Standing here, in this quiet house where I can hear the birds chirping out back, I think I’m kind of getting the concept of closure. It’s no big dramatic before-after. It’s more like that melancholy feeling you get at the end of a really good vacation. Something special is ending, and you’re sad, but you can’t be that sad because, hey, it was good while it lasted, and there’ll be other vacations, other good times.

You can have your wishes, your plans, but at the end of the day, it's out of your control -Mia

We were both music-obsessed, each in our own way. If we didn't entirely understand the other person's obsession, it didn't matter, because we understood our own.

...no way through it but through it," I tell myself.

Sleep would be so welcome. A warm blanket of black to erase everything else. Sleep without dreams.

Do you do that a lot? Move on?" "Maybe. But only because I travel a lot." She taps put a beat on the steering wheel, audible only to herseld. "Or maybe you travel a lot because it lets you move on." "Perhaps." ........ I look out the window. The jungle is everywhere. I look back at her. "Can you move on from something when you're not sure what it is you're moving on from?

And then Adam Wilde shows up at Carnegie Hall on the biggest night of my career, and it felt like more than a coincidence. It felt like a gift. From them. For my first recital ever, they gave me a cello. And for this one, they gave me you.