"Remember when Nora thought she was ready for work?" Mei asked without looking up.
"I remember every second," Marcus said.
Mei set a folded towel on the pile. "I used to wish I could erase it. Now I think erasing it would erase the part where we learned how to stay."
Marcus crossed the room. Tall, athletic, deep brown skin, short wave-cut touched with a little more silver than before, dark eyes that had learned softness again without forgetting vigilance, lined beard, wedding band. Pale-blue shirt, sleeves rolled. Charcoal trousers. He took the next towel from her hands and folded it with her, an ordinary intimacy that would have meant nothing to a stranger and meant everything to them.
"Stay is a long word," he said.
"We're still inside it," Mei answered.
Outside, early evening gathered again in gold. Inside, the wedding photographs kept their vigil. The pale oak nightstands held books and water glasses and a small dish where Marcus dropped his keys. The walk-in closet stood open on clothes that belonged. No navy silk waited to be found by a child playing dress-up. No white dress shirt hung like a rumor.