Everything After(3)

“Your husband is an angel,” his patients’ parents would tell her when she went to the hospital to pick him up at the end of a long day. She thought so, too—though those parents never saw the toll the job took on him. The nights he stayed awake staring at the ceiling afraid of the dreams that might come, the hours he spent inside his own head, unable to find the words to express how he felt. The worst was when one of his patients died, and he spiraled into self-doubt and silence. Sometimes for days.

“Don’t dwell on failure,” Emily had heard Ezra’s father tell him when he felt that way. “Just learn from it.” A sentiment that Ezra seemed to have internalized, like he did so many of his parents’ beliefs.

What she told him, though, was that a death wasn’t his failure. It was the world acting out its plans. He wasn’t a god. He couldn’t fend off the inevitable forever. But Ezra didn’t see it that way. Emily wondered if it was easier to believe it was all in his power. It made failure harder, but it made everything else more meaningful.



* * *



—

“Want to talk about it?” she asked him, lifting her cheek off his shoulder.

Ezra shook his head, his wavy brown hair falling in front of his glasses. It somehow always seemed like it needed a trim. “I’d rather not,” he said.

“You don’t have to,” she told him, brushing his hair out of his eyes, knowing he’d tell eventually, when he was ready.

It might take hours, days, sometimes even weeks, but she knew how to give him his space when he needed it. And she could usually comfort him when he was finally ready to talk. She could read people like she could read music, feeling the emotion between the notes, the way to tease the meaning from the melody with her fingers. She wondered, sometimes, if Ezra’d had to marry a therapist, if someone who hadn’t been trained in psychology could’ve made a relationship work with him.

“Thank you,” he said, and kissed her again.

“How about I come get you at the end of the day?” she asked. “Maybe we can walk home? Stop for dinner on the way?”

“Lady’s choice,” he told her. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She wove her fingers through his. “You have to head back now?”

“Now that I’m fortified, I’ll be able to handle it all.”

“Good.” She knew this wouldn’t be the end of it, but it was what he needed now, and she was happy to give it to him.

They kissed one last time, and Ezra left Emily’s office. She stood at her second-floor window to watch him appear below her on Broadway, hailing a yellow cab amid the traffic and jumping inside. Sometimes she still couldn’t believe that she and Ezra were married—that this beautiful, brilliant, broken man brought her more happiness than she’d felt in more than a decade. It made her strive to be better, to make sure she was a woman worthy of a man like that.



* * *



—

    Arielle had argued with Emily when she told her, three years ago, that she was going to take Ezra’s last name.

“But you’ve got a doctorate,” Ari said. “You’re one of the authors on a clinical study.” Arielle had been particularly proud of her sister’s byline on that paper.

“You took Jack’s name,” Emily said. “Mom took Dad’s. I don’t see the problem.”

“But I’m staying home with my kids,” Ari said. “You’re different.”

“I’m not,” Emily protested. But that wasn’t the real reason she wanted to take his name. She didn’t feel like Emily Solomon anymore; she wasn’t who she used to be. Without music, with Ezra—she was someone new. And changing her name to Emily Gold—it felt right. It felt like she was taking ownership of the person she’d become.



* * *



—

Another student appeared in Emily’s door frame. Emily looked up at her. Someone new.

“Come in,” she said.

The girl sat down and looked at the fish tank.

“Is that a betta?” she asked.

“It is,” Emily answered. “I’m Dr. Gold.”

“I know,” the girl said. “I’m Callie.”

And they talked about fish until it was time for more serious matters.





iii



Your father taught me to play guitar.

“You know Dire Straits?” he asked. We were in my room. It was summer, and we’d both stayed in the city, a plan we hadn’t made together but were both glad we’d chosen. He’d gotten a job working at a recording studio, I was folding and refolding shirts at a boutique that sold clothing neither one of us could afford. Our relationship had started slow, like a ballad, but then picked up speed the more we got to know each other. Weekly trips to the Postcrypt to listen to music together in March turned into drinks and dessert in April and walks through the city in May, where we talked about our families, our favorite books, our dreams, and our nightmares.

Soon we were hanging out in each other’s dorms, studying for finals sprawled across each other’s beds.

And then it was June, and we saw each other almost every day. One night, we were in his room, the window was open, the fan was on, but we still felt the warmth—sticky on our skin.