Hello Beautiful

A driver with a firm jawline and shocking blue eyes drove in a neat figure eight to avoid an accident. The teenagers in the audience hooted, Sylvie smiled, and Julia held on to her hand. Sylvie thought of the novel she had just started — a classic she’d put off for years, but she no longer had time to put anything off — in which the main character fell asleep while reading, and when he woke, with his brain still foggy, he thought he was what he had been reading about: a horse, or the rivalry between two kings, or a chalet. Sylvie liked this idea, and since she’d read the line, she had been reimagining herself. She was Julia’s wild hair, she was the lake her husband had once been carried out of, and no matter what happened next, she was love.

—

After her diagnosis, Sylvie had started accompanying Cecelia and Emeline on their biweekly trips to the big box store to buy the enormous amounts of toilet paper, paper towels, ziplock bags, baby formula, and seltzer water needed at the super-duplex. Cecelia owned a car now, a lemon-yellow sedan, so they no longer had to borrow a neighbor’s vehicle for their drives. Sylvie didn’t need anything from the store, of course; she and William didn’t require tremendous amounts of anything for their two-person household. But she liked to ride with her sisters; it reminded her of when they were young and the three of them would drive home from Julia’s apartment and talk. She liked looking out the window and watching her city hurry by. She brought a book and read in the car while the twins shopped, and on the return trip she shared the back seat with paper products. She felt no guilt for not telling her younger sisters that she had seen Julia. They would have plenty of time with their older sister after Sylvie was gone. She also didn’t think they would be upset at having been left out — not much, anyway. They would understand what Sylvie had needed and be pleased that she’d been lucky enough to reconcile her heart.

On the way home from the store, Cecelia always drove past the playground where the portraits of Alice and Caroline were painted. The sisters stayed in the car; the sedan slowed, and they looked out the windows at the artwork. Sylvie loved the mural, loved that William had asked Cecelia to paint his sister into existence. On their way back to Pilsen late one afternoon, Sylvie almost told Cecelia not to take that route, because she could feel a headache coming on and wanted to get home. But she didn’t say anything, and Cecelia drove into North Lawndale, slowing the car in its usual spot. Sylvie turned to look out the window and inhaled deeply, because William was in the playground. Her tall, fair-haired husband was seated on a bench in front of the mural. Only the back of his head and shoulders were visible, but it was unmistakably him.

“Is that…?” Emeline said.

Sylvie nodded; Cecelia had recognized him too, and the car inched to a halt. The three sisters watched William take in Caroline and Alice. He was sitting very still on the bench, and the mild slope of his shoulders told Sylvie that he was calm.

When happiness came at Sylvie these days, it took over her whole body, and she felt flushed with pleasure now to be sitting with her sisters, in front of this view. She didn’t want William to see her, and in a minute or two she would tell Cecelia to drive away. But the pinch of worry that had existed in Sylvie’s heart ever since she’d found out she was sick started, for the first time, to ease. She was leaving William, but he had this park, this bench, this painting, and his presence here meant that he was no longer looking away from the babies he’d walked away from. He was contemplating the two girls, which meant the doors that had long been closed inside him might be opening, which meant William might be okay without his wife. He was gaining ground, not just losing it.

Alice

November 2008

During her workdays, Alice’s phone buzzed in her pocket every few hours. The texts were from her mother. Julia had sent her at least twenty texts since their dinner in the Greek restaurant. The texts, no matter what they said, made Alice feel tired. But she liked how they were stacking up inside her phone as a kind of documentation of her mother losing her mind. Initially, the texts were incoherent apologies or explanations.

I’m sorry, but I had reasons.

Can we just meet for a few minutes to talk?

I love you I love you I love you. I thought not telling you was the best thing for both of us.

I was afraid that you would want to go to your father if you knew he was alive. I convinced myself that if you went to Chicago to see him, you would choose to live with him and Sylvie. They would have given you a normal family, with a mother and a father. I know this sounds crazy, but I was a little crazy at the time.

You must have questions, which I can try to answer. I miss your voice.