getting my PsyD, after a year of internship, after getting my license, I’ll be working at NYU, helping the students there the way that Dr. West helped me. I’m looking forward to it, but I’m—I can’t quite figure out the right word. Nervous? Scared? Concerned? Worried? Afraid, maybe. I’m afraid I won’t be good enough, I won’t help enough, I won’t be able to find the right words, ask the right questions to make a real difference. All of a sudden it feels like a lot of pressure, a lot of responsibility.
And I’m afraid I won’t be able to handle listening to some of it. Some of the stories that are the most painful, that expose the basest parts of humanity.
All of this thinking made me wonder how I would’ve done being your mom. Would I have felt the same fear? The same concern? Would I have messed things up so badly that you’d have had to go see another psychologist to repair everything inside you I broke?
It’s such a responsibility.
I wonder if I’ll ever have a child, if I’ll ever be a mom to anything more than a constellation of cells in my uterus. I honestly think I might not. Ari always knew she wanted to be a mother, but I never felt that way. I still don’t. Maybe you’re all I’ll ever have. Maybe that’s how it should be.
36
Emily looked at the clothing hanging neatly in her closet, pants with pants, blouses with blouses, skirts with skirts. She’d become such an adult. Initially she’d changed her wardrobe to make sure she looked older than her patients, to make sure they respected her and didn’t treat her like just another friend. Soon that look permeated her weekend wardrobe, too. And Ezra liked it—the crepe pants, the silk tops, the tailored skirts. So did she. The clothing made her feel strong, in control, put together, like she always knew what she was doing. But now she wished she still had a pair of leather pants or torn jeans in there.
She took out a pair of regular jeans, the tightest ones she owned, and put them on with a black cami, one she usually wore under a blazer. But she left off the blazer, and added a pair of heels. Then she walked to the bathroom and braided half of her hair into a crown, something she hadn’t done in thirteen years. She was a bit more heavy-handed with her makeup than usual. And went to her jewelry box to find a pair of old silver hoop earrings to complete the look. While she was there, she saw the four-leaf clover necklace that Rob had given her years before; she’d never been able to give it away.
Emily looked at herself in the mirror again and smiled. She looked like a musician.
It felt good to be Queenie again.
xxvii
I met someone today, in the elevator at work. I’d seen him around before, but he never noticed me. He never seemed to notice much of anything, he was so absorbed in his own mind.
It turns out his name is Ezra. Dr. Ezra Gold. And he works in pediatric oncology. When he started talking about his job, all I kept thinking about were the babies who wouldn’t make it and how difficult that must be. Every time. I don’t know if I’d be strong enough to handle it.
“I’m impressed,” I told him, when he told me what he did. “It must be hard.”
“You know,” he said, “I was just talking to my students about quality of life during illness. And I think that’s important in any medical field, but especially when you work with children. If these little people only have three or seven or eleven years on this planet, I want to make sure that the time they spend here is as easy and fun and happy and painless as I can make it.”
I think I may have fallen in love with him right then, right there in the elevator. I don’t think it was love at first sight, but maybe love at first listen? It’s so rare to find someone whose head and heart, whose intelligence and empathy are so connected, so in line with each other.
I told him I’d love to hear more about his job, and he invited me out for lunch.
I haven’t ever been this excited about a lunch date.
I haven’t been this excited about another human being since I met your dad.