Molly glances to where Jake stands by the pool—she’s been subconsciously tracking his whereabouts for the entire duration of the party—then back to her mother, whom she has yet to update on Jake’s reemergence in her life.
“It’s a long story, but yes. Jake lives in Flynn Cove now.”
“What?” Her mother sputters. “Since when? How does he live here?”
Stella, fiddling with the plastic microphone, observes them curiously.
“Shhh. I’ll explain later, Mom. Let’s just—” Molly gestures toward the karaoke machine. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
“All right!” Molly stands, clapping her palms together. The steady hum of conversation around the pool subsides as all eyes land on her. She feels Jake’s gaze most acutely, her stomach tensing into a familiar grinding knot. “Thank you all so much for coming to Stella’s party. Stella, little miss Elsa that she is, has a special song she’d like to perform with her new karaoke machine—a smash-hit present from the Danners.” There are a few laughs. The sun is strong overhead, and beads of sweat prick Molly’s chest. She looks at her daughter. “Stell, take it away.”
Jade hits Play on the music, and Stella steps forward in her blue ball gown and rhinestone tiara. At Stella’s age—or at any age, really—Molly would’ve been immobilized with stage fright in such a moment, and she half expects her daughter to drop the microphone and come running into her arms. But Stella’s expression is brazen, her little chin pointed forward as she waits for the lyrics to begin. Molly is filled with awe, and relief that her daughter seems to have evaded the self-consciousness that she herself has always battled. Though it doesn’t come as a total surprise. After all, an entire half of Stella’s genetic makeup has nothing to do with Molly.
“The snow glows white on the mountain tonight…” Stella’s voice is smooth and melodious, and so stunning it catches Molly off guard.
Molly has heard her daughter sing before, of course. Stella has belted out the words to “Let It Go” countless times, and her singing voice has always been solid and sweet. But this—this is different. It’s the microphone, perhaps, that reveals the exceptionality of her six-year-old’s voice, and that what she’s doing is so much more than singing. Stella is performing, captivating the crowd around her without an ounce of fear or hesitation in her being. She’s a star.
Molly is speechless. She looks around at her guests, each of them watching her daughter intently, thirty pairs of eyes filled with wonder. Even Meredith Duffy looks impressed, her Restylane-filled lips parted.
“Let it go, let it go, can’t hold it back anymore!”
Stella’s voice hits the high notes triumphantly, perfectly, and it’s too exquisite, and in Molly’s head all she can hear is the sound of his voice, the same air of graceful confidence with which he sang the opening lines to “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” that first night in East Williamsburg at the Broken Mule, a million years ago.
And now I know
Spanish Harlem are not just pretty words to say
Molly is crying then, and she doesn’t even try to stop because she knows it’s pointless; the tears are involuntary, the by-product of an emotion that is too powerful to be ruled by her own will. She hears someone wonder aloud, Where’d Stella learn to sing like that? and she feels more tears fall because she knows, in her heart, that that kind of talent—that kind of presence in front of an audience—can’t be taught. It’s something that’s in you, that’s in your blood.
People are beginning to stare, but Molly cries, anyway, because she can’t not, and because she’s so angry with herself for so many reasons, and then there’s Nina placing a hand on her shoulder and whispering, “Moll, let’s go inside.”
The song is over, and underneath every emotion that is ripping her open, Molly is so unthinkably proud of her daughter, and then Stella is there, her little face looking up at Molly’s in confusion or maybe fear.
“Mommy, why are you crying?”
It’s the third time this summer that Stella has asked her mother this question, and part of the answer, of course, is always Jake.
Molly drops to her knees, cupping Stella’s face in her hands. Her daughter’s eyes are wide and stunningly blue, blue like the richness of the sky on a cloudless day. Suddenly, Jake is there, too, crouching beside Stella, then staring at Molly with the same blue eyes—interchangeable eyes—and she cannot bear it.