Page 33 of Lost Dreams

“I wanted to call and tell you to break a leg,” Roberto said.

At this, Lorelei burst into tears.

“What? What happened?” Roberto sounded stricken.

Lorelei gasped for air. Luckily, she was hidden away in her dressing room, and Raffaello was already in his seat somewhere, waiting to see her perform.

“I can’t talk about it,” Lorelei said. “I need to focus.”

“I love you,” Roberto said. “Call me when you’re done.”

When Lorelei was called to the stage, her stomach sloshed angrily as she walked. She strode out, feeling hundreds of pairs of eyes upon her, then slid onto the bench and set her fingers on the keys. Every day for years, she’d practiced anywhere between seven and twelve hours per day. She’d lived and breathed piano. She’d made herself into a sort of machine.

But sometimes machines broke down.

She supposed that machines weren’t meant to have hearts. She supposed that made all their mechanisms messed up.

At first, everything went all right. She dove into the Rachmaninoff splendorously, then moved into the Debussy and the Ravel without pause. But somewhere within the Mozart, her fingers fluttered bizarrely, and she found that she was on the wrong end of the keyboard without any sense of where the music was supposed to go next.

This had never happened to her, not in all of her performances. Terror split her heart.

Silence filled the performance hall. She could feel Raffaello’s angry eyes on her. She knew exactly how he would reprimand her after this. But all she had to do was remember what came next. All she had to do was put her fingers back on the keys and continue.

Nearly thirty seconds passed. Lorelei considered faking her own death, right here on stage. She considered getting up and walking off. But, as she put her fingers back on the keys and began to play again, she discovered a different way forward. Yes, she would find a way to the end of her performance. Yes, she would stand and bow and listen to the applause. Yes, she would have to hear about how people would talk about “the night Lorelei Whitmore forgot what to play next,” maybe for the rest of her life.

But she knew at this moment that she didn’t want to perform ever again, not for money.

Back when she’d first become pregnant with the baby she’d later miscarry, she’d realized in her heart of hearts that she wanted desperately to be a mother. Nothing else mattered, not then. She’d been willing to give up New York City. She’d been willing to give up her dreams. She’d been willing to put everything aside, all in pursuit of making sure her baby was safe and happy.

After an hour and a half of performing, Lorelei finished her final piece, stood, and took her bow. Her legs shook beneath her, but she was resolute. Everyone in the auditorium stood and applauded. They were eager to go out to dinner or grab drinks after. They were probably not even thinking about her thirty-second silent mistake.

Lorelei strode off the stage after that and locked herself away in her dressing room. She could feel Raffaello coming to find her, to reprimand her. But she wanted to call Roberto right away.

Someone at the restaurant answered, then pulled Roberto away from his kitchen responsibilities to speak with her. “How did it go, my love?” he asked.

Lorelei smiled. “I wanted to tell you before I told anyone else. I’m pregnant.”

Roberto was quiet for a split-second before bursting. “Are you kidding me? This is wonderful! We’re bringing another person into the world! Lorelei, we’ve talked about this, and now it’s happening. There is nobody on the planet I’d rather have a baby with.”

Lorelei closed her eyes, amazed at the difference in behavior between Roberto and Carter Johnson from high school. She realized she’d assumed that Roberto would abandon her, that he’d tell her that he didn’t want a family to disrupt his plans. But everything would be different now. She’d have their baby, and she’d pour all her energy into making sure their family was safe and happy and loved. And she’d help Roberto, too. She would step away from the stage. She would step into the light of their love. It was what a mother was meant to do.

Lorelei heard a sound outside her bedroom door. It brought her back to herself, back to the year 2026—so many years after she’d first discovered her pregnancy and decided to quit making music. She hurried to the door and opened it to find her second-oldest child, Aurora, sobbing in the hallway. She looked every bit as frightened and sorrowful as she had three years ago, when Lorelei had gone to save her from Berlin. At once, Lorelei spread open her arms, and Aurora hurried into them.

“Oh, Mama,” Aurora said, pressing her forehead against Lorelei’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I made a mistake, yet another mistake, and I don’t know what to do.”

Lorelei smoothed her daughter’s hair and whispered, “Nothing is ever so very wrong, honey. We’re going to work it out together, all right?” She pulled her daughter into her bedroom and shut the door behind her, thinking, a mother’s work is never done.

Together, Lorelei and Aurora sat up in Lorelei’s bed with their backs pressed against the pillows. Lorelei couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in bed with one of her children. It reminded her of sleepless nights when they’d been small and sick or too frightened to sleep in bed alone.

Aurora put her face in her hands.

“Honey, whatever it is, we can work through it,” Lorelei assured. She wondered if it had something to do with the stable guys, Oren and Kenny. She wondered if something had finally broken between them.

But Aurora surprised her when she said, “I can’t go back to Rome.”

“You don’t have to go back,” Lorelei said gently. “Not yet. We’re going to spend the summer here in Nantucket. Your grandmother just loves having you around, and…”

But Aurora continued to shake her head. “You don’t understand. I never want to go back to Rome. It’s why I came to Nantucket early. I had to get out of there. Things… happened.”