So we went hunting for the right place. And Ezra really got into it, the way he does anything he’s planning.
“I highlighted a map yesterday when I was between patients,” he told me, while we were getting ready to visit some open houses. “If we live in this area, we can both walk to work.”
I knew that he wanted to live within thirty minutes of the hospital, so he could be on call and still be home, if he chose. He often preferred to stay in the hospital anyway but liked having the option. It was something his parents had done. One of the things I’ve realized about Ezra is that he seems to see his parents’ choices as gospel—the right way to exist. He spends so much time trying to live up to what he thinks they want, trying to make them proud, trying to be good enough for them. I’m not as sure about his father, but I’m pretty sure his mother would think he was perfect even if he weren’t a doctor, lived in a different city, and failed at everything he tried. Maybe one day I’ll find a way to tell him that. And that, truly, I’m sure his father would come around, too. But in the meantime, I just try to make it easier for him to do what he thinks he needs to. I want to be someone who enables his happiness. It’s one of the things I can give to him, the way he can give his safety, his stability, to me.
“I don’t mind having to take the train,” I told him. “If it means we can get a nicer place.”
He looked down and grabbed a highlighter, adjusting his map. “Here, how’s this?” he asked.
“Looks good,” I told him.
In the end, we found a one-bedroom with a dining nook that came with a storage unit in the basement. It’s funny, we didn’t really ask each other what we were putting in the storage unit, just moved our boxes and bags in there, promising to go through them all eventually, when we bought our own place in a year or two.
My keyboard went in there, in its black carrying case. He didn’t ask me what it was. I’m not even sure if he saw it. If he did, if he asked why I kept it, I’m not sure what I would say. I haven’t spoken to Ezra much about my time in the band or as a musician. In fact, I haven’t spoken to him about them at all. Even though I combed through them and untangled them with Dr. West, they still seem like a knot in the chain of my life, like when you have a necklace that somehow gets tangled so badly that you can undo most of it, make the necklace wearable, but there’s still a small kink in the chain that you can’t undo without risking the integrity of the entire thing. The necklace looks fine, beautiful even—you just have to put the knot behind your neck so no one sees it.
I know it’s supposed to be healthy to talk about trauma, to make it part of the narrative of your life. It’s what I tell my patients. But I have trouble doing it myself. I have trouble integrating that experience with who I am now.
Instead, it’s a knot in a necklace that I won’t let anyone see. Not even Ezra. Not because I don’t trust him, but because I don’t trust me. Once I start trying to untangle that last bit of the knot, I don’t know what will happen. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to work through it completely, which means even if I start talking about it, I’ll end up just having to pull the knot back tighter in the end.
Dr. West and I fixed almost the whole chain. And it’s easier just to wear the necklace the way it is.
45
When Emily got home with Zoe, she was surprised to find Ezra sitting on the couch in the living room, his phone to his ear. But the minute she saw him, she was able to breathe easier. He was here. He was home. She looked at her watch. It was six a.m.
“Good morning,” she said as she dropped her keys on the entry hall table. “I didn’t know you were coming home today.”
He looked up. His face went from concerned to relieved to confused.
“Em, where have you been? You asked me to come home. I just got here and you were gone. I was starting to get worr—” He saw Zoe. “Whose baby is that?”
“This is Zoe,” she said, bringing the baby to Ezra. “She belongs to one of my patients, who just checked herself into the psychiatric unit at NYU. It’s been a long night. I . . . hadn’t heard differently, so I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow night.”
He looked at her. She was sure he was thinking about the fact that she should not have her patient’s baby, but he didn’t say anything about that. Instead he said, “You called me. You asked me to come home and it sounded like you’d been crying. When I woke up to use the bathroom and heard your message I called you back, but your phone went straight to voice mail, so I figured you’d gone to sleep. I couldn’t fall back asleep, though, so I took my mom’s car and drove into the city. And then you weren’t here. And your phone still wasn’t ringing. What’s going on?”