Emily wondered now, years later, if that was really true. He could get by with a kiss sometimes, he could talk to her sometimes, but often he needed to retreat inside himself and work things through alone, awash in his own frustration and anger. He managed. He went back each day ready to fight for a child’s life, to teach medical students how to fight. Over and over and over again. But she wondered at what cost—to him, to her, to their marriage. She felt the difficulties of her own profession, but his were so much worse—especially when he believed he was in control of it all, when he took each death personally. Emily wished she knew how to better help him—but she discovered that all she really could do was love him and try to understand him and hope that would be enough.

—

While Ezra went to the drugstore, Emily got out of bed, made coffee for both of them in her bathrobe. One cup of caffeine, she knew, was okay. Though maybe she’d just have half, to play it safe. Maybe a quarter. She took the prenatal vitamin she’d been taking for the last eight months, but now it felt more like a promise, less like a wish and a prayer.

Behind the kitchen was a door to a small second bedroom that would be perfect for a baby. They’d just have to find a new place for their boxes of textbooks and extra paper towels and whatever else they’d been storing in there since they moved in. Much to Emily’s chagrin, the room had basically become a glorified storage unit. She kept promising herself she’d sort through it the next time Ezra was on call. Now she really would have to. No more procrastinating.

Emily looked down at her body. She’d been so afraid for the last few days that this was a false alarm. That stress or exercise or worry about getting pregnant had just made her period late. But she felt it—that fullness in her breasts, the intensity of her sense of smell—she knew something was different.

v

After a few weeks back at the keys, I felt comfortable there again. Your father would start something on the guitar, I’d pick it up, and we’d speak through our music, telling each other how we felt, what we wanted.

“Everything just disappeared,” I told him one day, after we’d been playing for hours. “Everything but you.”

“I always feel that way,” he said, putting his hand on my arm, “when I play with you.”

The pressure of his fingers was all I could think about. I moved closer to him. He floated his finger down to my wrist, and then bent to put his guitar on the carpet.