Everything After - Jill Santopolo Page 0,3

relationship work with him.

“Thank you,” he said, and kissed her again.

“How about I come get you at the end of the day?” she asked. “Maybe we can walk home? Stop for dinner on the way?”

“Lady’s choice,” he told her. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She wove her fingers through his. “You have to head back now?”

“Now that I’m fortified, I’ll be able to handle it all.”

“Good.” She knew this wouldn’t be the end of it, but it was what he needed now, and she was happy to give it to him.

They kissed one last time, and Ezra left Emily’s office. She stood at her second-floor window to watch him appear below her on Broadway, hailing a yellow cab amid the traffic and jumping inside. Sometimes she still couldn’t believe that she and Ezra were married—that this beautiful, brilliant, broken man brought her more happiness than she’d felt in more than a decade. It made her strive to be better, to make sure she was a woman worthy of a man like that.

* * *

—

Arielle had argued with Emily when she told her, three years ago, that she was going to take Ezra’s last name.

“But you’ve got a doctorate,” Ari said. “You’re one of the authors on a clinical study.” Arielle had been particularly proud of her sister’s byline on that paper.

“You took Jack’s name,” Emily said. “Mom took Dad’s. I don’t see the problem.”

“But I’m staying home with my kids,” Ari said. “You’re different.”

“I’m not,” Emily protested. But that wasn’t the real reason she wanted to take his name. She didn’t feel like Emily Solomon anymore; she wasn’t who she used to be. Without music, with Ezra—she was someone new. And changing her name to Emily Gold—it felt right. It felt like she was taking ownership of the person she’d become.

* * *

—

Another student appeared in Emily’s door frame. Emily looked up at her. Someone new.

“Come in,” she said.

The girl sat down and looked at the fish tank.

“Is that a betta?” she asked.

“It is,” Emily answered. “I’m Dr. Gold.”

“I know,” the girl said. “I’m Callie.”

And they talked about fish until it was time for more serious matters.

iii

Your father taught me to play guitar.

“You know Dire Straits?” he asked. We were in my room. It was summer, and we’d both stayed in the city, a plan we hadn’t made together but were both glad we’d chosen. He’d gotten a job working at a recording studio, I was folding and refolding shirts at a boutique that sold clothing neither one of us could afford. Our relationship had started slow, like a ballad, but then picked up speed the more we got to know each other. Weekly trips to the Postcrypt to listen to music together in March turned into drinks and dessert in April and walks through the city in May, where we talked about our families, our favorite books, our dreams, and our nightmares.

Soon we were hanging out in each other’s dorms, studying for finals sprawled across each other’s beds.

And then it was June, and we saw each other almost every day. One night, we were in his room, the window was open, the fan was on, but we still felt the warmth—sticky on our skin.

He didn’t wait for my response about Dire Straits before he started playing.

But it was a song I knew, about Romeo on the streets serenading Juliet.

“Indigo Girls,” I told him. “They cover this.”

He stopped playing and laughed. “Of course,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked him.

But he was playing again.

I watched his fingers. I heard the chords, felt the notes vibrating inside me. And before long, I was singing with him. Our voices wove into each other. The whole world fell away. The heat and the humidity were gone. It was just me and him and the music. I was awash in it. We finished the song staring into the blacks of each other’s eyes.

“Wow,” he said.

Soon he was behind me on the bed, his guitar on my lap, his legs on either side of mine, his fingers showing mine how to coax a chord out of the instrument, how to strum.

“You’re a natural.” He kissed my neck as he said it.

And maybe I was. Or maybe it was just that everything with him felt natural.

4

On Tuesdays, Emily, Priya, and another psychologist in their office, Reuben, had a consultation group. There they talked about how their patients affected them, worried about whether they were actually helping in the right way or saying