“One hot green tea with honey and lemon and a glass of wine, please.”

“I don’t how how you can choke down that stuff,” Lacey said.

“I don’t know how you can chug a bottle of wine throughout the day of a performance and still sing the way you do,” I said.

“I didn’t choose the wine life, the wine life chose me, Joanna.”

“Yes, but that stuff dries out your vocal chords something awful. What if you have to go on stage tonight?” I asked.

“One, I won’t, because you’re incredible and in good health. And two, I wouldn't be drinking the stuff if I couldn’t get on stage and sing afterwards. You know me. Wine makes me soar.”

“It makes you soar. Not your notes,” I said.

“Get your shit water and come sit down with me.”

“It’s not shit water,” I said. “It’s hot green tea. What’s wrong with that?”

“Everything, now come on.”

“You know once I start drinking this I can’t talk much,” I said. “The Metropolitan Opera House is the biggest venue I’ve sung at thus far in my career.”

“Correction, it’s the biggest venue you will sing in. The performance hasn’t happened yet. That’s tonight.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I asked.

“I thought you were supposed to be resting those vocal chords.”

I sat down with Lacey in one of the coziest coffee shops in New York City. I’d never been in the city before and it was everything I could have imagined. It was bustling with life and the buildings of prominent people towered with flashing lights and tinted windows. People were joyous, despite the horn honking and the cussing. I felt alive being in a place like this, especially after growing up on a lonely, quiet farm.

I saw a mother pushing her child in a stroller and I watched as they walked past the window. My eyes followed them, watching the baby play around with the blanket it was holding. There were so many families in the city. So many happy, successful families with everything they could ever want. Children. Homes. People they loved to go home to. Parents they spent their holidays with. What a glorious existence it must’ve been, having a life like that.

There were some days where I wanted a life like that.

“Earth to Joanna, you listening?” Lacey asked.

I looked over at my friend as I took another sip of my drink.

“You’re staring again,” she said.

“I can’t help it,” I said softly.

“Why do you torture yourself like this, Joanna? You know you can’t have children.”

“That doesn’t stop me from wanting them, Lacey. That doesn’t stop me from wanting to change that fact.”

“But it’s not just you dwelling on having a family. It’s you wishing you could carry your own child.”

“You’re not going to let me rest my voice, are you?” I asked.

“Not when I see you beating yourself up for something you can’t control,” she said.

“Look, it’s my biological imperative to grow children. My body’s supposed to be equipped to do that. But it’s not. Why do people expect me not to feel something about that?”

“If you really want a family that badly, then there’s always-”

“Don’t you even say it,” I said.

“Not all parents are like yours,” Lacey said. “Take a look at yourself. I have no doubt you’d be a fabulous mother. You are the type of person who should be adopting children. Not your parents.”

I cast my gaze back out the window as I took another sip of my drink.

“And anyway, you having a family right now wouldn't work with your schedule. You’re touring around the country as one of the best up-and-coming operatic sopranos of our generation. That’s some serious business.”

“I wasn’t talking about having a family now,” I said. “I know I can’t have a family now. But it would nice to be able to have the option in the future.”

“Then adoption’s the way to go.”

“You know how I feel about adoption,” I said.

“You talk yourself into this catch-22 all the damn time, Joanna. And I’m sick of watching you do this to yourself. You say you want kids, but when I mention adoption you tell me there’s a reason some women aren’t allowed to have kids to justify why adoption isn’t on the table. Then, you keep yourself up at night wondering what’s so wrong with you that God Himself wouldn’t allow you to have kids. Do you hear how insane that sounds?”

I felt tears cresting my eyes as I took another sip of my tea. I knew how crazy it sounded. I knew Lacey was getting frustrated with me. But I couldn’t help it. My want to have children clashed greatly with how I was raised, and I couldn't find a way to reconcile it. The day I was adopted was the happiest day of my life. I was five years old and I could remember running into the arms and taking in the vanilla-scented perfume of the woman I’d call ‘mother’. I could remember them taking me home and showing me my own room, and I could remember how floored I was that it was all mine. A room with a bed and no one to share it with like it had been at the orphanage.

I had been so happy that day to fall asleep in the arms of the man I’d call ‘father’.

“You would be a wonderful mother, Joanna. No one doubts it. But for you, that’s later in life. Right now, you’re touring all over the country. And after our last performance in Chicago of the season, you’re going to get the chance to tour all of Europe with that voice of yours.”

“We still don’t know if anyone will offer me anything,” I said.

“Are you kidding me? You haven’t had a bad review yet, Joanna. And that’s saying something. For fuck’s sake, Kiri Te Kanawa mentioned your name in a damn interview two days ago,” Lacey said.

“Say I don’t get the European tour,” I said. “Say they don’t offer it to me after Chicago. What am I going to do then?”

“Are you seriously telling me that this want to have a child again is based off the fact that you won’t know what to do with yourself if you don’t go to Europe?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know where any of this comes from sometimes.”

“Joanna, if this company is stupid enough not to take you overseas, then you’ll try again. And if you don’t get anything, then you’ll go back for your doctorate. You’ve always said you wanted to get it.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t… I don’t know what I’ll do if they don’t give me that tour.”

“Then why don’t we focus on the performance in front of us tonight? Okay? The stress is going to make you tense, and we won’t have enough time to get you performance ready if you work yourself up anymore. Let the performance tonight be your… escape from all this.”

