“I choose you,” Emily said. “Every morning, every afternoon, and every night.”
“I choose you, too.”
Ezra wrapped his arm around Emily and she laid her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes.
“You need to sleep,” he said.
“Mm-hmm,” she answered, almost asleep already.
“Go take a nap,” he told her. “I’ll change Zoe and let the hospital know I’ll be in late today. Then Zoe and I will hang for a couple of hours while you sleep.”
“Okay,” Emily said.
When she woke up four hours later, she still felt tired but at least coherent. She got out a clean pair of jeans and a cotton top, and, when she changed her underwear, realized that she had stopped bleeding. Her baby was all gone.
46
On her way back to the living room, Emily stopped to wash her face and brush her teeth. Through the bathroom door, she could hear Ezra reading a New York Times article out loud to Zoe as if it were a picture book. The rise and fall of his voice seemed incongruous with his words about the increasing price of prescription drugs.
She walked out of the bathroom and down the hall. Ezra and Zoe were on the floor on a towel, and she was chewing on a teething ring Emily had thrown into the diaper bag.
Ezra looked up at the sound of Emily’s steps. “She seems to like the sound of my voice,” he said. “And her grandmother texted you to tell you that she’ll be here around ten thirty.” He looked at his watch. “So not much longer.”
Emily sat down on the towel next to Ezra and picked up Zoe, cuddling the baby against her chest. Emily looked down at her. Zoe stuck her fist in her mouth and started sucking on it. “Are you hungry, sweet girl?”
“Do you know if she’s eating solids?” Ezra asked. “How old is she? Five months? Six?”
“Six,” Emily said. “And I know Tessa’s been trying, but last I heard, Zoe wasn’t so into it.” She looked at Zoe as she put her back down on the towel. “You like formula better, don’t you?”
While Emily walked into the kitchen to make Zoe a bottle, her mind flashed to an alternate future in which she was making bottles for their baby in this kitchen. Before her eyes could start to tear, she walked back into the living room and picked Zoe up again, slipping the bottle into her puckered lips. As Zoe drank, Emily started singing the first song that came into her mind: “Teach Your Children.”
She walked to the couch and sat down with Zoe, singing the part about how those of tender years can’t know the fears their elders grew by.
“Crosby, Stills and Nash,” Ezra said, smiling. And he started singing along with her. She let him take the melody and sang the harmony. Even though the reason she’d started singing was to stop herself from crying, her tears fell anyway.
“This is what I want,” Emily said. “You and me, singing to a baby. Singing to our baby.”
Ezra leaned his head against hers. “I was afraid,” he said. “When you miscarried, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to handle the heartbreak if I let myself feel anything at all. It was too much to bear, on top of everything else. I was afraid I would shatter.” Emily looked at her husband, and he was crying. “But this is what I want, too.”
The buzzer went off, startling all three of them. Zoe started crying, and while Emily tried to calm her, Ezra picked up the white phone next to their front door. “Thanks,” he said to the doorman on the other end of the line. “You can send her up.”
Then he walked back into the living room, where Emily was giving Zoe her bottle. “Her grandmother’s here,” he said.
Emily took a deep breath and wiped her eyes, preparing to be Dr. Gold again.
47
The doorbell rang, and Ezra opened it to a woman that Emily recognized immediately as Tessa’s mother. She had the same ski-slope nose, the same round cheeks.
“Where’s my grandbaby?” she asked.
Emily stood up with Zoe in her arms and walked toward the door. “Right here,” she said.
“Dr. Gold,” Tessa’s mom answered. “Thank you for keeping her. And thank you again for helping my daughter last night. And last year.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more,” Emily answered, handing Zoe over, thinking about the other ways this conversation could be going. The version where Emily hadn’t reached Tessa in time, where Zoe lost her mom.
“You kept both of them safe,” she said. “That’s enough.” She shook her head, too overcome with emotion to say more.