Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
It was a week after Hannah’s move-in date, and everything in Ada’s life felt out of sync.
Finishing up a session with a patient in her office, Ada made a stupid error, calling the patient’s husband Randall instead of Jared, and as the patient winced, clearly hurt, Ada cursed herself.
She pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead and said, “I’m terribly sorry.
It was a word slip. I remember Jared’s name.
Of course I do!” However, her patient looked uncomfortable, shifting her weight in the chair until it was time to leave.
Ada was alone in her office, making notes to herself for a half hour, before she decided to leave and call Hannah. Natalie was packing up at her desk, turning off her computer, smiling at Ada. “Today felt long,” Natalie confessed, her tone cheerful. “Did it feel long to you?”
“So long!” Ada laughed falsely and waved as she left the office. “See you tomorrow. Thanks for your work today.”
Out on the sidewalk, Ada buttoned and unbuttoned her jacket and dialed Hannah’s number.
Since she’d moved in, Ada had spoken to Hannah only thrice for ten minutes, but she’d gleaned enough to understand that Hannah was friends with Adelaide already.
There were plenty of people on their floor who the girls got along with, and they were considering joining the tennis club, which was less competitive than the tennis team—but far more fun.
It seemed like things were off to the races. Thank goodness.
Hannah answered on the second ring. “Mom, can I call you back?”
Ada inhaled sharply, cursing herself for putting too much of her emotional happiness on her daughter. “Of course, honey. Have a great time. Love you.”
“Love you!” Hannah hung up, and Ada was dropped back onto the sidewalk in Nantucket with nothing to do the rest of the day.
Kathy had moved back home two days ago. Kade had running club until late, and Olivia was trying out for the school’s fall play.
Afterward, Peter agreed to pick up both children.
Ada was “off duty,” so to speak. She felt “single” for the first time since she’d let Peter come into her dressing room at the opera house.
The first thing she did was visit a small bookstore downtown and purchase a novel.
It had been ages since she’d let herself read to her heart’s content, so she bought a book and a coffee and sat in the autumnal light until it got too cold to sit outside.
When she closed the book, she spotted some of the Salt Sisters across the street, laughing together as they meandered toward the boardwalk.
Ada’s adrenaline spiked, but Katrina wasn’t among them.
Had Katrina told them what was up with her and Peter lately? Did they know that Peter was married? If they glanced across the street and saw Ada, would they speed up or slow down?
Ada was grateful when they disappeared around the corner.
Feeling too unfocused to read, Ada turned to social media and immediately saw a post from Quinn.
She’d secured the top-billed role in the autumn production of Madame Butterfly, which hundreds of people were already congratulating her for.
Ada’s ears went hot. She scrolled and scrolled, got off the chair, walked down the road, and continued to scroll, nearly running into other walkers as she went.
She couldn’t spend her life this way. She considered throwing her phone in the ocean.
It was already seven, and when she turned the corner, she heard the first chords of the piano in the jazz bar coming through the cracked doorway. She felt like a moth to a flame.
Only two other people were in the jazz club, save for the pianist up front.
The pianist was a woman in her forties or early fifties, with long, slender fingers and a beautiful neck that swept like a bow.
Ada sat down, ordered a sparkling water, and listened for a while, letting her heart calm in her chest. Music!
It had always been here. It would always be here.
But what could jazz tell her about her marriage?
What could jazz tell her about the next steps?
She and Peter still weren’t speaking. It was as if she wanted to avoid the problem until it consumed her.
After the pianist finished her set, the others in the jazz club got up and left the bar, leaving the pianist and Ada alone with the bartender, who was drying dishes.
The silence rang in her ears but was nevertheless pleasant.
The pianist got up and stretched her arms over her head.
Ada thought she was beautiful and so interesting.
She’d lived her entire life for her art.
When the pianist turned her head to look out at the crowd, she flinched with surprise at the sight of Ada. “Oh! It’s you. The opera singer.”
Ada’s heartbeat quickened. She clutched the bottle of water.
The pianist smiled and dropped down off the stage, sitting at a table two away from Ada, still facing her. She wasn’t scary or overly familiar, strangely, and Ada didn’t feel like getting up and leaving.
“Sorry,” the pianist said. “I know you, and you don’t know me. I’m Marilyn Rondell. I was working in Manhattan when you were moving up in the opera world.”
Ada’s shoulders rolled forward and back. “Ah, okay. Hi. I’m Ada.”
“I heard a rumor that you were going to sing a few weeks back,” Marilyn said.
Ada snorted, remembering when she’d been forced on stage. Everything had exploded after that. She’d told Peter she knew about Katrina. She’d moved down the hall from their bedroom.
“She shouldn’t have forced you up like that,” Marilyn said quietly. “I remember what happened to you. It was a tragedy.”
Ada sniffed and dropped her gaze, surprised at how open-hearted she felt in front of this stranger. “It is what it is.” She shrugged.
Marilyn gestured for the bartender to pour her a glass of whatever she liked. “Do you want something?” she asked Ada.
Ada figured they were in for a real talk, and she needed it badly. “Okay.”
The bartender brought two glasses of white wine and turned on the speakers to play light jazz. It was a weekday and late in the season, and Marilyn said, “I’m guessing nobody else will join us tonight. If they do, I’ll get back up on that stage.”
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.