Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
It was mid-October and Ada’s fourth vocal lesson with Marilyn Rondell.
Standing next to Marilyn’s upright piano in her one-story bungalow not far from the jazz club, Ada ran through scales and arpeggios, loosely warming up a voice that had lain dormant for far too long.
Her throat loosened, and her lungs filled with air.
Marilyn’s fingers were like oil, streaming beautifully across the keys.
Outside, it was fifty-two degrees and cloudy, but in here, tea was steaming in their mugs, and they had a whole hour left to deepen Ada’s musical heart again.
These sessions were fast becoming Ada’s favorite times in her current life.
Marilyn cut the warm-up off and reached for her mug. Today, she wore a whimsical pair of overalls and a knitted hat that fit snugly over her ears. “Darling, that was wonderful,” she said, eyeing Ada. “But you must try to deepen those vowels, if you can. Does it hurt?”
Ada touched the base of her throat, remembering how painful it had been to sing during the tail end of her career. It had felt like a chainsaw going through her neck. But now, the pain was gone, leaving her voice frailer but fine. Maybe she could push it a little bit.
“I’ll try,” she promised Marilyn.
Throughout today’s session, Marilyn had set aside a few jazz standards for Ada to experiment with.
The songs required a musical ear and a musical feel, without the wild operatic voice that Ada had once taken for granted.
Ada enjoyed the improvisation of jazz, how she could sweep into a song and disappear for a little while.
When she and Marilyn transformed a jazz standard into a song of their own design, one they created on the spot with Ada’s lyrics and Marilyn’s chords, Ada felt a sense of euphoria.
It was like she was floating a few inches off the ground.
When their hour was through, Marilyn made Ada another cup of tea and sat with her on the front porch, where they watched children walking from the nearby elementary school.
Ada’s own kids, Kade and Olivia, were staying late today for Kade’s sports and Olivia’s theater. Their own lives were off to the races.
Marilyn sipped her tea and eyed Ada curiously. “Have you reached out to any of your Manhattan friends? Have you told them that you started up your music again?”
Ada wanted to laugh, but didn’t. “My opera friends aren’t really my friends anymore, I’m afraid. It’s just been too long.”
Marilyn nodded. She, too, had lived in Manhattan, which meant she understood the art of letting go of past lives. “I’m sure they’d be pleased for you,” she said. “Taking a twenty-year break from music and getting back into it takes bravery.”
“It’s really a hobby now,” Ada reminded Marilyn, blushing.
“I wanted to talk to you about that,” Marilyn said. “I think we need to set some goals.”
Ada laughed. She heard her own voice, telling her various patients to make goals for themselves, to push themselves toward a sort of “conclusion” so that they felt they were making progress. She understood the benefit, but it was strange to be on the other side.
“I think we should have you up on stage by Christmas,” Marilyn said.
Ada’s smile dropped. “I don’t know about that.”
Marilyn pushed it. “You’ve made enormous progress in just four sessions. I think your voice is up for a lot more than you think it is.” Her face darkened. “Promise me you’ll think about it?”
“Okay,” Ada said. “I’ll think about it.” But she had a hunch she’d back out, no matter what.
Marilyn changed the subject a few minutes later. “How is that husband of yours? Still trying to get you back?”
Ada smiled sadly and wrapped a scarf around her neck. “I guess so. He made dinner almost every night the past week. Some of my favorites, too. Lasagna. Chicken cacciatore.”
“He’s trying to fatten you up for winter, so you won’t leave him behind,” Marilyn teased.
Ada laughed and pulled her arms through her autumn coat.
It was true that Peter had been exceptionally loving and tender since he’d broken things off with Katrina.
It was hard to believe it had been a month since then.
Ada hadn’t asked him about it, choosing to believe that that was Peter’s business and not her own.
Soon, she’d find the strength to reach out to divorce lawyers.
“The kids know we’re breaking up,” Ada said. “The wheels are turning.”
“That must be why he wants to reel you back in,” Marilyn said. “It feels like it’s really happening now. He wants to turn back time.”
Ada smiled, her heart skipping a beat. “There’s no going back, is there?”
“Not as far as I can tell,” Marilyn admitted.
After giving Marilyn a big hug and thanking her for the lesson, Ada sped down the steps, got in her car, and went to pick up the kids at school.
