Hello Beautiful

The next morning, Julia decided to deep-clean the apartment. She needed movement. She pushed the coffee table to the side and rolled up the thin living room rug. Wearing Alice in a baby carrier, she dragged the rug down to a massive laundry machine in the basement of the building and wrestled it into the drum. When the rug was clean, Julia pulled a small ladder out of the hall closet and used it to take down the curtains from the living room window. They’d used these curtains in the smaller Northwestern apartment too. They were magenta, made of a thick weave Julia had chosen in the early days of their marriage because the fabric felt grown-up to her. I was an idiot, she thought. A young idiot. She carried Alice and the curtains down to the basement and set the washer to an extra-long soaking time.

She had a hard time sleeping. When she tried to rest, she worried. Anything seemed possible after William had tried to drown himself in the lake she swam in as a child. She thought in if…then scenarios. If William’s hospitalization did somehow nullify the note he’d given her, then Julia would have to go to the hospital eventually and stay married. If she and William divorced — a preferable scenario — then he would still be Alice’s father. He would still want a role in their child’s life. Julia would have to find a way to protect Alice from whatever had sent William into that lake. If William spent time with Alice, then their daughter might find his depression contagious. Julia kept returning to the idea that it couldn’t be good for Alice’s happiness to spend time with someone who saw life as disposable. Life was opportunity, a chest of drawers to open, one after the other, and William had tried to hurl the chest out the window.

At three o’clock in the morning, Julia used the ladder to empty the top shelves of the kitchen cupboards. These shelves were filled with wedding gifts, items too impractical for regular use. A crystal bowl that was absurdly heavy. A set of china teacups, much too delicate to use in a house with a child. Miniature wineglasses, which were intended for some kind of old-fashioned after-dinner alcohol. Brandy or sherry — Julia couldn’t remember which. She filled the sink with soapy water and carefully cleaned each breakable piece, until the sun began to rise in the sky and Alice woke up.

Julia felt trapped: in her apartment, in the strange limbo of her marriage, in her own skin. She was waiting for William to call her, perhaps, and tell her he wanted her back and needed her now. Or for Sylvie to return with the same answer. She was waiting for some clarity on whether she had to be a wife or not. When Sylvie came to the apartment again, a little over a week after William had tried to kill himself, Julia’s younger sister looked so tired she seemed to have aged five years. Her hair was in a ponytail. The skin under her eyes looked bruised.

“Sit down,” Julia said, worried. “You look like you might faint.”

Sylvie shook her head. “William told me to tell you that he doesn’t want you to visit.”

Relief soaked through Julia, and she sank down into the armchair.

“He also said”—Sylvie’s voice was flat, like a correspondent reporting the news—“that he’s giving Alice up.”

“Giving her up?” This term didn’t make sense to Julia, and she thought she might have misheard. “What does that mean?”

“I think it means he won’t be her parent anymore. You’d be her only parent.”

Julia turned her head slowly and looked at Alice lying on her baby blanket. She was wearing a pink onesie and kicking her bare feet in the air like she was riding an upside-down bicycle. Her round cheeks were flushed with effort. Julia held the words in her mouth: give her up.

“He seemed to mean it,” Sylvie said. “He used the word ‘forever.’ ”

Another word, held inside Julia: forever. She thought, Oh, thank God, though she hadn’t prayed since her father died. But still, the relief was so enormous that she thought again, Thank God.

Sylvie put her hand against the wall as if to steady herself. She looked like she’d been sleeping as little as Julia had.

“You should lie down on the couch in the nursery.” Julia found she didn’t mind the idea of her sister staying in her space now. She no longer needed to hole up with Alice. Julia had felt free after William left her, then trapped when he’d tried to die, and now she was free again. This freedom felt like falling backward onto a plush bed; it was decadent, delicious. “Please rest for a little while, at least,” she said, glad to have the chance to worry about someone other than herself. “You look like a ghost.”

Sylvie offered a thin smile. “I’m okay. I have to work at the library. I just wanted to tell you first.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

“I wanted everything to be clear for you,” Sylvie said. “It was too confusing as it was, too unresolved, and I know you hate that. I wanted to know if he really wanted your marriage to be over.”