Chapter 3: Nothing Signed on the Wall

Nora’s POV

I packed in fifty-one minutes.

Two suitcases, a garment bag, and one box. The box held my skates, the training logs from 2014 through 2019, and my music.

Most of the clothes stayed in the closet. I pushed the hangers together to make the gaps less obvious, then stopped.

I didn’t need to do that anymore.

I took off my ring in Ethan’s study and put it on the blotter beside his pen tray. He would have to move it the next time he sat down to sign something.

I was taping the box shut when the front door opened.

“Nora. My dear.”

Eleanor stopped in the foyer, looking at the luggage.

Our Wednesday breakfast was apparently no longer soon enough.

“Have you eaten anything since Aspen?”

“I had coffee on the plane.”

“That is not food.”

She put her handbag on the bench and sat down.

“Ethan called me at seven this morning. He said you were exhausted. In thirty-five years, I’ve rarely heard him notice that about anyone.”

“He slept on the plane.”

“Yes. After telling me you’d spoken to a lawyer.” She pulled off her gloves. “The Sixty-Third Street apartment is empty. Two bedrooms, a discreet doorman, and the school bus stops at the corner. Nobody’s used it since March.”

I put down the tape.

“That’s generous.”

“My husband bought the building in 1978. Letting you use an empty apartment hardly qualifies as generosity.”

“What would you want me to do?”

She folded one glove over the other.

“Thursday. The foundation dinner. Two hundred guests, forty from the press. If you don’t go, Ethan walks in alone.”

I waited.

“Go with him,” she said. “You don’t have to move back into this house. I’m asking for four hours.”

“As his wife.”

“Yes.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Then go as Sophie’s mother. Let people think what they like.”

“No.”

“Why?”

I looked at the keys she had taken from her handbag.

It would be easy. A room for Sophie, no rent to worry about, no scrambling to find somewhere near her school.

And when the next invitation came, I would remember who had given me the keys.

“Because I’d owe you Thursday,” I said. “And the next time you asked, I’d still be living in your apartment.”

Eleanor laid the keys beside her.

For a while, neither of us spoke. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, and her fingers trembled. When she caught me looking, she lowered her hand.

“I’m seventy-eight, Nora. I won’t be here to referee this forever. Whatever you and Ethan decide, I’d like you to say it in front of me. Before you hand it over to men who charge you for every six minutes.”

“I’ll bring Sophie to see you every Sunday.”

“I can already see Sophie on Sundays.”

I looked down at the tape dispenser.

She stood.

“You aren’t doing this to punish him, are you?”

“I just want to be able to sleep.”

She picked up her handbag and carried the keys to the kitchen counter.

I didn’t reach for them.

She left them there anyway.

I watched her walk to the elevator with her gloves in one hand. Only after the door closed did I finish taping the box.

Vivienne called while I was carrying it into the hall.

“You left him. On your birthday. Please tell me you left him on your birthday.”

“I spoke to a lawyer. Nothing’s been filed.”

“Fine. I’ll save the celebration for the paperwork. You’re still coming here tonight?”

“If you’re sure.”

“Nora. I said you could stay.”

“I know. I just don’t know how long—”

“Six weeks.”

Something clattered at her end.

“You buy groceries. You take out the trash. In April, we sit down and have a conversation neither of us is going to enjoy.”

I rested the box against my hip.

“Vivienne.”

“I mean it about April. I love you, but you’re going to have to figure out what your work is worth and charge people for it.”

“Six weeks,” I said.

“And no thanking me more than twice a day. It makes me itch.”

The old training center was thirty-one minutes from the apartment I’d turned down.

Margaret was on the ice with a group of nine-year-olds. She saw me at the boards and looked down at my shoes before meeting my eyes.

Then she blew her whistle.

“Laps. Keep your spacing.”

She led me to her office without taking off her skates.

My photograph was still on the wall. Third row, fourth from the left. It had been there for nine years.

The glass was clean.

“You’re coaching somewhere?” she asked, sitting down.

“No. That’s why I’m here.”

I kept my coat over my arm.

“I need a recommendation. Or a morning group, if you have one. Four- and five-year-olds. Six a.m. Whatever ice nobody else wants.”

Margaret took off her glasses.

“You haven’t taught a class since 2020.”

“I know.”

“No clinics. No camps. Not even a summer.”

“I know, Margaret.”

“What do you want me to put in the letter?”

I had rehearsed asking for it. I hadn’t rehearsed that.

“I can only vouch for what I’ve seen,” she said. “I watched you win a title. I watched you get hurt, get married, and stop returning my calls.”

I shifted my coat to my other arm.

“I remember the calls.”

“Do you want to teach, Nora? Or do you want to get back on the ice?”

“Both.”

She nodded once.

“I believe you. But they aren’t the same job.”

I looked at the empty chair in front of her desk. I’d been standing long enough that sitting down now felt awkward.

Margaret leaned back.

“Say it’s October. Sophie gets sick. You’ve got eleven girls coming in, qualifiers in three weeks, and you’re the only coach with a key. What do you do?”

I opened my mouth.

I could call Ethan. I could ask Vivienne. Neither had agreed to be available whenever I needed them.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Then I can’t give you that group.”

She pulled a pad toward her.

“You’ll need your association membership. A background check. All your SafeSport training completed before you work with the children. Current first aid and CPR certification. Liability coverage, a million per occurrence.”

Her pen kept moving.

“And rules education. You need to know what these girls will be judged on now, not what you remember from your last season.”

She tore off the page.

I took it.

“How long?”

“Allow six weeks. Nine if the background check gets held up.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Then bring me the certificates.”

“And the recommendation?”

She put her glasses back on.

“Bring me those and eleven weeks of showing up when you said you would. Then I’ll consider it.”

I pressed my thumb against the edge of the paper.

“You remember what I could do.”

“Exactly,” Margaret said. “I remember. I haven’t seen you work in six years.”

I folded the list and put it in my coat pocket.

On the way out, I passed my photograph again. I’d barely looked at it on the way in, embarrassed by how young I seemed.

This time, I stopped long enough to read my name.

Then I walked past the front desk. Nobody looked up.

I sat in the parking lot with the engine off.

Margaret’s list was still in my pocket. I didn’t need to unfold it again. I remembered enough.

Six weeks, if nothing went wrong.

Vivienne had given me six weeks.

I found Emily’s number and pressed Call before I could put the phone away.

She answered on the second ring.

“Nora Bennett. Oh my God.”

“Hi, Emily.”

“No. Don’t use that voice with me.” She laughed. A door closed at her end. “How long has it been? Four years? You never come up here anymore.”

“Five.”

Through the windshield, I could see the entrance to the center. I looked down at my lap.

“I need to ask you something. You can say no.”

“Ask.”

“I need a job. Mornings, if you have anything. Whatever ice you can spare. I need to start earning by the end of the month.”

She didn’t answer immediately.

I could hear running water behind her.

“Honestly? The timing’s strange,” she said at last. “Darrow just left for the New Jersey club. I’ve got forty kids, three coaches, and a manager on leave until the middle of next month.”

I sat up a little.

“So you might have something?”

“I might. Let me make a call. I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” I repeated.

After we hung up, I started the car.

For a few seconds, I let myself think about telling Vivienne I’d found work.

Then I felt Margaret’s list against my side.

Emily might have an opening.

I still had nothing to show her except what I used to be.