One True Loves(25)

When Marie finds out the store is being handed over to you, she gets upset. She accuses you of taking it from her. You tell her you’re just picking up the ball that she dropped. The two of you erupt. She’s yelling and you’re yelling. In anger, she screams, “Oh, please. We all know you’re the favorite. Perfect Miss Emma who does everything exactly as Mom and Dad want.”

You start laughing. Because it’s so absurd.

But then you realize it’s true.

You have become the person your parents always wanted you to be and you’ve done it almost entirely by accident.

You didn’t think you wanted to work with books or live in Massachusetts or be close to your sister. But it turns out you do. That’s what makes you happy.

And then you say to yourself, Wait, no, that’s not right. I can’t be happy.

Because you don’t have him. He’s gone. You can’t be happy, can you?

And then you stop and truly ask yourself, Am I happy?

And you realize that you just might be.

You apologize to Marie. She apologizes to you. You spell out, “I was being an idiot,” in sign language. Marie laughs.

Later, you ask her if it’s a betrayal to Jesse to feel good, to like your life now. She just says, “Not at all. That’s all he’d want for you. That’s exactly what he’d want.”

You think she might be right.

You take off your wedding ring and you put it in an envelope of your love letters and pictures. You will never let it go but you do not need to wear it.

You go back to your hairdresser and ask her if she thinks you’d look good with a pixie cut. She says you’d look great. You trust her. You go home, newly shorn, and you aren’t quite sure what to make of yourself.

But then Marie sees it and tells you that you look like a movie star, and when you look at yourself in the mirror again, you sort of see what she means.

Six months later, you decide to take up the piano.

And just by walking into a music store, you set a whole second life in motion.





I could have started by trying to take piano lessons. But I decided to just leap into it. I wanted something to do with my hands at home. It was either piano or cooking and, well, cooking seemed messy.

So I found a secondhand-instruments shop in Watertown and drove over on a Sunday afternoon.

The doors chimed as I walked through them and they caught on themselves as they closed behind me. The store had a leathery scent to it. It was filled with rows of guitars. I found a magazine stand and rifled through it for a minute, unsure of what I was actually looking for.

I suddenly felt uncomfortable and completely out of my element. I didn’t know what questions to ask or of whom to ask them.

Standing there surrounded by a sax, trumpets, and a series of instruments I couldn’t even name, I realized I was out of my league. I was tempted to give up, to turn around and go home. I took a step away from the magazines and bumped right into two bronze drums. They made a clang as I accidentally knocked them into each other. I straightened them out and looked around to see if anyone saw me.

There was a salesman a few feet over. He looked up at me and smiled.

I timidly smiled back and then turned to the magazines again.

“Hey,” the salesman said. He was now standing right next to me. “Are you a timpanist?”

I looked up at him and I saw the recognition in his eyes at the very same time it clicked in mine.

“Sam?” I said.

“Emma Blair . . .” he said, taken aback.

“Oh, my God,” I said. “Sam Kemper. I don’t even . . . I haven’t seen you in . . .”

“Ten years or more, maybe,” he said. “Wow. You . . . you look great.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You do, too.”

“How are your parents?”

“Good,” I said. “Really good.”

It was quiet for a moment as I stared at him, surprised at how much he’d changed. I was trying to remember if his eyes had always been that stunning. They were a warm brown that seemed so kind and patient, as if they saw everything with compassion. Or maybe I was simply projecting what I remembered of him onto his face.

But there was no doubt that he’d grown up to be an attractive man. His face had angled out a bit, had grown some character.

I realized I was staring.

“Do you play the timpani now?” Sam said.

I looked at him as if he were speaking French. “What?” I said.

He pointed to the bronze drums behind me. “I saw you by the timpani; I thought maybe you had started to play.”

“Oh,” I said. “No, no. You know me. I don’t play anything. I mean, except for when they made us learn ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ on the recorder, but I hardly think that counts.”

Sam laughed. “It’s not exactly the timpani, but I think it counts.”

“We all can’t play a bajillion instruments or however many it was that you play,” I said. “Six, was it?”

Sam smiled shyly. “I’ve picked up a few since then, actually. Most of them amateur-level, though.”

“And here I just have the recorder. Oh!” I said, suddenly remembering. “I also played the finger cymbals in the fourth-grade holiday concert! So there’s two.”