I loved the earthiness of his voice, loved hearing it without a microphone distorting its raspy quality. I didn’t want to join in, to mar his beautiful sound with my own. But then your grandpa started singing along, deeper than your dad, and not as beautiful, but on key. I joined in then, balancing their lower register with my higher tone.

The electric feeling that shot through the music at Webster Hall had made its way to your grandfather’s living room. Only he was part of it now, too. Music is transformational like that, when you’re part of its creation.

When the song ended, I looked up, and wasn’t surprised to see that all three of us had tears in our eyes.

Your grandfather cleared his throat, all of a sudden embarrassed by his singing or his emotion or something else I wasn’t sure of.

“Now I know where you get it from,” your dad said, winking at me and then smiling at your grandfather. Though I knew my musical ability was my mom’s.

Ari had walked in while we were playing, and she hadn’t taken her coat off. She was just standing in the entryway, watching.

“Well,” your grandfather said, “I was going to go into town to pick up some of those dura logs for the fireplace. Anyone want to keep an old man company?”

Your dad looked at me. I was looking at Ari. “I’ll come,” he said.

Your grandfather seemed chuffed by the offer, and the two of them took off into town.

Once they left, Ari wrapped me in a hug. “How are you holding up?” she asked me.

I shrugged. “Okay, I guess.” Then I paused. “Actually, not really okay at all.”

She nodded and rubbed my back. “Of course you’re not.”

“I don’t know what to do,” I told her, sitting down on the couch.

She sat beside me. “What happened, exactly?” she asked.

So I told her the whole story—about the show and the green room and not getting married and how I knew your dad didn’t really want to raise a baby, even though he’d never come straight out and said it.

“What would Mom say?” I asked her.

She thought for a moment. “Well,” she said, “Mom always said that whatever happened to us was God’s doing and any choice we made was the one we were supposed to make. Which probably doesn’t help much.”

I thought about that. It was the way our mom was able to accept her illness, her death. Everything happens the way it’s supposed to happen.

“Does that mean that if I agonize over this, I’m supposed to be agonizing over this?” I asked Ari, half joking.

She smiled. “I guess so.”

We sat for a moment.

“Do you believe that?” I asked, quietly.

Ari looked at me seriously. “I try to,” she said.