“What do you mean by that?” Emily asked, trying to focus all her attention on her patient, but it was difficult.
Tessa sighed. “Chris is always working—he wants to make a good impression on his new bosses, and I totally get it. But he doesn’t come home until late and I barely get to see him. Zoe hardly ever sees him at all except for on weekends, when he wants to go out for brunch and for drinks with his friends. And I have so much reading to do for class, plus papers, and exams to study for, that I feel like I have to choose between school and them all the time.”
Emily nodded sympathetically while her old thoughts on Chris resurfaced: totally self-absorbed. But she couldn’t change Chris. Tessa couldn’t, either. So they had to figure out what Tessa could do to change her situation, change her response. “Have you thought about taking fewer courses this semester? I know you have a few more weeks to drop without it being recorded on your transcript.”
Tessa wiped her eyes. “I have. But I want to get through this as quickly as I can. I want to be a lawyer, and there’s so much more ahead of me.”
“I hear you,” Emily said, “but what would it mean if you took a little more time?”
“It’s more money I’d have to borrow, for one,” Tessa said. “And I just . . . I want to be like Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” Emily looked down to see if Tessa was wearing her RBG socks. She wasn’t. Her socks were plain white, which somehow made Emily feel sad, though she made sure not to show it. “She went to law school with a baby. And her husband had cancer. And she was still the top of her class. If she could do that, I should be able to do this. She probably didn’t have any trouble introducing solids to her baby, either. Zoe spits everything out.”
“A lot of babies do, at first,” Emily told her, wanting to say something reassuring. Her heart really went out to Tessa. She saw so much of herself in this young mom—or so much of who she might have been. She admired how Tessa went after things—boldly, bravely, not compromising her plans unless she absolutely had to—but that aspect of her personality, so different from Emily’s own, also worried her. If you don’t bend, sometimes you break. Not every woman can be Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And it’s better to figure that out when you’re young, before you disappoint yourself too deeply when the realization does hit. At least then you have other options, at least then you don’t feel stuck in a life that doesn’t quite feel like it’s yours—like Ari seemed to. Like Emily did sometimes, too.
xiii
When we got to your grandfather’s house, he greeted us both with hugs.
“My musicians!” he said. He’d come to hear us play a few times, and Ari told us that it was all he could talk about to her for days after. “Do I get my own personal concert?”
I looked at your dad and he shrugged.
“Sure,” I said. Playing music was an easy way to make your grandpa happy. I had memories of cuddling with him on the couch, listening to my mom play when I was really small. And I played for him later. When my mom was at the hospital I would play the Eagles or Queen or the Rolling Stones for him. In those last couple of years, anything I could do to make him smile seemed worth it.
I sat at the baby grand in the living room, and your dad picked up the guitar that always rested next to it. Ari had taken lessons as a kid, but they never really stuck. Still, the guitar stayed, almost as if it had been waiting for your dad to come into our lives.
“What do you want to hear, Mr. Solomon?” your father asked, tuning the strings.
“How about some Kansas?”
Your dad raised an eyebrow at me. “Queenie?” he asked.
I flexed my fingers. “I think I could do ‘Dust in the Wind’ or ‘Carry On Wayward Son,’” I answered. It had been a while, but I was sure I could still get some of the progressions pretty easily, especially if your dad was leading with his guitar and vocals.
“I think I know all the words to ‘Dust in the Wind,’” he answered. “Let’s do it.”
I closed my eyes and listened to your dad play the opening guitar riff, then started fingering the second guitar’s riff with my right hand, my left playing chords. After we got through that bit, your dad started to sing.
I loved the earthiness of his voice, loved hearing it without a microphone distorting its raspy quality. I didn’t want to join in, to mar his beautiful sound with my own. But then your grandpa started singing along, deeper than your dad, and not as beautiful, but on key. I joined in then, balancing their lower register with my higher tone.