Kade had news regarding the winter running club and a meal that Ada (or Peter) had to cook for the team.
Olivia spoke only in the lines she had to memorize for the next play she was auditioning for, which might have been annoying if she wasn’t so darn good.
Ada’s heart filled with love for her children. How she wished Hannah were still here.
Back at home, Peter was in the kitchen, making homemade chicken potpie.
He high-fived Kade about his sports and Olivia about her theater, and he high-fived Ada, asking her about her singing lessons.
Ada laughed, feeling the smack from his palm reverberate down her wrist. Were they teammates, now? She liked that.
“Marilyn wants me to perform later this year,” she confessed to Peter, popping open a diet soda and watching as Kade and Olivia settled on the sofa to watch something.
“You should!” Peter’s eyes widened. “I’d love to see you on stage again.”
Olivia ripped around to look at Ada. “You’re going on stage?”
Kade turned to follow Olivia’s gaze. “Huh?”
Ada laughed and rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to do it, gang. My performing days are over. I’m just glad I can use my voice again.”
It had been a terrible road. So many years after the fact, Ada could still hear the doctor’s voice in her ear, telling her that she’d never sing again.
It’s over, she’d told Quinn, sobbing. My career. My life. It’s all over.
Across from her, Quinn had looked—frankly—pleased. Finally, Quinn had been able to take over Ada’s position as lead. Finally, Ada was no longer “the one to watch” in opera. Ada was no more.
But Ada was so much more than her opera self. She’d proven that.
The following morning, Ada woke up at dawn in the music room.
Since she and Peter had agreed to break up officially, she’d begun to “nest” in the room, to decorate it with little paintings she’d purchased from art stores downtown.
There was even an old photograph of her from her opera days, hung by the doorway.
In it, she wore a gorgeous, ornate costume, lined with fake jewels that glinted in the hot opera house lights.
Ada no longer fully recognized the woman in the photograph, but she recognized the fire in her eyes. There’s so much life left, she thought.
Since Peter agreed to take the kids to school today, Ada left early to get some work done at the office before her first patient.
After an hour of note-taking, she perused divorce lawyers online and sent a few links to Peter, who read the messages but said nothing.
Maybe Marilyn was right about Peter. Perhaps he was getting cold feet, divorce-wise.
That afternoon, after two patients had come and gone, Natalie entered Ada’s office to deliver the mail.
One was a dark red envelope addressed to Dr. Ada Wagner, but it looked informal and friendly.
There were several stamps in the corner that Ada didn’t recognize, until she spotted a stamp that read: THAILAND. Who did she know in Thailand?
Ada opened the envelope and found within it a beautiful postcard of a Thai island called Koh Lanta, featuring turquoise waters and dense dark-green jungles. She’d heard that monkeys lived on islands like this. Tucked next to the postcard were several lined pages.
Dear Ada,
I’m writing to you from a beach. It feels like all the dark problems I came to you with earlier this year are still with me, but I can carry them better.
I don’t think it’s possible to run away from your issues, necessarily, but a drink on the beach can’t hurt.
More than that, I’m starting to like myself more.
I’m beginning to see myself as part of the world more, a part of the air, the water, and the sky.
Maybe that’s just a poet talking. I don’t know. I can get pretty sappy when I want to.
I hope this letter isn’t out of bounds. I’ve been thinking of you and that night at the wine bar and hoping that your autumn has been all right, all things considered. I know we both miss our daughters. But more than that, I felt a kind of kinship with you that I haven’t felt in ages.
I know it’s a cliché to feel something for your therapist, or to ask for friendship from said therapist. I also know the rules: no friendship for the first two years after your professional relationship with a patient has ceased.
For this reason, I know better than to expect a message back.
In fact, I’ll go further than that and never tell you where to reach me.
Provided you’re still in your office on that beautiful island off the coast of Massachusetts, I’ll always know where to send my frantic, poetic-leaning messages.
All the best,
Nick Willis
Ada reread the letter twice, folded it up, and put it in the first drawer of her desk.
She hadn’t realized she’d stopped breathing until the room began to spin.
When it did, she inhaled sharply and got up, trying not to picture Nick Willis on that beach in Thailand, wearing a pair of swimming shorts, writing with a beautiful pen.
Why had he reached out to her? Why had he said such wonderful things?
