Chapter 5 - “You're asking me?”
“I have been strongly advised to start doing that.”
“By a very wise woman.”
“Yes.”
I looked down the street.
“I don't want an annulment.”
Declan did not move.
I glanced at him.
His face had become completely still.
“You can react.”
“I am attempting not to influence your decision.”
“Declan.”
His breath escaped in something close to laughter.
“Sorry.”
“I said I don't want an annulment.”
“Why?”
“Because I don't know yet whether our marriage was a mistake.”
He absorbed that carefully.
“That sounds less encouraging than I hoped.”
“It gets better.”
“All right.”
“But I don't want to continue the marriage we've had.”
His expression softened.
“Neither do I.”
“I want a beginning.”
“A beginning.”
“Yes.”
“After eighteen months.”
“We're unconventional.”
“That is one word for it.”
“I want dates.”
He blinked.
“Dates?”
“You know. Dinner. Coffee. Walking somewhere without six people following us.”
“Donovan will object.”
“Donovan can survive.”
“Probably.”
“I want separate finances for anything unrelated to the household.”
“Done.”
“I want access to every legal document involving my name.”
“Of course.”
“I want my own work.”
“What kind?”
I thought about my mother's fund.
“I don't know yet.”
For the first time, not knowing felt exciting rather than frightening.
Declan nodded.
“And?”
“And if you have something to say to me, say it.”
“All right.”
“If you're jealous, say you're jealous.”
His expression became guarded.
“That seems unnecessarily specific.”
I smiled.
“Were you jealous of Colin?”
Declan looked away.
“Declan.”
“Yes.”
“How jealous?”
He sighed.
“Enough to attend an art opening.”
I laughed.
People passing us glanced over.
I did not care.
“Good,” I said.
“Good?”
“That's more honest than anything you said during our first year.”
“Then I was extremely jealous.”
“Better.”
“He touched your arm.”
“For two seconds.”
“They were a very long two seconds.”
I laughed again.
This time, Declan did too.
And there, on an ordinary sidewalk in Chicago, our arranged marriage finally experienced its first normal argument.
It felt wonderful.
Three weeks later, I saw Lake Geneva for the first time.
The cottage sat beyond a line of old maple trees, smaller than I had imagined from the photographs.
White siding.
Green shutters.
A porch facing the water.
Behind it stood the studio my mother had built.
Tessa came with me.
So did Margaret.
Declan stayed in Chicago because I told him I wanted to see the place first without him.
He did not argue.
Inside the studio, my mother had left shelves filled with exhibition catalogs and notebooks.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing that transformed my understanding of the universe.
Just evidence of a life.
Her life.
Ideas she had never completed.
Artists she wanted to support.
A list titled Things Nora Might Love When She's Older.
Tessa read over my shoulder.
“Number four: a room with terrible lighting where she can argue about paintings.”
I laughed.
“She knew you were going to own a gallery.”
“Technically I rent one.”
“You're ruining the moment.”
We spent the weekend going through everything.
By Sunday, I knew what I wanted to do.
The Bellweather Arts Fund had been inactive for years.
I reopened it.
Not as a monument to my mother.
She would have hated anything that solemn.
Instead, we created small grants for emerging artists and community programs.
Tessa agreed to serve on the advisory board.
Margaret became legal counsel.
Colin contributed the first outside donation in his mother's name.
When I told Declan, he said, “How much do you need?”
I looked at him.
He corrected himself immediately.
“Would you like me to contribute?”
Progress.
“Yes,” I said. “But not enough to name anything after yourself.”
“I wasn't going to.”
“You bought a forty-two-thousand-dollar sculpture.”
“I was emotionally compromised.”
“You're learning useful phrases.”
Our first actual date happened two nights later.
No private dining room.
No formal club.
No convoy.
Just a small Italian restaurant where the waiter did not recognize either of us.
Declan looked uncomfortable for the first twenty minutes.
Not because the restaurant was beneath him.
Because neither of us knew how to behave.
I finally put down my fork.
“This is ridiculous.”
“I agree.”
“We're married.”
“Legally.”
“We've eaten breakfast across from each other five hundred times.”
“Five hundred and forty-eight when this began.”
“You counted?”
“So did you.”
I smiled.
“Fine. Ask me something.”
“What?”
“Anything you don't know about me.”
He thought seriously.
Then asked, “Why did you change your major in college?”
I froze.
It was the exact choice my mother had defended in her letter.
“Because economics made sense to me,” I said. “And art didn't.”
Declan frowned.
“So you chose art?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted one thing in my life I couldn't reduce to an answer.”
He considered that.
“I like that.”
“My turn.”
“All right.”
“Why do you read the entire newspaper every morning?”
“I don't.”
May you like
I stared.
“What?”
