He shook his head, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. “What happened when you were twenty, Emily? Why won’t you talk about it?” Then his face looked stricken. “Did someone— Oh, Em, did someone—”
“No,” Emily said quickly. “Not that. Thank God, not that.”
“Then what?” Ezra’s eyes were filled with emotion; his concern for her was there, even through his anger, his hurt.
Emily took a deep breath. When he looked at her like that, like she was someone so precious, someone he cared for more than anyone, her heart always grew a little; it swelled with her love for him. And that swelling of love made her feel strong enough, sure enough of him, to overcome her worry. Besides, he’d asked. She’d never kept anything from him when he’d asked.
“I was dating a musician,” she said. “We were in a band together. And we were young and stupid and got pregnant. And I got into a fight with Ari about it and climbed up into an old tree house at my dad’s house in Westchester. And then my boyfriend came up, and we got high, and I climbed out of the window instead of the door—it was dumb, but I thought I had a smart reason—and then I fell. And he caught me, but I broke my wrist and three fingers.”
Ezra’s face was white. “Where’s . . . the baby?” he asked, his knuckles gripping his knees.
“I lost it,” Emily said, “after I fell.” And she started crying, thinking not about that baby but about the other one. The one who would have been hers and Ezra’s.
Ezra stood and then sat down next to her. “You had this whole life, this whole . . . ordeal . . . that happened to you and you never told me.”
“I never told anyone, except Ari and Dr. West.”
Ezra was looking down at his hands.
Emily saw them in his lap. His hands were usually so calm, but now they were twisting around each other.
“You didn’t trust me?” he asked. “You didn’t trust me enough to tell me this?”
“It’s not about trust,” Emily said, trying to find the right words to make him understand. “It’s about . . . it’s about not wanting to be that person anymore. Not wanting to associate myself with the way I acted then, the decisions I made, the pain I was in.”
“But this is such a huge part of you. I feel like I married someone I don’t really know.”
“You know me,” Emily said, trying to look him in the eye, but he was still looking down, still focused on his hands.
“I don’t feel like I do,” he said, lifting his head. “I feel like you’ve been lying to me for years.”
She looked him straight in the eyes. “Ez,” she said. “I didn’t lie to you about anything. I’m still me. I’m still the same person.” Emily thought to apologize for not telling him, but she didn’t. She was sorry he was hurt, but she didn’t think she’d done anything wrong. It was her story.
“It doesn’t feel like you are,” he said, leaning against the back of the chair. “When have you been practicing piano?”
“I haven’t,” she said, simply.
“You can play like that without touching an instrument for more than a decade?” He looked at her incredulously. He’d never looked at her like that before.
“Believe what you want to believe. I’m telling you the truth.” The therapist part of Emily recognized that the trust in their relationship was now broken and needed to be repaired, but she responded before thinking about whether it was the right thing to say.
“I hate that I don’t believe you,” Ezra said. “I hate that you made it so I don’t believe you.”
There was a pause. A moment where they both looked at each other, sized each other up.
“I hate that you don’t believe me, either,” she said, finally. She didn’t want to explain, didn’t want to tell him how many times she’d listened to that song and why. How she’d known how to play it years ago, and that she’d been playing it in her mind all afternoon, imagining her hands on the keys again. She knew she should. Still, she’d answered so many of his questions. It was time for him to answer hers.
“What happened to you at work today?” she asked again.
This time Ezra responded. “Malcolm died,” he said, flatly. “And his mother blamed me. She was hysterical. Her husband had to hold her back. She—she