“Queenie?” he said. “What are you doing?”
“This branch was my elevator,” I told him. “Once I get close to the end, my weight bends it low enough to the ground that I can hop right off.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” he asked as I started walking, my arms out for balance.
“I did this all the time,” I said, as I walked farther from the trunk. But the branch didn’t feel as supple as it used to. It wasn’t bending the way I remembered. I took another step.
And then the branch gave way. My body swung as I grabbed for the tree, but my fingers couldn’t find purchase. I was falling.
“Rob!!!” I screamed.
“Shit!” I heard him yell.
He must’ve tried to break my fall, because the next thing I knew, I landed half on him, half on the ground, my wrist snapped back, my fingers underneath, his knee pushing straight into my stomach, knocking the wind out of me.
I couldn’t breathe.
The pain in my hand was excruciating.
My dad came running.
I was crying.
Then we were in my dad’s car and every bounce made me wince.
At the hospital they set my broken wrist and three broken fingers.
I didn’t tell them I was pregnant. Your dad didn’t, either.
“She’s lucky,” they said.
“You saved her from a lot worse by breaking her fall,” they said.
They sent me home with painkillers I wasn’t sure I should take.
I wouldn’t be able to play piano for eight weeks, maybe longer.
I wouldn’t be able to play the shows we’d booked in Texas for Christmas.
I wouldn’t be able to record the CD we were planning next month.
I wouldn’t be able to do what I loved with the man I loved.
I was devastated.
xv
Two days later my stomach started cramping. I started bleeding.
“I guess you weren’t pregnant after all,” your dad said to me.
“I guess,” I said.
But I knew that wasn’t true.
I knew you had been there.
I knew I had lost you.
But I pretended I hadn’t.
I pretended the pregnancy test was wrong.
I pretended it didn’t matter to me at all.
I pretended for months.
18
Emily and Ezra spent the night in each other’s arms.
“I wanted this baby so badly,” Emily murmured as they held each other.
“I know,” Ezra said, “me too.”
He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her closer.
“We did everything right,” she said. “We would’ve been such good parents.”
“And we will be,” he said. “We will be.”
Emily couldn’t believe this had happened to her. Again. After waiting so long, after dreaming for so long. After taking months to get pregnant this time. Was it punishment? Was she getting what she deserved?
She cried until she fell asleep.
* * *
—
Ezra watched his wife sleep, wondering how much pain a human being could absorb, how many times his heart could break, at home, at work, day after day, before it would be broken for good.
xvi
I didn’t go with your dad to Austin for Christmas. My wrist hurt, my fingers hurt, and what I was calling my period was heavier and longer than usual. There was so much blood. Plus I couldn’t play piano. I was too miserable to meet his family, too sad to be on stage, too busy blaming myself to enjoy being with anyone. Instead, I curled up in my childhood bed and reread all ninety-seven of the Baby-Sitters Club books that were still in my bedroom, along with three super specials and six Baby-Sitters Club mysteries. Then I read The Red Tent, which is the book I was reading to your grandmother when she died. I read it through twice.
Your dad got a friend from high school to sub in on keys for all of our gigs in Texas. They didn’t perform our “Elephant Love Medley”–inspired closing. He said that was just for us.
Ari stayed home, too, even though she was living in Connecticut, getting her master’s degree. She brought me my favorite foods, set up screenings of our favorite movies in the rec room in the basement, bought me new sweaters with arms baggy enough to fit my cast, and kept telling me that everything that happened was the way it was supposed to happen. I was grateful she was there, but I longed for my mother. Not that she was able to really take care of us in the end, but being able to talk to her, being able to hear her words, feel her next to me, was always comforting.
Jack came over sometimes—he and Ari had just started dating the month before—bringing an arsenal of board games with him. He, Ari, and I would play Settlers of Catan and Balderdash and Scattergories until way after dark. And then I would say I was tired so that Ari and Jack could spend some time alone. I felt bad that she was spending her whole winter break in the house with me, but she said she didn’t mind. And Jack honestly didn’t seem to mind hanging out at our house, either. As long as he was with Ari, he was happy.