My dad came running.

I was crying.

Then we were in my dad’s car and every bounce made me wince.

At the hospital they set my broken wrist and three broken fingers.

I didn’t tell them I was pregnant. Your dad didn’t, either.

“She’s lucky,” they said.

“You saved her from a lot worse by breaking her fall,” they said.

They sent me home with painkillers I wasn’t sure I should take.

I wouldn’t be able to play piano for eight weeks, maybe longer.

I wouldn’t be able to play the shows we’d booked in Texas for Christmas.

I wouldn’t be able to record the CD we were planning next month.

I wouldn’t be able to do what I loved with the man I loved.

I was devastated.

xv

Two days later my stomach started cramping. I started bleeding.

“I guess you weren’t pregnant after all,” your dad said to me.

“I guess,” I said.

But I knew that wasn’t true.

I knew you had been there.

I knew I had lost you.

But I pretended I hadn’t.

I pretended the pregnancy test was wrong.

I pretended it didn’t matter to me at all.

I pretended for months.

18

Emily and Ezra spent the night in each other’s arms.

“I wanted this baby so badly,” Emily murmured as they held each other.

“I know,” Ezra said, “me too.”

He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her closer.

“We did everything right,” she said. “We would’ve been such good parents.”

“And we will be,” he said. “We will be.”

Emily couldn’t believe this had happened to her. Again. After waiting so long, after dreaming for so long. After taking months to get pregnant this time. Was it punishment? Was she getting what she deserved?

She cried until she fell asleep.

—

Ezra watched his wife sleep, wondering how much pain a human being could absorb, how many times his heart could break, at home, at work, day after day, before it would be broken for good.

xvi

I didn’t go with your dad to Austin for Christmas. My wrist hurt, my fingers hurt, and what I was calling my period was heavier and longer than usual. There was so much blood. Plus I couldn’t play piano. I was too miserable to meet his family, too sad to be on stage, too busy blaming myself to enjoy being with anyone. Instead, I curled up in my childhood bed and reread all ninety-seven of the Baby-Sitters Club books that were still in my bedroom, along with three super specials and six Baby-Sitters Club mysteries. Then I read The Red Tent, which is the book I was reading to your grandmother when she died. I read it through twice.