sign.
"Last image before opening," she says.
"You have said that seven times."
"Each was true at the time."
We walk through the rooms, checking locks and labels. The darkroom glows red. For months, red lights meant rupture in my mind. Here, the light protects images while they develop.
Nora notices me staring.
"Different meaning," she says.
"Same color."
"Context matters."
"It did not save what I said."
"No. But it changes what we do with memory."
In the editing room, we sit side by side at a long table. The building is silent. Through the windows, the rink lights reflect on wet pavement.
"I have a question," Nora says.
Her tone makes my body prepare for impact before I remind it we are not under attack.
"Ask."
"Do you still think about children?"
We discussed the question during long-distance dates, then postponed it consciously while the new marriage settled. Not avoidance. Timing chosen together.
"Yes," I say. "Not as proof we are permanent. Not because everyone expects it. I think I would like to be a father. I am also afraid I would make usefulness the price of love without noticing."
She turns her chair toward me. "I am afraid I would become indispensable and disappear into it."
"We could decide no."
"We could."
"We could decide later."
"We could."
"We could speak to Amara before either decision."
She smiles. "Spreadsheets?"
"Extremely intimate ones."
Her hand finds mine. "I think I want to try. Not immediately. Maybe next year. I want the conversation to exist without becoming a promise we cannot reconsider."
Hope enters differently now. It does not demand a nursery or a timeline. It sits beside uncertainty and allows both chairs to remain occupied.
"I think I want that too," I say.
We make no announcement. We do not tell our mothers, who would weaponize enthusiasm. We write a note for our next therapy session and leave the future where it belongs: open, shared, and not yet decided.
At midnight, Nora turns off the studio lights. Only the red darkroom lamp remains behind the glass.
"Ready?" she asks.
I lock the door and place the key in her hand.
She is the executive director. The lab is foundation property. The gesture is operational, not symbolic.
It feels symbolic anyway.
"You keep it," she says. "We each have access."
I add the key to my ring.
Not ownership.
Responsibility.
Outside, rain begins lightly over Stoneharbor. We walk to the car beneath one umbrella, neither of us pretending the other is not there.