All Chapters of Too Late: She Is Gone With Your Baby: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Chapter 31ARIAThe charity opera was at the Meridian Hall, the oldest and most beautiful venue in the city. The ceiling was painted, the acoustics were the sort that made every note feel considered, and the audience was exactly the kind that filled seats like that, old money and new influence, people who attended cultural events because they genuinely loved them.We had been preparing the program for two weeks. It was not our usual tour repertoire. The charity committee had requested something specific and I had built the program carefully.I was in the wings twenty minutes before curtain, running a scale quietly in the dark, when Julian appeared.He had flowers. A full arrangement, the kind that took deliberate choosing and not the kind you picked up from a shop near the door on the way in. Deep red, structured, the stems wrapped in dark paper. He held them out with the particular expression he wore when he was doing something that mattered to him and was trying to make it look casu

Chapter 33ARIAThe next morning's rehearsal ran long.I pushed the program harder than I had planned to, pushing my musicians who were beginning to notice the tension that was building up but said nothing and did as they were told, repeating the music peieve over and over.We ran the final movement four times.After the third, Adaeze caught my eye across the room with an expression that was not concern exactly but was paying close attention.After the fourth, when I called the break, she appeared at my shoulder with two cups of tea from the side table, holding one out to me in the quiet way she did things."Good morning," she said."Was it not good yesterday," I said."Yesterday was excellent," she said. "This morning is different." She sipped her tea and looked out at the rehearsal space where the other musicians were moving around, stretching, talking in small groups. "What's in you this morning is good. I just want to make sure everything is alright, you kind of went hard on every

Chapter 35ARIAWe looked at each other across the corridor.Adrian shifted. "I'll leave," he said. "I'm sorry for the disruption." He addressed it to Julian, not to me, which was the correct instinct and also somehow made everything worse. "It won't happen again."Julian did not acknowledge this. His eyes were still on mine.Adrian walked to the end of the corridor and pushed through the exit door, and then it was just Julian and me and the bouquet sitting on the bench between us.Julian picked up the bouquet. He looked at it for a moment. Then he crossed to the bin near the stage door and dropped it in.The sound it made when it hit the bottom was soft and final.He picked up the chocolate box from where he had set it on the edge of the bench. That went in after it.I watched him do both things and said nothing."I'm going to pick up Eli from daycare," he said, straightening his jacket, his voice back to the careful evenness that w

Chapter 37ADRIANShe looked at me."Which kind are you," she said."The first kind," I said. "I need it to be a place. Somewhere specific." I looked at the window, at the early morning street outside. "Which is probably why the past five years have been—" I stopped. I had not meant to go there. "Difficult," I finished, which was accurate and said very little.She did not push. "I'm sorry," she said finally. "For whatever happened. With Elena." She said the name carefully, not performing discomfort with it but acknowledging the weight of it. "Losing someone and not having any resolution. That is a particular kind of terrible."I looked at her across the small table."Yes," I said. "It is."We sat with that for a moment.Then she finished her coffee, turned the empty cup once in her hands, and began gathering her coat from the back of the chair. "I should get to the venue," she said."Of course," I said.We moved toward the door together, the natural exit from a small table in a sma

Chapter 39ARIA"I am past careful," she said."No," I said. "You are past professional. Those are not the same thing and I want you to understand the difference before you continue." I kept my voice even. It cost me something to keep it even. "You just poured coffee on me. In my own rehearsal space. That is not the behavior of a woman with a legitimate grievance. That is the behavior of a woman who has decided that the rules that apply to everyone else do not apply to her."Her jaw tightened."Adrian has a contract with this orchestra," I said. "A formal, legally documented arrangement that your own company's investment helped facilitate. That contract means that I meet with him. That I discuss programming and logistics and the professional terms of the arrangement. I do not have the option of refusing those meetings, nor do I have any reason to, because I have done nothing that requires me to be ashamed of my professional conduct." I held her gaze steadily. "I have not sought him ou