Everything After(22)

Ari sighed. “It’s possible,” she said. “But it’s also possible that what happened in college is completely unrelated to what’s happening now. You fell out of a tree. You were taking painkillers. You were getting high. It’s not entirely surprising that you miscarried then. And that was at, what, six weeks? So a different time marker.”

It was five weeks and six days.

“What about now, though?” Emily asked, her voice small. “I did everything right. I feel like I studied and studied for a test that I somehow failed.” That was the part that scared her the most. She could do everything right and still miscarry.

“Maybe you just weren’t meant to have this particular baby at this particular point in time,” Ari said. “Maybe it’s like Mom said—everything that happens is exactly what’s supposed to happen.”

“But I want to be a mom,” Emily said, tears overflowing her eyes. “I want to be a mom now. I waited until Ezra was ready, and . . . I want to be a mom.”

“I know,” Ari said, gathering her sister in her arms. “I know you do.”

And while it didn’t change what had happened, just being in her sister’s embrace made Emily feel better. It made her feel like at some point she would learn how to live with this loss the way she had learned to live with so many others. And that, no matter what, she could count on her sister to be there, helping her along the way.





xvii



I went back to school after winter break, but nothing felt the same. I was grieving a loss I refused to acknowledge, and one I did—the loss of my ability to play piano, at least for a while.

Your dad found a guy who could play the keyboard, but I still went on stage to sing. The bars that booked us had booked us because of the demo that had us performing together. They’d booked both of us. So I sang. I sang backup, I sang harmonies your dad wrote for me. I sang in our duet finale, which was a hit every night. I was performing, but I felt weird without an instrument, wrong. When I told your dad, he gave me a tambourine. I felt even weirder with the tambourine.

Also, the keyboardist was a jerk. I’m not just saying that. He really was. He showed up late for call, he took smoke breaks instead of hanging out with the rest of the guys. No one liked him, even if he was a great musician. Your dad and I were both counting down the days until my cast came off. I kept thinking that once it did, everything would go back to normal. I would be happier, your dad would chill out a little, things would be the way they were before. Of course, we hadn’t figured out what came next, what the next year would look like, whether I would stay in school, but we were so focused on my hand getting better that we couldn’t see that far.



* * *



—

    “You’ll need some physical therapy,” the doctor told me when he took the cast off.

Underneath the fiberglass, my arm and hand had atrophied. It looked small and pale and weak next to my other hand.

“I’m ready to work,” I told him.

“That’s my queen,” your dad said.

And I did work. I worked so hard.

But a body can only heal so much, so fast.





20



Two days later, Emily could tell that Ezra was irritated that she still hadn’t gone back to work. It wasn’t what she expected from him. And she wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

“This isn’t good for you,” he said. “You can’t wallow. Your patients need you. Once you’re there, you’ll forget. It’ll be so much easier. Seriously, I know what I’m talking about.”

“Next week,” Emily said. She was beginning her third reread of The Red Tent. She knew what she was talking about, too. And while she respected intellectually that Ezra dealt with loss and grief differently than she did, she couldn’t help but feel hurt that he wasn’t more upset, that he said she was wallowing. Their baby had died. Inside her. She needed time to mourn. And he was acting like it was just a blip on the radar. To her, it felt like a jet fighter had just dropped a bomb on their city.

“Don’t forget my parents are coming,” Ezra said. “For the hospital fund-raiser.”

Emily had forgotten. Both about her in-laws coming and also about the fund-raiser. It was a yearly gala that benefitted the children’s hospital, and Ezra had been going for as long as he had worked there. His parents, looking for reasons to come visit their only child now that they were retired, had been coming for the past couple of years.

Emily wanted to say, I’m not going, but she could tell that Ezra wouldn’t take that well. Especially after he’d basically just told her to get over herself so things could get back to normal already. There was nothing that bothered him more than self-indulgence, and she could tell he was thinking her behavior was bordering on that and would give her a lecture if she told him she wanted to stay home. So she didn’t.

“Right,” she said. “Are they staying at the Gregory Hotel again?”

Ezra nodded. “So are we. Remember? They liked the convenience so much last year, heading right up to bed once the event was over, that they booked us a room, too. I’ll throw some stuff in a duffel later. Don’t forget to pack your bag. I think it’ll be good for you to get out of here tonight.”