teach it to me?” he asked. The vulnerability in his eyes touched her. Over the last couple of months their hearts had been slowly opening to each other again, and she saw his now, wide open, every door unlocked.
So she taught her husband the melody. And once he was able to sing it, she harmonized behind him. And then changed the words at the end of the chorus: It was the dark night of our souls.
He was right. The song worked fine as a solo, but it had an even deeper meaning as a duet. With the bare trees around them, sheltering them from the wind, it felt like they were in a bubble of their own in the middle of Central Park, the two of them, singing to each other, a healing of wounds they’d both inflicted. She felt her voice melding with his, her heart melding with his—it was a specific closeness that she’d only ever felt before with Rob. Emily’s and Ezra’s voices meshed perfectly together, and she poured her love for him, for the baby they had lost, and her hopes for a future together, into the music. Emily was grateful for the choices she had made, for her decision to be with Ezra. And for his decision to be with her, to stay. For the work they had done to come back from the dark night of their souls. They had been tested and they had survived.
64
When they got home, before they even stripped off their hats and gloves and scarves, Ezra caught Emily by the arm and kissed her. His lips felt cold against hers, and she knew that hers probably felt cold against his, too.
“Making music with you is very, very sexy,” he told her.
She smiled. “I hadn’t quite expected that reaction,” she said. “But I loved making music with you, too.”
He smiled. “How about this reaction?” he asked, lifting her up so she was cradled in his arms, and walking with her, scarf and hat and gloves still on, into the bedroom. As Ezra carefully took off her gloves and unzipped her boots, all she could think about was how badly she wanted him.
She reached out and pulled the zipper down on his coat. He shrugged out of it and she grabbed for the waistband of his jeans. Once they’d undressed each other, once he’d had his head in her lap and she’d had her head in his, he reached for a condom, but she stopped him. “I don’t think we need that.” She’d spoken without conscious thought. It was an instinctual choice. An impulse that felt right.
He looked her in the eye, questioning, even as he smiled. “Are you sure?”
She nodded.
He kissed her hard, laid her down, and slid inside her.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”
65
A few days later, after Emily spent the afternoon practicing her set in a rented studio space, she came home to find Ezra directing a man with a piano on a dolly about where to put it in their apartment.
“What’s going on in here?” she asked, fighting the urge to throw her arms around him, because it was pretty obvious that he had just bought her a piano.
“It’s your Hanukkah present,” he told her, beaming. It was a white upright that fit perfectly against the wall next to the couch.
And then Emily did throw her arms around him. “Thank you,” she said. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”
He hugged her back. “I actually think I do,” he said.
66
A couple of weeks later, Ari came to Manhattan and met Emily in SoHo to go clothes shopping.
“So what are we looking for?” she asked.
“Something simple, but cool, and not trying too hard,” Emily said. “For the show, I want to look like a fancier version of me.”
The sisters were carrying hot chocolates in their gloved hands, window-shopping on Houston Street.
“Do you have a store in mind?” Ari asked.
Emily shook her head. “I’ll know it when I see it,” she said. “How are things going on your end? How was your ski weekend?” Ari and Jack had just taken the boys up to Vermont.
“It was fun,” Ari said. “The boys are turning into such real people now. We let them ski together without us for an afternoon, and Jack and I got some time alone. I told him I was thinking about going back to work. And wanted to plan a trip to Egypt. He said we should go for our anniversary and leave the boys with