Then he kissed her one last time and headed out the door.
Emily got out of bed and took a shower. “Just be okay,” she whispered to the cells she hoped were still dividing inside her. Even though they couldn’t hear her, maybe they were somehow able to know what she was trying to say, somehow able to intuit the urgency with which she was saying it. “Keep growing. I want to hear your heart beat.”
In five days they were going to the doctor for an eight-week check-up. In five days, she would get her first glimpse, her first listen. She’d been imagining what that heartbeat would sound like—soft, legato, like a muted drum. She really wanted to make it to that appointment.
Emily and Ezra hadn’t talked about a name yet, what they were going to call this not-yet-a-baby, and all of a sudden it seemed important. She sent a text to Ezra. I want to name the baby after my mom, she wrote. Eden if it’s a girl, and Edward for a boy. Her mother’s name was Edie.
Okay, Ezra wrote back quickly. I love you.
As Emily got dressed, she kept up a steady one-sided conversation, the way she had with Zoe. “I love you already,” she said. “So does your dad. We want you to grow big and strong, with round cheeks and dimpled fingers. We’ll take such good care of you. I promise.”
Emily knew her words wouldn’t matter, but it was still a promise that felt important to make, whether anyone could hear her or not.
x
Your dad came into the bathroom with me and sat on the edge of my dorm’s bathtub while I peed on a pregnancy test I hadn’t wanted to buy. We had to wait for three minutes.
“‘Here Comes the Sun’ is three-oh-five,” he said.
So we sang together, quietly in the bathroom, and after the first few bars, I forgot to freak out, I forgot to be worried, I just listened to your dad’s voice and tried to match it with my own.
But when the song ended and we looked at the plus sign on the test, I don’t think either of us felt like the sun had come.
I’m so sorry we didn’t feel differently.
But I want to tell you the truth.
14
Emily looked at the calendar in her phone. She counted to be sure. Seven weeks and two days. That was how long she’d been pregnant so far. She looked at the appointment in her calendar and counted the five days with her finger, touching each one. Somehow, it felt like if she could make it to eight weeks, if she could listen to her baby’s heartbeat, everything would be okay. She knew that wasn’t true. But in her heart it felt real.
She willed it to be real.
xi
Maybe it was the power of suggestion, or the shock or stress of it, but for the next couple of days, my breasts felt painfully heavy and I cried practically whenever anyone looked at me. I’d talked to Ari but wished for nothing more than to be able to talk to my mom, tell her what happened, listen to her advice. Ari said I should tell our dad, but I didn’t. He’d been depressed since our mom died and I left home to go to school. Ari and I were both gone now, and I didn’t want to put this on him, too. At least not yet. Not until I had to.
Your dad slept in my dorm room with me every night. He kept saying it would be okay but never said how.
Three days later, as we were going to bed, I whispered to him: “Should we get married? Should we be a family?”
He stared at the ceiling for a while before he answered slowly. “I think it would be a mistake,” he said. “I’ve been turning it over in my mind for the last few days and . . . I don’t think we should get married because of this. We should get married because we want to get married, because we’re ready to commit ourselves to each other. If this hadn’t happened and I proposed to you tonight, what would you have said?”
I already felt tears pooling in my eyes, but I knew the answer: “I’d have said you were crazy,” I told him, honestly. “That we’re too young. That there’s so much more we have to learn and to figure out. That I love you like mad, but we’ve only known each other for ten months.”
He slid closer to me, and I rested my head on his shoulder. “Yeah,” he said. “So if we get married now, I think we’d be making a mistake. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have this baby, raise this baby, if you want to. And maybe get married later.” He paused. “Do you?” he asked. I didn’t answer, realizing in that moment that he was telling me he didn’t. Trying to think about whether I did. Thinking about what it would mean for me, for him, for both of us, for our lives, for a child’s life, for our music. He clarified, “Do you want to be a mom?”