Hello Beautiful

This transience made Sylvie feel skittish and unfocused — without a home, her movements often felt random. She’d always lived with family, and she hadn’t realized how big a role waking up in the morning to the sounds of her parents, or Julia, played in her feeling like herself. Her family was a mirror in which she recognized her reflection. When she woke up on a co-worker’s couch, not sure where she was for a few moments, she didn’t know who she was either. She was visited by William’s questions: What am I doing? Why am I doing this? Who am I?

Sylvie had to come up with tricks to create a sense of continuity and keep track of herself. Wherever she was staying, she went into the bathroom first thing in the morning and studied herself in the mirror. She had never done this before. She’d never been particularly vain or interested in her appearance, but now she needed to remind the girl standing in front of the mirror that she was roughly the same person day after day. She looked at the state of her hair, which was never negotiable — she accepted whatever crazy angles or cowlicks appeared after a night’s sleep — and noted the green flecks in her brown eyes. She said, “Good morning, Sylvie,” and then brushed her teeth.

She started rereading her father’s copy of Leaves of Grass. Charlie had underlined passages and written in the margin too many times to count: Wonderful! It had been several years since she’d read the collection from start to finish, and this time Sylvie was surprised by how much death was in it. In “Song of Myself,” Whitman listed numerous definitions of grass, but Sylvie’s favorite was the beautiful uncut hair of graves. Sylvie thought of this when she visited her father’s grave. According to the poet, death wasn’t final, because life was tangled into it. Sylvie and her sisters walked the earth because of the man they’d buried. These thoughts, and reading Whitman’s words, made more sense to Sylvie than the polite chatter of the lady in the seat next to her on the bus or the fact that there never seemed to be enough money in her purse.

Rose left for Florida in the middle of that period. Kissing her mother’s cheek goodbye, and then rushing to the hospital to meet baby Alice a few hours later, felt correct to Sylvie — it matched the level of upheaval inside her. Her father was gone, and now her mother and their family home were gone too. Sylvie had seen a photo of the aftermath of a massive earthquake once, and the image had stayed with her. A road split in half lengthwise, revealing the middle of the earth, and how silly humans were to build houses and schools and cars on top and pretend they were safe. Sylvie felt like she spent her days carrying an overnight bag and a book, leaping over that chasm. The morning that Rose left, Sylvie stood in front of the bathroom mirror and said, “Goodbye, Mama. Good morning, Sylvie.”

Head Librarian Elaine made Sylvie’s promotion and new salary official a few weeks before she received the requisite credits for her library-sciences degree. Sylvie had enough money saved by now for a deposit, so she rented a tiny studio around the corner from the library that same day. When the realtor put the key in her hand, Sylvie said, “I’m sorry I’m so emotional.”

The realtor, who had been working in Pilsen for decades, shrugged. “More people cry than you would think. Having your own apartment is a big deal.”

Sylvie owned no furniture, so moving in was simple; Julia and the twins had removed a few items from their childhood home before Rose left, but Sylvie had been homeless and so had taken nothing. She bought a mattress for the floor and paid a neighborhood kid two bucks to help carry a kitchen table she’d found on the street up into the apartment. Because Rose had always spent trash night trawling the neighborhood for treasures other people were throwing away, Sylvie knew where to find what she needed. Bookshelves, a box of dishes, a pot and frying pan. Pretty embroidered pillows and curtains that looked brand-new. She wondered what could make people throw away items in such good condition.

After months of trying to make herself small in other people’s homes, Sylvie slept spread-eagled on the mattress. She kept the window open for the breeze. She invited her sisters and nieces over for eggs, which she cooked in her scavenged pan. She listened to the noises of her apartment and the surrounding streets — children laughing at the playground, the city bus hissing to a stop, the man who ran the bodega downstairs talking in Spanish while he drank endless cups of coffee on the store’s steps. Sylvie started reading novels again and had the giddy pleasure of tipping into new fictional worlds. She was grateful she was steady enough on her feet to do so.