It was true what Nick said: that people often felt overly close to their therapists. But what about the therapists? Sometimes, they felt the same toward their patients. Ada was only a person.
Ada was a person, preparing to go through a divorce, searching for meaning and love. But she knew her meaning and love couldn’t come from Nick.
Still, she ached, wondering when the next letter would come, if it ever would.
Ada left the office that evening at five thirty and swung by the school to pick up Kade and Olivia.
They burst into her car, all smiles, and cried out, “Happy birthday!” in unison.
Ada grinned and threw her head back. Only Natalie had celebrated her today, and she’d done it with flowers, balloons, and a birthday cake that the two of them had shared early afternoon at the office.
Natalie had thought the letter from Nick was a birthday card, clean and simple.
It was a miracle that such a beautiful letter had come on her birthday. There was no way he could have known.
“How was your day, Mom?” Olivia asked.
“It was great,” Ada admitted, surprised that she felt that way.
“It’s only going to get better,” Olivia said. Her eyes were alight.
Ada pulled into the driveway, opened the garage, and got out of the car, her mind already turning to thoughts of dinner.
Probably, Peter was making something, another of her favorites.
Probably, she needed to find a way to make him stop that soon.
But before she could open the door between the garage and the house, it sprang open, and Hannah flung herself into her arms. Ada gasped and gripped her daughter hard. Tears filled her eyes.
“Hannah?” Ada cried. “You’re here?”
Hannah cackled and squeezed Ada back. “It was my idea. I took the bus, and Dad picked me up.”
Ada gazed over Hannah’s head to find Peter in the kitchen, opening big pizza boxes and waving hello. There was a bouquet on the counter and a gorgeously decorated cake. Ada guessed it was a carrot, her favorite, and she proved to be right. Her family had thought of everything.
It was hard to believe that Hannah was back.
She looked a little different, slightly older, and she’d gotten a haircut up to her ears.
Ada sat Hannah down at the kitchen island and demanded answers about her classes and her friends.
Peter poured a glass of wine for Ada and himself and passed around sodas to the kids.
The kitchen was bubbly and alive. Kade put on an album that he knew Ada loved, No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom, and Ada sang along, using a voice that was closer to her opera voice than she ever had with her children.
They looked at her, mystified, and said, “More! We want more!”
Peter gazed at her with so much love in his eyes that Ada thought she might fall apart. They ate pizza at the kitchen island, exchanging stories from their days, each of them looking at Hannah a little too long, as though they were afraid she would disappear on the spot.
“Why is everyone being so weird?” Hannah asked. “I’m home! It’s normal!”
But it wasn’t normal. Not anymore.
After pizza, Hannah put candles in the cake, and the four Bushners sang to Ada Wagner, then urged her to make a wish and blow them out.
Ada closed her eyes and thought, I wish for a brand-new chapter.
I wish for joy. She wasn’t sure if she was allowed two wishes, but what was done was done.
She blew out the flickering candles, and everyone clapped.
That night, they watched a brand-new movie all together as a family. Kade and Olivia fell asleep early, exhausted from their middle and high school lives, and Peter cleaned up the kitchen, leaving Hannah and Ada more or less alone on the sofa. Hannah put her head on Ada’s shoulder and sighed.
“How are you, honey?” Ada asked for the hundredth time.
Hannah giggled. “Stop asking that.”
“I’m sorry. I keep thinking you’ll tell me more.”
Hannah sighed and squeezed her mother’s hand. “Me and that guy from the summer we broke up.”
Ada was stricken. “Oh no. Honey. Are you okay?” She pulled her head back to look her daughter in the eyes.
“Yeah. It’s cool,” Hannah said. “We couldn’t make long-distance work, and we lost touch, sort of. It made me sad for, like, two days, and then I had to study and get over it.”
Ada smiled. “You’re already better at relationships than I am.”
Hannah grimaced and glanced back toward the kitchen, where Peter was scrubbing the inside of the sink, his elbow jerking back and forth. “Are you still? I mean, do you think you’ll make it work? With Dad?” There was hope in Hannah’s eyes.
But Ada had to admit the truth. “No, honey. I can’t.”
Hannah bowed her head. After a long time, she said, “I figured you wouldn’t. But I wanted to check. You seem happy together, sort of.”
“We are happy together,” Ada said. “We always were. Sort of.”
But “sort of” wasn’t going to cut it anymore.