Elizabeth Crane - The History of Great Things

You still make love as often and as intensely as you fight. You’re now forty. Thanks to him, your music calendar is always booked three years ahead. Your voice is richer, more powerful than ever, your reviews always raves. You have performed opposite all the greats, sung all the roles you’ve coveted (Gilda, Lucia, Tosca, Queen of the Night), performed with all the major orchestras (Philadelphia, Chicago, Caracas), all the major opera companies and concert halls (La Scala, Covent Garden), and maestros (Ozawa, Mehta, Chailly, Muti). But the thrills are briefer and briefer, and now the crashes are harder. Post — standing ovation, post — dressing room visits, they come hard and fast, but as soon as you’re in the taxi they’re replaced with an empty space; you’re entirely hollow, and no amount of love from your husband — and he has a lot to give — keeps it filled. It is sinking in that you may never have a recording career, though you will never fully comprehend why. Over many a supper, you and Victor discuss the possible reasons, all of which have to do with the nefarious business of classical music and those who run it. That cunty R won’t hire me because I’m better than her. And she’s got that weasel D at her side making sure it doesn’t happen anywhere else. You will claim, for all of your days, that there are compromises you are unwilling to make — that there’s a classical casting couch you are unwilling to lie down on, and that this is the sole reason that you have never recorded. Your self-doubt resides elsewhere and calcifies until it’s not even doubt anymore. You are certain that everything else about you is bad. You’re definitely not the best person. You’re not the prettiest, you’re not the thinnest, you’re not the smartest, you’re not the — est anything, except when it comes to singing. You do know how talented you are. This may be the only thing about you that you know is truly good.

You are not fooling yourself about that, either — you are a gifted musician and still in your prime, as far as singing goes, so you haven’t given up yet. You’ll never give up. It’s all you have. And so when you get pregnant, in your forty-first year, this is not the good news that it might be at some other time, some right time. You and Victor discuss it. You choose not to mention the services from back in the day. You don’t much want to remember that yourself. Victor tells you that he wants whatever you want. It’s true-ish, but there’s an ever-so-slight speck of melancholy in his eyes that betrays the earnest tone of his voice when he says it. You know he hopes that you want to have a baby, his baby. But your silence says what needs to be said. It’s not that you don’t wish you could give that to him, but you do both know, you really do know that if not this baby, no baby. You’ve made the right decision, you’re sure, but you’ve failed, again. It’s time for therapy. You will fix yourself.

Therapy does not result in fixing yourself. You push forward with it; it seems like a good outlet for your screams and tears, though one hour a week hardly covers your screaming and crying needs. You are sure that everything is about your father and your husband, who you are coming to see doesn’t understand you, not that anyone ever could. Well, then, why are you here? I don’t know . You really don’t know. You want it to work. You do. You don’t think you’re keeping secrets, or that you’re unwilling to do the work. But therapy plus time seems to change exactly nothing. You think it might be worse if you couldn’t go somewhere and scream once a week with impunity, but there seems to be no notable cumulative effect. Victor says Therapy is bullshit; it’s for weak people. I am weak! What are you talking about, Lois, you’re the strongest person I know. You never back away from a fight. I don’t think you understand what strong and weak mean. Are you crazy? Maybe, yes, I think so. There’s nothing wrong with you, Lois, you just have to think differently. That’s kind of the end idea behind therapy. Why pay seventy bucks an hour to do that? Because it’s not that easy. Sure it is. It doesn’t work like that, Victor! Tell me when you ever in your life decided to think differently and then just thought differently? I never had to, Lois, I already think the right way in the first place. Ha! So you say. So I know. So we’re back to, we should all think like you. Things would be a lot easier for you— and me. Ha! You don’t even try to understand me! I understand more about you than you do , Victor says. You don’t know shit. I know, your daddy didn’t get you a pony, boo-hoo. You’re an asshole. Leave me the fuck alone. Suit yourself.

Victor has other phrases for occasions like this: Get over it. Tough titties. Guess you’re SOL. Yes, you tell the therapist, he is supportive in his way: you have no doubt of his big love for you; he is expressive both verbally and demonstratively; and he tells you often that everything is really okay, he doesn’t know why you don’t know that, you have no problems. Your problems are in your head , he’ll say, which doesn’t help, even if he says it in the sweetest tone, like Honey, don’t you see, all you have to do is realize that you’ve been making all this up, and then you won’t have any problems? You see now that you agree, on this problems-in-your-head idea. But you need him. He has something you don’t have. And you’re not going back to being single again. That is not for you. Unfortunately this therapist, and the next three who follow, are missing some vital information that could actually help. They miss it, and you don’t exactly offer it. There are times when you believe, genuinely believe, that the outside world is conspiring to make your life more difficult, that this isn’t just a feeling but a real thing — whether it’s drivers who cut you off in traffic, or taxis with their on-duty lights clearly on who don’t pick you up even though you’re practically standing in the middle of the fucking street with your arm up, or snowstorms when you need to go out for groceries — that, in essence, anything that doesn’t go smoothly for you is the work of some malevolent force determined to hold you back because you deserve no more than you already have. You don’t offer any of this information in therapy, because you know the world is a hostile place for everyone, but most especially for you. That’s not something that can be treated. It’s what is.

— Christ, I wish I could do some of this over.

— That’s a phenomenal idea.

So let’s say we’re sisters.

— We aren’t sisters.

— Yeah, I know. Let me finish.

Let’s say we’re sisters, and I’m fourteen and you’re seventeen and we live on a houseboat at the Seventy-Ninth Street Boat Basin and it’s 1975. Our parents are dead.

— I don’t see how this is an improvement, Betsy. Or a story about us, for that matter.

— Because I’ll still be like me and you’ll still be like you.

— Our parents are dead? That sounds grim. And don’t you think we’d be completely different people if our parents were dead?

— Our parents are all dead. Did you or did you not want to live at the boat basin in 1975?

— I suppose I did.

— I’m making that happen for you.

We’re sisters. I’m fourteen and I’m an aspiring writer, which right now means mostly that I read all the time and once in a while I work on my novella about my half-sister/half-squirrel who lives under the dining room table, and you’re seventeen and you’re an aspiring—