I don’t want to spend the rest of my life alone, though, thinking about what might have been. I’d thought I was healed, but I’m not healed enough. I’ll get there, though. I will. And when I do, I’m sure I’ll imagine you on my wedding day, too, what it would’ve been like if I’d asked you to walk me down the aisle and stand with me as I brought someone new into our lives.

35

The next morning, Emily headed to the East River path for a run and thought about Ezra. The two of them often ran down the side of Manhattan together, his feet pounding the pavement with slightly longer strides, so she had to turn her legs over faster to keep up. Once they’d gone about four and a half miles down to Battery Park, they’d usually slow down and stop for a smoothie before taking the subway home, dripping sweat but relaxed and happy.

Instead of getting a smoothie after her run, Emily sent Ezra a text: Hope it’s not too rough at the hospital. He didn’t respond. But, she reasoned, maybe that text didn’t invite a response. Or maybe it was rough at the hospital and he couldn’t text with her just then. That had happened before. But she was feeling so insecure right then that she couldn’t stop turning his nonresponse over and over in her mind.

She wished she knew what to do. She wished she knew the right words to say, the right move to make. But the one thing she did know was that if she pushed too hard, he’d just pull away even more, roll himself into a ball like a pangolin and stay that way until he was ready to move forward again, on his own terms and his own time frame, nobody else’s. Was he not thinking about how his actions affected Emily? Was she asking for too much right now? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she wished she understood what was going through her husband’s mind but truly had no idea.

—

To distract herself, Emily called Ari, but her sister didn’t pick up. A minute later, her phone lit up with a text: Hi Auntie Em, it’s Tyler. Mom wants to know if you’re okay, but she’s driving so she gave me her phone.

Hey hun, Emily wrote back. I was just calling to see what was going on with you guys today. She’d been hoping maybe she could hang out with them for a while. There were friends she could try, too, but when she was sad or confused or feeling out of sorts, it was still only Ari she wanted to spend time with.