Emily looked down at her fingernails, at the half-moon crescents at their base. “He hasn’t come home since I told him,” she said. “First he wanted a night alone, and then he took on an extra overnight call as a favor to a friend, and now he’s spending a night with his parents in Princeton to help them move furniture. They all seem reasonable reasons to stay away from home but . . . taken together . . . and after we fought . . . and knowing how Ezra processes things . . .”
“That feels like an overreaction to me,” Priya said. “Is this triggering something else? Something from his past?”
“Well,” Emily answered, “he didn’t know about the band or even that I played piano as well as I do and . . . on top of that I ended up telling him that Rob—I mean Austin Roberts—and I got pregnant in college and I had a miscarriage then, too. I perhaps didn’t handle it as well as I could have.”
Priya looked at her for a moment. “I’m just your friend right now,” she said.
Emily nodded. “You’re not a therapist. Just my friend.”
Priya smiled. “Okay,” she said. “As your friend, I’ll say: He’s a little old to give someone the silent treatment. I bet he’s done things that you don’t know about, too. Things he was ashamed to tell you or felt were private.”
“That’s what I said,” Emily told her. “But he was still hurt. And I do understand. But he hurt me, too. He basically walked out on me. I’ve been grieving our lost child without him. And I get that all of this at once is a lot—a patient of his died a few days after the miscarriage, and the mom blamed him, and then I put him in a bad spot, playing piano at a fund-raiser when he didn’t know I could do it, and on top of that he found out things about my past I hadn’t shared before—and then I told him how much it hurt me that he wasn’t with me more after we lost the baby and that he was dismissing my feelings. It was a bad conversation. And I think you’re right—so many of those things are triggers for him. He takes so much on himself, blames himself, hates to disappoint anyone—but I . . . I want him to come home so we can talk it through. We need to be able to make mistakes and hurt each other and then fix it, you know? He can’t just run away. Otherwise this marriage will fall apart. We need to be able to come together when things are difficult. To forgive each other and become stronger.”
“Like how a bone is stronger after it heals,” Priya said, as if it were something she’d thought about before. Emily realized she probably had, if not in her own life, then with her patients.
“Exactly,” Emily told her. “Exactly.”
Ezra should understand that more than anyone.
“Can you rewind and tell me more about this band, though?” Priya said. “Because I, for one, am intrigued.”
And Emily did, talking about the performances, about the songs they used to sing, and remembering how happy she was on stage, how it defined so much of who she was back then. How different she was now.
38
Priya and Emily walked into the Snare, Tony’s bar, the name of which had made Emily laugh. Tony always used to call his snare drum a real boyfriend snare. Whenever he soloed on it during shows, he’d have tons of men trying to buy him a drink afterward, once he’d let their fans know that he was into guys and not girls.
“Which one is he?” Priya whispered, as they walked through the door.
But Emily didn’t have to answer. Rob was at the door in a second and a half. “Queenie!” he said, bending in for a hug. “Your hair is back!” He turned to Priya, sticking out his hand. “And you must be Priya; it’s so nice to meet you. Do you play, too?”
Priya shook her head. “I wish. I’m just an appreciative audience.”
Rob smiled. “Well, I hope we’ll give you a show to appreciate tonight.”
Emily took him in. He looked pretty much the same as he had the night before, but his energy was different, relaxed and keyed up all at once, like he was really delighting in being in this bar about to perform at an open mic.
“You wanna open the show, Queen?” he asked her.
Emily shook her head. “No chance. How about third?” That felt comfortable to her. She’d realized on the walk to the bar that the last time she’d performed all alone was her piano recital in eighth grade. Throughout college, she’d always been part of the group—either with the whole band, or just with Rob. She didn’t want to have to kick things off by herself.