Ada laughed and raised her glass of wine. “Thanks for your kind words.”
“Thanks for coming in,” Marilyn said.
They drank. Ada let all the air out of her lungs.
“I take it you’re still a musician,” Marilyn said.
Ada chortled. “No. Not in the slightest.”
“You’re kidding. After all that? You quit? Everything?” Marilyn asked, her lips parted. “You don’t even, like, play the piano? You don’t have a guitar at home?”
Ada shook her head, remembering those early discussions with Peter, how they’d both agreed it was better for her to turn her back on music completely, lest it break her heart.
Marilyn made a sound in the back of her throat. “Well, that’s too bad.”
Ada looked down, wondering if she’d made a grave error. Maybe Marilyn no longer wanted to speak with her.
“It’s kind of my nightmare,” Marilyn said. “Being forced out of music, never returning to it. I have those dreams sometimes. In them, I’m really old, and it’s too late to get better at the piano again. My fingers are useless.” She raised her hands and studied her cuticles, as though she were lost in her nightmares.
“What did you do instead?” Marilyn asked suddenly, taking another sip of wine.
“Oh.” Marilyn meant what Ada had done with her time, she guessed. “I’m a therapist. And I had a few kids. Three.”
“And you got married?” Marilyn asked, glancing to see the wedding band that Ada still wore on her ring finger. Pathetically.
“I did,” Ada said, but there was a jump in her voice that said she regretted it.
Marilyn was good at reading people.
“You know,” Marilyn said, “there are other ways to return to singing. You don’t have to sing the opera anymore. I recognize that it’s too big a strain on your chords. They were quite damaged, as I understand. But I know a lady who gives lessons. By that, I mean, I give lessons. Here on the island. And I would genuinely enjoy them.”
Ada coughed. “I think I’m too old for lessons.”
“You think you’re too old to learn something new?” Marilyn asked, cracking a smile.
Ada’s thought was clear and true: yes, I’m too old to learn anything; I’m too old to move on from this; I’m too old to rejuvenate. But she was only forty-three years old.
Marilyn hunted for her business card, through her pockets and her purse, before writing down her email and phone number and telling Ada to give her a call. “Now that the tourist season’s drying up, I have plenty more time. I think we can get you back on stage. This stage, even. If you’re willing to give it a go.”
After Marilyn returned to the stage to perform for a few more tourists who’d milled in from the street, Ada paid for her wine and water and returned to the street. Her head hummed with the mystery of how she wanted to proceed. She tried to imagine herself taking singing lessons from the likes of Marilyn, but all she could see was herself, age twelve, taking opera-singing lessons from the woman in her hometown. She couldn’t go backward.
Then again, what would it be like to stretch her voice again? What would it be like to feel that joy in the pit of her stomach again? What would it be like to breathe and let herself go?
Ada roamed the streets, urging herself to head back home. She knew that Peter, Kade, and Olivia were all safe at home because Peter had texted her about it. Ada had sent a thumbs-up in return, unsure whether she wanted to join them and continue pretending.
But just before she planned to return to her car, she swept around a corner and saw a familiar face on the porch of the little wine bar she used to love. It was Nick Willis, her patient. He was sitting by himself, a glass of red wine in front of him, his eyes steady but stern. Ada wasn’t sure why she did it, but suddenly, she found herself mounting the steps and raising a hand in greeting. “Nick,” she said. “Hi.”
Nick snapped out of his reverie and got to his feet. He looked almost like he was expecting her. “Oh. Hi, Dr. Wagner.” He gestured vaguely at the chair across from him and added, “I guess we’ll be talking about this at my next session. I got stood up.”
Ada winced and laughed at once. It was something about the way he’d delivered the news, half-joke edged with exhaustion, that charmed her. “That’s awful. I’m sorry.”
Nick shrugged and sat back down. “It’s fine. I dropped Carleigh off at college the other day, and I thought I’d, you know, try harder to get back out there. I learned my lesson.”
“You didn’t learn anything relevant, save for the fact that people can be mean sometimes.” Ada crossed her arms. “I mean, they’re not healed. That’s the better way of putting it.”
A twenty-something female server returned to the porch, her black bun perched high on her head, and said, “Let me know what I can get you.” It was clear she thought Ada was Nick’s date.
“Oh,” Ada said, glancing back at Nick, but remembering her house at home, the lies that filled every crevice, darkened every shadow. “I mean, I’ll sit down. If you don’t mind?”
