Her name was Veronica. “No, I’m not her,” Emily said. “But after hearing about that, it helps me understand why you reacted the way you did.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I’m sorry. But I . . . I still do want to pursue music. And it might change me a little. It might change us. And I know you said it wasn’t something Golds do, but . . . maybe we can expand the definition of your family. Of our family.”
“I read The Crack-Up, the F. Scott Fitzgerald book, when I was in college. And there’s this line where he says, ‘In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning.’ When I read your journal and then found out you were in Mexico, when I realized you’d gone to perform with him, my soul felt like three o’clock in the morning. And I realized I wanted to fight for us. And I will. I’ll do whatever it takes to fight for us.”
“It felt like three o’clock in the morning for me, too,” Emily said. She watched the moon play hide-and-seek behind a cloud. “When we lost our baby, when you weren’t there with me. You heard my three o’clock in the morning when I played at the fund-raiser.”
“I know,” he said. “And I heard it again in your song for me tonight.” He bent his head and kissed her. “Your soul is beautiful.”
“It doesn’t feel that way,” she whispered. “It feels twisted and complicated and messy.”
“There’s beauty in that, too,” Ezra replied. He kissed her again, then moved his mouth to her neck. “I want my life with you in it.”
Emily lifted his chin up with her finger so the two of them were looking into each other’s eyes. “I do, too. And I want to work hard to make that happen. But we need to fix things between us. Change them. We can’t just go back to the way everything was before.”
“I know,” Ezra answered.
Ezra and Emily wrapped their arms around each other and stayed that way for a long while, breathing each other in, holding each other close. “Come on,” he said, eventually. “Let’s go home.”
They got back to the hotel room he’d gotten for the night, nothing like Rob’s villa but lovely just the same, with a small balcony overlooking the beach and a king-sized bed on plush carpet.
“I love you,” he whispered, as they climbed into bed.
“I love you, too,” she said.
He pressed his lips against her skin under the covers. It felt like he was kissing her body alive again. His touch, his love, his recommitment to their future altered how she looked at herself once more.
She kissed him all over, too, hoping her lips would awaken his body in the same way. That together, they could kiss away their pain and bring forth hope in its place, rising from the ashes of the past weeks.
For them, this was a new beginning. This was a new start.
61
On the plane ride home, Emily and Ezra negotiated a truce, a way to move forward.
“Will you stay at NYU for a while longer?” Ezra asked, holding her hand as they flew over Florida. “Until you find your footing in music?”
“Yes,” Emily said. “I can do that.” She already felt bad about leaving her patients; this would give her a little more time with them.
“Will you stop talking to Rob?”
Emily squeezed his hand. She thought of the confidence that Rob gave her, the unconditional support, the ability to see herself differently. She needed that. Now more than ever. And she’d promised him that they’d be friends. That she wouldn’t disappear. “Please don’t ask me to do that,” she said. She looked into his eyes, willing him to see her, to see her sincerity. “You don’t have to be jealous. He’s just a good friend now.”
That was what she and Rob had agreed when they said good-bye. That they would be friends, they’d talk, they’d exchange music, but that was where things would end.
Ezra looked out of the porthole window. “I guess I can live with that,” he said.
* * *
—
When they got home, they started therapy—together and on their own. They shared secrets, they told the truth, and they found news ways to compromise, a deeper understanding of what their relationship needed. All while Emily made music, wrote music, a whole album’s worth that she sent to Rob. The ease with which the music and lyrics flowed was both a surprise and a salve. Some songs were about Ezra, some were about her mom, and some were about Rob. What she’d said in Mexico had been true.
* * *