Hello Beautiful

Sylvie stared at her sister with wonder. Emeline had apparently written a narrative for her own life, and Sylvie had just erased the ending. Emeline must have thought this would be the case since they were little girls. She’d always mothered and protected her sisters, and that meant taking the pain for herself. If there was a bullet, Emeline wanted to step in front of it. She had planned to do so and hated that there could be any other result.

“Oh, Emmie,” Sylvie said. “I’m sorry.”

William said, in a hesitant tone, “Isn’t Beth a fictional character?”

“This is awful,” Cecelia said.

“We can’t bear it,” Emeline said.

A great weariness ran through Sylvie, as if her blood had grown heavy. She thought, We felt that way when Julia moved away. But we got used to her absence, which means you’ll get used to mine too.

—

Later that night, Sylvie sat in bed with a book open in her lap. She was too sleepy to read, but the proximity of the book was comforting. Telling her sisters had required more strength than she’d had, and she was relieved it was over. William was lying next to her; he’d gotten into bed without a book. If he didn’t have the attention span or desire to read, he wouldn’t pretend to. Sylvie had always admired this about her husband. She carried a book at all times — to read, yes, but also as a handy shield for when she wanted to deflect the attention of other people. She would position a book in front of her face and think, or simply hide. For William, a book was picked up only when he wanted to read the contents.

“You and your sisters have so many reference points, such a dense history,” William said. “I never get used to it.”

Sylvie studied his face. She saw something new there, a suggestion that he was considering a long-ago piece of his own history. A reference point of his own. She said, “Are you thinking about your sister?”

William gave his smallest smile. “How could you tell? I haven’t thought of her in…” He paused. “A very long time.”

Sylvie thought, I just knew. She was aware that she had recently begun to think instead of speaking out loud, as if the two were the same thing. As if both carried the same weight and crossed the same distance.

William seemed to hear her, though; he nodded. “I was remembering when I was in high school and I broke my leg. That’s the only time I remember thinking about Caroline when I was a kid. I couldn’t play basketball, and I wanted to be gone, like her. But I think…I think I wanted to be gone in part because I wanted to be with her. I didn’t like living in my house without her. It never occurred to me in so many words, but I missed her.” He paused. “I somehow miss her even though I never knew her. Isn’t that strange?”

Sylvie put her hand over his. They had both seen the raw pain on her sisters’ faces today, when Emeline and Cecelia were forced to consider life without Sylvie. It felt true that if one of the four Padavano sisters had died as a baby, the other three would have missed her — and been missing part of themselves — for the rest of their lives.

“It makes sense to me,” she said, and tightened her grip on William’s hand. She remembered holding his frozen hand in the ambulance, decades earlier. She wanted to hold on now, so tight that nothing could pull them apart.

William

October 2008

Three weeks passed after William had called Julia, and then four. It was the end of October. Was it possible that she wouldn’t come? Julia was the most stubborn and willful person that William had ever known, and his ex-wife certainly wasn’t going to appear in Chicago simply because he’d asked her to. Still, William woke up each morning thinking, Today might be the day. He hadn’t told anyone — not even Kent — about the phone call he’d made. When Sylvie got home from the library each evening, William studied his wife’s face to see if something had occurred. Sylvie had made Cecelia and Emeline swear that they wouldn’t tell Julia or Rose about her illness, so as far as she was aware, all roads to her older sister were blocked. Each evening, Sylvie looked the same, though: a little tired, and happy to see him. Part of William was relieved, despite his belief that Sylvie needed Julia. The idea of his ex-wife, which could also mean his daughter, in his city and life was impossible for him to wrap his mind around. He didn’t try, but the possibility — which he had unleashed — remained in his peripheral vision, as if Julia and Alice stood at the far edge of the horizon.