Julia saw her daughter taking in the crowd and said, “It’s so silly, but I thought life here would have frozen when I left. That if I did come back, it would all be the same. But it’s not. It’s much bigger.”
“It’s loud too,” Alice said, because it was. She’d noticed, as the hours passed, that there was a hint of relief in the collective sadness over Sylvie. The people who loved her were glad she hadn’t suffered more; they were grateful she’d died without pain and that they’d been spared her final, ruining decline. The men and women present laughed occasionally, happy to have loved Sylvie and happy simply to have come together. The only person whose pain seemed too great for relief was William. He came inside once or twice, but he always stayed far away from his daughter and returned to the backyard within a few moments. Maybe he needed the open air, Alice thought. His friends continued to spend time outside with him, next to the vegetable garden or by the back fence. There was a bench near a small stone fountain, and occasionally William rested there with his head in his hands.
Julia held out a wrapped package tied with string. It was rectangular and solid-looking. “This is a book that Sylvie wrote about our family. I haven’t read it, but she said it’s about our childhood, and your grandfather, and everything that’s happened since he died. She said she’d been working on it for years and that it’s a mess.” Julia looked down at what she held. “Sylvie wanted me to tell you that it’s yours now and that you can do anything you want with it. Edit what’s here, publish it, or throw it away. She said she didn’t mind, but she wanted it to be yours.”
Alice took the package. The familiar weight of a manuscript in her hands was pleasing; she felt slightly dizzy at the prospect of this gift. “Did Sylvie know I’m a copy editor?”
“I told her. I told her all about you. She wanted to hear everything.”
Alice nodded. She couldn’t imagine a more perfect gift; these pages would give her all the stories and people she’d missed. Her own history was in this document. And, as a bonus, Sylvie had given her niece an excuse to hide from the noisy, affectionate world she’d entered into, or to take breaks from it, anyway. Alice had decided—she wasn’t sure when she’d made this decision exactly, somewhere in the commotion of the last twenty-four hours—that she would stay in Chicago for a little while. For how long, she wasn’t sure. Emeline and Cecelia had told her they hoped she would stay forever and that she could choose a bedroom in either of their houses. Alice had never taken a vacation from work, but she would give herself one now. She would find a quiet room and read.
Izzy had started telling Alice about the Padavano sisters’ childhood, and there was something mythic and epic in the tales she was now holding in her hands. The idea that this was a narrative Alice would find herself in by the end felt strangely exciting. The coming together and falling apart of her parents; her own birth. And what would Alice do in the pages that hadn’t yet been written? Where would she live? Whom and what would she love?
Julia looked toward the crowded room and then back at her daughter. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this”—she paused—“but I think you should go talk to your father.”
Alice had been startled repeatedly since she’d arrived, but this didn’t surprise her at all. It felt like what she’d been expecting to hear. Alice had always liked to keep things small so she could, if necessary, grab what mattered and run to higher ground. But there was no way for her to gather everything she’d found in Chicago—since that meal in the Greek restaurant, really—in her arms. The Padavanos had shown her a bigger kind of love. It was vast; it felt like everything. And now she sensed, through the same mysterious connection that had told her earlier that he needed distance, that the quiet man in the backyard would be able to bear her. William Waters was ready, and, unexpectedly, so was she.
She put the manuscript down on the table next to her and wrapped her arms around her mother. Julia squeezed Alice tight, the same way she’d squeezed her when Alice was a small girl and Julia wanted to show how much she loved her. Alice smiled and pressed her head on top of Julia’s, so her straight hair mixed with her mother’s curls. Izzy had talked about forgiveness, and in that moment Alice felt drenched with it. She forgave herself for locking herself away, and she forgave her parents for the bold choices they’d made to protect her. She forgave every mistake she would read about in the manuscript she’d just received. Earlier that afternoon, when Emeline had noticed Alice watching Rose’s dramatic tears, she’d whispered into her niece’s ear, “Grief is love.” Now Alice thought: Forgiveness is too. The mother and daughter held each other in the quiet hallway in a house thundering with life.
When they pulled apart, Alice said, “I’m scared.”
“I am too,” Julia said, but she picked up a coat from the nearest chair and handed it to her daughter. Alice pulled it on, and walked slowly outside.
William
November 2008
William looped the yard. He was feverish with sorrow, and pacing the grass felt like the best way to expel it, like sweat, from his pores. The onset of grief bore no resemblance to his experience with depression. Depression meant disconnection, shutting down, a dangerous quiet. Now William’s feelings whipped around inside him like a flailing water hose. He needed to control this hose as quickly as possible, though, because Alice was here. She had been brave enough to seek him out, and he had to gather himself enough to make her feel like she hadn’t made a mistake. Any mistakes, all the mistakes, were his.
His heart beat with words: Alice is here.
On the tailwind of Sylvie’s departure, Alice had arrived in Chicago. Of course she had. Sylvie had talked about one-two punches, about how Charlie had died on the day Izzy was born, and Sylvie had clearly used her magic to somehow bring William his daughter on the day his heart broke. His wife was trying to save him, yet again.
The sun had just left the sky when William felt calm enough, ready enough. He headed toward the house and then stopped abruptly, because Alice had appeared in the open doorway.
“I was coming to find you,” he said.
“Oh,” she said. Her face was questioning, pale, anxious. “You were?”
William nodded. He could feel the cool air against the palms of his hands and the nape of his neck. When he’d first met the Padavano sisters, he’d noticed their similarities: their hair, their brown eyes, their shared gestures. The four sisters looked like different versions of the same person: They were parts of a whole. The young woman standing before William didn’t look like them at all; she looked like him. A slightly different version of his own eyes looked back at him. William had never recognized himself in someone else’s face before. It felt like finding an answer to a question he hadn’t known he had.
“What were you going to say?” Alice asked.