Everything After(72)

The wind lifted her hair and briefly covered her face before it set her free again. “You read it all,” she said.



* * *



—

Ezra bent his knees up in front of him. “I did.” He looked at her. “It was so hard for me to connect the story to you, but when I could, when I did . . . What . . . what you said about me . . . it seems like you were trying to tailor yourself to be someone who matched me, who did what I did and valued what I valued. But . . . I’d like to think I’d have loved all of you, Emily, if you’d given me the chance, if I hadn’t been so shocked by what I learned.”

“I—”

“Wait,” Ezra said. “I came to say more than that, though. I came to tell you that I’m a hypocrite. That I expect things of you that I don’t expect of myself. There are things I haven’t told you, either, things I haven’t shared. And that’s not fair.”

Emily tucked her bare legs underneath her. The sand was cool against her skin. “What didn’t you tell me?” she asked, wondering what it could possibly be.

“When I was in medical school, I was almost engaged,” he said.

“You were?” she asked, not because she didn’t believe him, but because she didn’t know what else to say. He’d kept the same kinds of secrets she had.

“I moved with her out to California for my residency. She wanted to work in medical tech, figuring out how computers could make medicine better. Once we got out there, she changed her focus; she saw the money other people were making and wanted to go after it—success meant something different. It changed her. It changed us. It made me think that the kind of success I wanted wasn’t something she’d be proud of anymore. I’d bought a ring but couldn’t bring myself to give it to her. I finished my residency feeling totally at sea—the only thing that got me through it was my work. It’s how I coped, it’s how I cope, I guess, when things in my personal life are hard. But you’re not me. And you’re not Veronica, either. And I didn’t take care of you the way I promised I always would.”

Her name was Veronica. “No, I’m not her,” Emily said. “But after hearing about that, it helps me understand why you reacted the way you did.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I’m sorry. But I . . . I still do want to pursue music. And it might change me a little. It might change us. And I know you said it wasn’t something Golds do, but . . . maybe we can expand the definition of your family. Of our family.”

“I read The Crack-Up, the F. Scott Fitzgerald book, when I was in college. And there’s this line where he says, ‘In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning.’ When I read your journal and then found out you were in Mexico, when I realized you’d gone to perform with him, my soul felt like three o’clock in the morning. And I realized I wanted to fight for us. And I will. I’ll do whatever it takes to fight for us.”

“It felt like three o’clock in the morning for me, too,” Emily said. She watched the moon play hide-and-seek behind a cloud. “When we lost our baby, when you weren’t there with me. You heard my three o’clock in the morning when I played at the fund-raiser.”

“I know,” he said. “And I heard it again in your song for me tonight.” He bent his head and kissed her. “Your soul is beautiful.”

“It doesn’t feel that way,” she whispered. “It feels twisted and complicated and messy.”

“There’s beauty in that, too,” Ezra replied. He kissed her again, then moved his mouth to her neck. “I want my life with you in it.”

Emily lifted his chin up with her finger so the two of them were looking into each other’s eyes. “I do, too. And I want to work hard to make that happen. But we need to fix things between us. Change them. We can’t just go back to the way everything was before.”

“I know,” Ezra answered.

Ezra and Emily wrapped their arms around each other and stayed that way for a long while, breathing each other in, holding each other close. “Come on,” he said, eventually. “Let’s go home.”

They got back to the hotel room he’d gotten for the night, nothing like Rob’s villa but lovely just the same, with a small balcony overlooking the beach and a king-sized bed on plush carpet.

“I love you,” he whispered, as they climbed into bed.

“I love you, too,” she said.

He pressed his lips against her skin under the covers. It felt like he was kissing her body alive again. His touch, his love, his recommitment to their future altered how she looked at herself once more.

She kissed him all over, too, hoping her lips would awaken his body in the same way. That together, they could kiss away their pain and bring forth hope in its place, rising from the ashes of the past weeks.

For them, this was a new beginning. This was a new start.





61



On the plane ride home, Emily and Ezra negotiated a truce, a way to move forward.

“Will you stay at NYU for a while longer?” Ezra asked, holding her hand as they flew over Florida. “Until you find your footing in music?”

“Yes,” Emily said. “I can do that.” She already felt bad about leaving her patients; this would give her a little more time with them.