She’d looked up the lyrics to the song she heard in the deli, and the artist was named Austin Roberts. He’d grown up in Austin. And Roberts . . . they’d talked about stage names once, about flipping his first and making it his last. And with the sound, with the lyrics, with that voice, with a melody that sounded so similar to “Queen of All the Keys”—it had to be him. She hadn’t looked for a website, though, or any social media profiles. She was worried about what it would feel like to see his face again, after so long.

“Can I hear?” Ari asked.

Emily pulled the song up on iTunes. There was a whole album, she knew. She’d found it that afternoon. But she’d only bought the one song. She hit play and watched her sister listen to the lyrics, listen to him sing. Without even thinking about it, Emily started playing along, her right hand tapping the melody on the back of the couch, her left playing chords on her thigh. She knew it would be nearly three more months until the embryo inside her would be able to hear music—or anything at all—but she wondered if her child would like this song, would love music the way she did.

When the song was over, Arielle sat for a moment. Emily could see her processing, biting her lip as she considered her words. “Is that about . . .” she finally said.

“I think so?” Emily said, her eyebrows crinkling. “I think it’s about me.”

On their first date, he’d called her a crystal queen. It seemed impossible that the song would be about someone else.

Ari was quiet for a moment. “What are you going to do?”

Emily shrugged. “Nothing, I guess? I don’t know.”

“You’re not tempted to email him?” Ari said as she picked up her glass of water. “I would be.”

“Of course I’m tempted,” Emily said. “But that feels like opening up a lot. Like that Greek myth storybook Mom used to read us—I don’t want to be Pandora.”

Ari laughed, a sound that quickly turned rueful. “At least someone gave you a box.”

Emily looked closely at her sister. “Are you okay?” she asked.

Ari took a sip of water. “I turn thirty-six in two months.”

It took about three seconds for the significance to hit Emily. “When Mom got diagnosed,” she said. “Are you having any . . . ?”

Ari shook her head. “I don’t think so, but any time I trip over a crack in a sidewalk or drop my keys, I worry that this is it. It’s coming for me. And then I think about the choices I’ve made, giving up being a math teacher to raise my kids, getting married so young, and I wonder if I’m ever going to get to visit the Great Pyramids in Egypt.”