the end of the line just as her boarding group was called.
Sitting in row 17, seat B, she was still having second thoughts.
But the music was calling to her. She needed to find out if she should really resurrect her dream. If this life was what she wanted.
She wondered what Dr. West would make of this. What would Emily herself think if a patient had told her this story? Reckless behavior, poor decision making. She’d wonder about bipolar disorder, but she didn’t fit the rest of the criteria for that. Maybe some sort of postmiscarriage hormone imbalance. Or a not-quite midlife crisis. Or maybe she was simply calling out for attention, calling out for help.
She should go back into therapy. When she got back, she would. She needed help, the same way she did when she was in college. But that was for later. For now, she was going to play music in Mexico.
She turned her phone back on to call Priya before takeoff, not looking at or listening to the messages from Ari. She left Priya a voice mail: “I’m going to be gone tomorrow, maybe the next day. There’s a lot to talk about. Sorry I’m missing the staff development thing. I went to Mexico.” Then she turned her phone off again.
Emily wondered if Priya would guess the truth, that she was somewhere with Rob, or if she would assume that Emily and Ezra had gone for a quick trip together to patch things up after losing the baby. That was what she should be doing. But the thought of fighting with him right now was too overwhelming—what if they reached the end of the argument and she lost him completely? What if their relationship changed in a way she didn’t want? She knew that difficult circumstances either pulled people together or broke them apart. That two people had to consciously decide to make things work. Was she deciding not to make this work? Or was this just a step on her journey of figuring out what she wanted to make work? How to make things work?
Even if she chose Ezra over music, he’d have to choose her.
After everything he said, she wasn’t completely sure if he would.
50
Throughout the whole flight, Emily kept thinking about Ezra. She kept thinking about the feeling that had inspired the beginning of a song, the one she was writing, the one that was her own. She gave herself over to it, and let it grow and change. As the plane traveled farther from New York, the melody and lyrics kept evolving. She wished she had a keyboard so she could really hear it and start arranging it as she wrote. But even without a keyboard, by the end of the flight she had something.
He has love in his heart
For everyone but me
He floats on a river of compassion
While I swim in the sea.
When I reach for him
He just doesn’t see
Because there’s love in his heart
For everyone but me
And you say he’s kind
And you say he’s good
And I know it’s true
For you, for you
It wasn’t a whole song. It wasn’t even a good one. But it had a verse and a chorus. Or maybe a chorus and a bridge. She needed to work on it. But channeling her emotions into a song . . . it made everything feel like somehow it would be okay. She was transforming her pain into something else. And in doing so, she was transforming herself.
Plus, focusing on that meant she could ignore the feeling that her life was coming undone. Things were falling apart. The center was shifting off course. And she wasn’t doing anything to pull it back. At least not yet.
She might even be pushing it further afield.
51
When Emily crossed the jet bridge into the airport in Cancun, she could feel the damp warmth of the beach penetrating the building—and her, too. Her bones felt warmer. But her heart cracked a little when she realized the last time she stepped off a plane into this airport it was with Ezra by her side, a few days before their wedding. Things had felt so different then. So solid, so secure, like nothing could ever tear them apart, the threads of their relationship woven from iron. But iron rusts and crumbles. Was that what was happening now?
As she got through customs, she saw someone in a baseball cap and sunglasses holding a piece of hotel stationery with her name scrawled on it. Had Rob sent her a