“My escape,” I said with a sigh.

“Exactly. Like when you were growing up. Okay?”

I met Lacey during my undergraduate degree at Indiana University. She was studying Music Education and I was strictly Performance. The two of us went on to get our Master’s degrees at Cornell University, and that led into where we were now. On a bet, the two of us auditioned for a traveling company that wanted to make opera more accessible to the masses. Smaller performances with minimal sets that were more affordable to the public. The premise was simple: school auditoriums and small community theaters would bring us in, charge a measly ticket price, and get people in the door in the hopes they would donate to our cause and get our names out there to further our careers.

But when word started circulating about what we were doing, bigger opera houses started opening their doors to us. First it was the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, then it was Bass Performance in Fort Worth. Soon after that the Peabody Opera House in St. Louis as well as the Civic Opera House in Chicago called. But everyone hit the floor when The Metropolitan Opera reached out to us to try and book us for a performance.

And I was already sweating bullets simply thinking about it.

“I wish they’d come to one of my performances,” I said.

“I know you do,” Lacey said.

“Your parents came to the first one we did, and I’m sure they’ll be at the last one.”

“In my defense, I have awesome parents. And you know they love you. You can consider them your parents.”

“The last thing I need is another family adopting me, thanks,” I said flatly.

“Don’t let them ruin this for you, Joanna. Don’t give them that kind of control. This is your life. You took out the loans for your education. You’re the one that put in the work. You’re the one that’s gotten yourself this far. Not them. That’s something to be proud of.”

“Is it bad I still hope we could fix things?” I asked.

“I don’t think it’s bad. I think it’s naive, but I don’t think it’s bad.”

“I wish I had never been adopted.”

“I know you do,” she said. “But the only thing you can do is get on that stage tonight, kill it, and make yourself a household name. Show them you did it without them. That’s how you can stick it to them.”

“I don’t want to stick it to them, Lacey. I-... I want…”

I didn’t know what I wanted. I was a storm of raging, conflicted emotions on the inside. I knew my friend was trying to help the best way she knew how, and I hated that I couldn't settle her mind.

“You know, if you get this European tour gig, you could meet all sorts of people from all different countries,” Lacey said.

“Don’t say it,” I said as I rolled my eyes.

“You might even be able to meet yourself a man,” she said with a grin.

“Come on, Lacey. You know I don’t have time for that.”

“You don’t have time for a man but you somehow have time to try and convince me you have time for kids? Don’t you need a man to have kids?”

“I thought you said adoption was a viable option,” I said, winking.

“You’re ridiculous and relentless, you know that?”

“It’s why you love me.”

“We do need to find you a man, though.”

“I’ve gotten this far without a man, so I’m not sure why I need one now.”

“Because I’ve never seen you with one, that’s why.”

“What’s wrong with that?” I asked.

“Everything! Being in the arms of a man is enthralling and intoxicating. In the years I’ve known you, I’ve never even seen you go on a date.”

“I’ve been on dates!”

“Did you pay for anything while on these dates?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked.

“If you paid, you weren’t on a date. You were on a friendly outing.”

“Since when did you make the rules of dating?”

“I didn’t make the rules, history made them. The man picks you up, he pulls out your chair-”

“Who pulls out chairs anymore?” I asked.

“Just hush, all right? I’m an expert on this subject matter.”

“You’re an expert on one-night stands. You’ve had on in every city we’ve been in.”

“And you haven’t had one.”

“Because I don’t do one-night stands.”

“I don’t think you do men at all,” she said.

“And what if I don’t?”

Lacey eyed me carefully as her jaw slowly unhinged.

“You are not,” she said.

“What?” I asked.

“Joanna Leone, are you a virgin?”

“How did you not know this about me?” I asked. “I’ve known you for nine years.”

“You mean to tell me you’ve never had sex? All this time surrounded by all these handsome musical men?”

“Most of them are gay,” I said.

“But not all of them are! Girl, this is… you are… talking about kids and you haven’t even had sex? You need to stop drinking that shit water, it’s messing with your brain chemistry.”

“It’s not shit water, it helps me with my vocal chords. Which is more than I can say for this fight you’ve dragged me into. Now can we drop it?” I asked.

“Fine. So long as you know you’re crazy.”

I snickered and shook my head as I cast my gaze back out the window. Lacey was right. Well, partially. I did have to focus on my performance tonight, which meant not focusing on the things I couldn't change. I had to rest my voice, get my mind in gear for the role I was about to represent, and focus my mind on one simple thought.

The rest of my operatic career.

I allowed my eyes to gaze out the window as Lacey continued to talk my ear off. I sipped on my tea and haphazardly listened to her, allowing my mind to fall blank. Until another mother with her double stroller came walking around the corner and passed right by our window.

“Joanna? You okay?” Lacey asked.

The pain in my heart was more than I could stand. I’d never know what that felt like. To push my own child in a stroller and look down on them with the pride all these mothers had in their eyes. I’d never know what it would feel like for my own child to eat from my breast or snuggle into my body. I’d never watch them grow, or be able to share my music with them. I’d paint this legacy in the world of opera, then have no one to share it with.

Not my children. Not my parents. And most certainly not a man.

My heart hurt.

It just… hurt.