Everything After(36)

Emily switched into “Crystal Castle,” playing it the way she did at the hospital fund-raiser, emotions channeled through her fingers, her body rising and falling with the melody. When she finished, she was crying. All her feelings about Ezra and her miscarriage, the ones she’d been trying to bury all day, came out, as did the long-hidden ones about giving up music, about losing two loves at once—Rob and her keyboard. It was something she thought she’d made her peace with years ago, but now she realized she hadn’t. She’d never forgiven herself for what happened to her hand, for breaking up with him, for breaking up the band. She wondered if Rob had ever forgiven her.

Maybe that was why he wrote the song.

Emily walked over to her laptop on the couch and searched for the Austin Roberts website. She found Rob, staring at her, smiling, light brown stubble on his cheeks and chin, his thick head of hair now peppered with a tiny hint of gray at his temples. She clicked on the word bio and started to read.


Austin Roberts has spent the last twelve years composing musical scores for film and television, for which he’s been nominated for an Oscar and three Emmys. He lives in Los Angeles with his black lab, Freddie Mercury, and his two young daughters. Austin credits his divorce for his runaway hit, “Crystal Castle”: “It made me reevaluate my life,” he said, “and think about what could have been. This song is about a woman I loved and remember still. She’s the one who got away.” Austin will be on tour promoting his new album this fall. Click here for tour dates.



There was too much for Emily to process. Rob had been married. (To whom?) He had two daughters. (How old where they?) He was now divorced. (When did that happen?) And he was still thinking about someone who got away . . . someone who might be her.

Emily took a deep breath and clicked on the link for tour dates. She wasn’t prepared to see the black-and-white photo he’d put up on that page: him, on stage at twenty-one, singing to her. Only you couldn’t see her face, just her hair, braided in a crown around her head. The caption read: The one who got away.

It was her. The song was really about her. No question.

Emily scanned the tour stops. He had started in Los Angeles, then he’d gone to Oakland, to Portland, to Seattle, to Chicago, to Kansas City, to Austin, to Atlanta . . . she kept scanning the list. This was a huge tour—but his song was huge, too. It was everywhere—playing on the radio in the grocery store, Duane Reade, the deli. He must be filling venues all over the country with the play it was getting.

Where was he now?

When she found the day’s date, she sucked in her breath. He was there. In New York City. Playing that night at City Winery.

She had to go.

She couldn’t go.

Could she?





xxiii



I’d been seeing Dr. West for six months, crying in her office about you, about your dad, about my mom, about all the things that would never be, could never be, when she suggested I start a journal. I could write it to someone I missed—maybe to my mother, she suggested—and tell my story, get everything out, get it all down, how I felt, what I thought, and in doing so, I could figure out a way to keep my whole life moving forward. I bought a notebook thinking I would write to my mom, but instead, once I sat down, I started writing to you. I’m still not sure why. But it has helped. It really has.

Though I guess this is as much for me as it is for anyone. In some ways, I’ve been writing to myself, telling myself my story, looking at the details and making sense of them through a lens of distance and time. That probably was Dr. West’s intent all along.

Now I only dream about your father sometimes, instead of every night. And I dream about you even less. I cringe to write that, but it’s true. I didn’t think I’d feel guilty for healing. But I guess, in some ways, I do.





31



Emily stared at the computer screen. The show was starting in half an hour. Maybe she could go, stand in the back, leave before it was over. He’d never know she was there. She’d get to see him perform, get to hear him, and then, her curiosity satisfied, she could go.

And if it was too hard, if it made her think too much about the life she didn’t lead, she could leave even earlier. After one song. That would be fine, too.

Emily made a deal with herself. She’d call the box office for tickets and if one was available, she would go. Put it in the hands of the universe. Her mom’s voice popped into her mind then: Everything happens the way it’s supposed to happen. She’d see if this was meant to happen.

As she called, she wasn’t sure what she wanted the outcome to be. Would she regret it if she didn’t go? Regret it if she did?

“I’d like a bar stool ticket to Austin Roberts’s show tonight,” she said. “If there are any still available.”

“You’re in luck,” the woman on the other end of the line said. “We’ve got two left.”

“I only need one,” Emily replied, and gave her name and her credit card information.

The universe had wanted it to happen.

She got up from the couch, her mind still round around the edges from the bottle of wine. She chugged a glass of water. Was she really going to do this? She should tell Ezra. But he still hadn’t responded to her last text. She pulled out her phone: I’m going to listen to some live music tonight. Just wanted to let you know, she typed. Hope everything’s okay over there. If he asked who was playing, she’d tell him. If he didn’t, she wouldn’t.