Everything After(28)

She closed her eyes and began to play—“Crystal Castle.” Her hands felt a little stiff, a little weak. The power she used to have in them, the strength, had lessened. Her fingers weren’t moving quickly, either. She slowed down the song’s pace, slid her foot onto the damper pedal, and then added harmony, the way she used to when she sang with him. Her right hand was playing both their vocal parts, or what she imagined her part would be in this new song. Her left was taking care of the guitar chords he strummed while he played.

With her eyes closed, Emily felt like she was inhabiting a world where music was all that existed. She became the music in a way she couldn’t explain. The sound was her and she was the sound, the rhythm, the vibrations. Everything she’d been feeling over the past few days came out through her fingers: the love, the despair, the guilt, the sorrow, the hope, the frustration, the pain. She got to the end of the song before she opened her eyes again, feeling as if the raging storm inside her had calmed.

When the world came back into focus, the pianist was standing next to the bench, a smile dancing across his lips, and there was a crowd around the piano—Ezra was there, and so were his parents, and a handful of his friends.

“I knew you could play,” the pianist said to her. “But I didn’t know you could play like that. Brava.”

As Emily smiled at him and thanked him for convincing her to give it a try, she heard Hala ask Ezra, “How long has Emily been playing?” And Popper Hopkins, the chief pediatric surgeon, was saying, “I thought she was a therapist—does your wife play professionally?” And then Ezra’s father was turning to him and saying, “Why have you been keeping Emily’s talent from us? She’s fantastic. Why haven’t you bought her a piano?”

Emily looked up and saw Ezra’s face turning red. “I’m going to take the woman of the hour to the bar for a drink,” he said to them all, not answering anyone’s questions.

“Do you want to keep playing?” the pianist asked.

Ezra was coming toward her; Emily shook her head.

“Emily?” he asked, when he got to the piano bench. He was looking at her as if he wasn’t sure who she was. “Why didn’t I know you could play piano?” His voice was light, but she could tell it was an effort for him to make it sound that way.

Emily cocked her head at him, the music still tingling through her body, pulsing calmness with every beat of her heart. “Of course you did,” she said. “When we first met and you talked about your college a cappella group, you asked me if I was into music, I told you I used to sing and play piano, and then broke my hand and stopped. That’s why my fingers hurt right before it rains.”

He took a drink from the highball in his hand, not saying anything.

“I fell out of a tree house, remember?” Emily said, standing up.

He stayed silent for a moment longer, and took another drink.

“How old were you,” he asked slowly, after he swallowed, “when you fell out of that tree house?”

“Twenty,” Emily said. She turned to the piano player and said, “Thank you. I needed that.”

“Truly my pleasure,” he told her. “I hope you take it up again.”

Ezra put his hand on the small of Emily’s back and steered her into the corner of the room near the bar.

“You were twenty when you fell out of a tree house? I always thought you were, like, ten.”

“I wasn’t,” Emily said, realizing that Ezra seemed upset. “I guess you didn’t ask how old I was before tonight, and I never mentioned it. Is that what’s upsetting you?”

“No, that’s not what’s upsetting me,” Ezra said, his voice soft but steely. “What’s upsetting me is that my wife is some kind of piano virtuoso and I had no idea. We’ve been together for more than four years. How didn’t I ever know that? Do you know how . . . stupid I felt just now, with my colleagues asking me questions about you? And my dad? I didn’t know any of the answers.”

“I’m not a piano virtuoso,” Emily said, trying to calm him down. “Seriously. I took lessons when I was a kid, I was pretty good, I was in a band for a while in college, that’s all. I’m sorry you felt embarrassed back there, but it’s really not a big deal.”

“Wait,” Ezra said, looking up from his drink. “You were in a band? In college? Why didn’t I know that, either?”

Emily looked around. They hadn’t attracted any attention yet, but she was worried that they would. “Why don’t we go up to our room to talk about this,” she said. She didn’t want them to be the postparty hospital gossip. Besides, their bags were already upstairs, and she wouldn’t mind getting out of her heels. Getting out of this whole party that she hadn’t wanted to attend to begin with. To their left, Ezra’s parents were chatting with the head of cardiology and her wife. Emily wondered if it was about her piano playing or about something else entirely. She caught her mother-in-law’s eye and pointed toward the door. Dr. Gold nodded.

“Fine,” Ezra said, putting his hand on Emily’s back to steer her out of the ballroom, Emily grabbing a handful of her dress so she wouldn’t trip.

When they got into the empty elevator, he started up the conversation again. “You were in a band?”

Emily nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I was in a band for a few months. I played piano and sang. Then I fell out of a tree house, broke my hand, and eventually stopped doing both.”