Hello Beautiful

That night she slept on William and Julia’s couch. She brought her clothes in paper grocery bags. Sylvie was surprised at how little she owned. The room she and Julia had shared all their lives was so tiny, there had never been room for more than their single beds and a dresser. Sylvie had never bought books, because of her relationship with the library. Lying on the couch in her nightgown, under a rough blanket, with the grocery bags lined up neatly in sight, she felt tangled in a net of grief. Her father was dead, and her mother had turned her away. My soulmate would save me, she thought. He would see me, and I would feel more solid. But this brought a fresh sadness, because if she ever did meet this man, he would never have known her father. Sylvie studied the ceiling for most of the night. She felt tears deep inside her, but they couldn’t seem to find a way out. She still hadn’t cried.

The next morning at the library, she pinned a notice to the huge public bulletin board: In need of a house sitter or pet sitter? Need someone to water your plants while you’re on vacation? I will do chores in exchange for a bed. Please find Assistant Librarian Sylvie at the front desk.

No one came near her, though. Not even her boys, though she would have loved to have been kissed or held, even for a moment. Two of them, Ernie and Miles, had attended the wake but avoided making eye contact with her. She hadn’t told them about her father, but someone had hung the funeral mass and death announcement on the library bulletin board. Everyone Sylvie encountered seemed to sense that she was wearing death, so they gave her a wide berth. Once or twice she sniffed her clothes, to make sure she wasn’t emitting a terrible odor. She pushed her cart up and down the stacks. She did her college reading in the library when she wasn’t on a shift, and then slept on Julia and William’s couch at night.

“Did you tell Mom you’d be staying here for a while?” Julia asked.

Sylvie shook her head. “She’s relieved I’m not there.”

“But she’s so alone,” Julia said. “She’s never lived alone before.”

“You visited her this afternoon.”

Julia reached up to make sure her hair was behaving itself. “I think she’s in the garden all day, every day. She hardly spoke while I was there. I know she’s mourning, but…”

Sylvie spoke with certainty. “Mama doesn’t want me there.”

The next afternoon at the library, Sylvie saw her mother walk past the wide windows. Rose was still in black, though she no longer had the piece of lace on her head. She walked slowly, with an erect carriage. She didn’t look into the library, even though the chance of her daughter being there was always high. Sylvie didn’t run outside to speak with her either. She stayed frozen at the desk and watched as Rose walked the full length of the windows before she disappeared.

—

Julia developed a habit of climbing onto the couch with Sylvie in the middle of the night. Because Julia had a new curviness — she wasn’t visibly pregnant to strangers, but she’d had to buy larger bras — this involved Sylvie lying on her side on the very edge of the cushions. She had to wrap her arms around Julia to keep from falling off. The night pulsed around them, and Sylvie was grateful to be crushed against her sister. It was late November; several blurry weeks had passed since their father had died.

“What are we going to do?” Julia whispered.

With her eyes closed, Sylvie could pretend they were in their single beds, in their childhood room. They had, after all, talked back and forth in the darkness for as long as either of them could remember. She said, “You’re going to have a baby. I’m going to qualify for a higher paycheck soon, and I’ll find my own place.”

Sylvie had switched her college focus from English literature to library sciences, because she knew Head Librarian Elaine needed a new librarian and would hire her if she had the necessary qualifications. Every day, Sylvie looked at studio apartments in the classifieds, reassured that with the new job she would be able to afford a tiny studio.

Julia said, “I feel like Beth.”

Sylvie hugged her sister closer. While they were growing up, only Sylvie, Emeline, and Cecelia ever made that pronouncement. Julia had never said she was Beth before. When Julia was sick with the flu or a cold, she drank orange juice and sucked zinc tablets and ate salads, in order to fuel herself to get to the other side. Sickness or disappointment was simply something to be conquered. She wouldn’t even joke about surrendering.