Hello Beautiful

There was something in Sylvie’s voice, some knowing, that made William pause. He pictured his wife and Julia sleeping side by side on the couch. The two sisters were careful and kind with each other; he’d always admired that about them. One of the things he loved most about Julia was how she treated her family. The sisters were so close that, in reality, his wife never operated alone; the four Padavano girls shared their lives, celebrating and utilizing one another’s strengths, covering for one another’s weaknesses. Julia was the organizer and leader, Sylvie the reader and measured voice, Emeline the nurturer, and Cecelia the artist.

William’s wife wasn’t much of a reader anymore. Of course — he realized — Julia would have asked Sylvie to read his book. Not as an act of betrayal but as a way to bring her best self to the task. Julia’s love and ambition plus Sylvie’s critical-reading skills.

William stood still at the edge of the living room in the dim light while this knowledge unfolded inside him. He could feel Julia, anxious, behind him. William had always known that he’d married not just his wife but her family too. At the start of their relationship, Julia had brought her three sisters to his college basketball game to make it clear that she came as part of a unit, and he’d accepted that. Julia had legally changed her last name to his, but for all intents and purposes, he’d joined the Padavanos. The deepest union in this apartment was between the two sisters who fell asleep in each other’s arms.

Sylvie was sitting upright on the couch now, as if she were a visitor and not a woman wearing a nightgown with her hair down. She gave William the same worried look his wife was directing at his back.

William walked away from both women, into the kitchen. He needed to be alone. He needed to wrestle his breath under control. He leaned against the refrigerator and rested his hands against his thighs. He panted as if he were running the court, an hour into a game that his team was losing by a landslide. No matter how many minutes remained on the clock, there was no chance of victory.

—

In January, when the new semester began, William resumed teaching, on top of attending classes. Julia was clearly relieved that he was earning a salary and made a small fuss when he brought his first paycheck home. William was pleased she was happy, but he now found his days so long and demanding that he had to manage his energy to get from one end to the other. The history program believed it was beneficial for the graduate students to teach outside their area of focus, so William was now the teaching assistant for an undergraduate class called The History of Ancient Egypt. Each class meeting required an immense amount of preparation on his part, and William was always tired, even when he slept well at night. He developed a habit of shaking his head sharply, once, before walking into a graduate lecture, and this turned on an internal motor that allowed him to nod and smile and take notes while the professor spoke. A more powerful motor was required when William was the TA in front of his own class. His heartbeat revved up, and the minutes seemed to fly out the open window, winged with anxiety. He had to constantly check his watch to make sure he wasn’t covering the material too quickly. He felt like he was doing time wrong; a better professor would pace himself to finish just as the class ended, lining up the minutes with some internal clock that William lacked.

When he arrived home late at night, William tried his best with Julia, and he could tell she was trying her best with him. William knew, though, that reading his manuscript had permanently damaged Julia’s opinion of him. For her, his “book” had loomed large through their entire relationship: In the beginning she’d been thrilled by it, because she saw the project as a sign of William’s maturity and ambition. Over the years, she’d used the idea of it to paper over any worries she had about his lack of personal plans and goals. Julia had been counting on his book to prove that he was the man she’d chosen. And now that she’d read it, she knew he wasn’t. William had dreaded this happening; it felt like stepping off a cliff, and he didn’t know in what state he would reach the ground. He wondered, every day, if he should tell her that he’d understand if she wanted to leave him. But Julia was pregnant — visibly now — and so she was trapped. They were trapped: He was becoming less of the man she’d married by the day, while their family was only growing.