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.
Julia told him about a doctor’s appointment she’d had that afternoon and asked if he wanted to rest his hand on her taut belly. William placed his hand where she pointed, but he knew he didn’t have the right expression on his face—some of his fear must have showed through. Julia sighed and turned away, saying she needed to go to bed. William was relieved on the nights that he arrived home and Julia didn’t try. She just waved to him from her seat on the couch next to her sister but didn’t stand up to get him dinner or ask about his day.
“You’re not excited about the baby,” Julia said to him once, as a statement of fact.
It took William a moment to recall what excitement was, and then he said, “I am.” But he knew he’d failed to sound convincing. “I’m sorry.”
“Please stop apologizing. Sometimes, William, I feel like I’m having the baby with Sylvie, and you’re just some guy who lives here.”
Julia challenged him with her eyes. She wanted a response, she wanted him to push back, to be insulted, but all he could come up with was another expression of regret.
* * *
—
Late one evening, William was walking home from class when he noticed, through the darkness, a woman sitting on a bench. He blinked in her direction for a moment, not understanding why she held his attention, and then realized it was Sylvie. William’s heart gave a quick rattle in his chest. He might have crossed the street or turned a corner before his sister-in-law could see him, but it was too late. She’d noticed him too.
For weeks he’d been avoiding Sylvie. Every time he was in the same room with her, he thought, You read my ridiculous footnotes. This made him want to drop through a hole in the floor; he knew Sylvie must have been horrified at what she’d read. He hadn’t removed the manuscript from the paper bag since Julia gave it back to him; this was the longest he’d ever gone without adding to its pages.
“I left my apartment keys at the library,” Sylvie said, from her seat on the bench.
William noticed that she looked tired and remembered that she also took night classes. He looked at his watch; it was almost ten o’clock. “What were you going to do?”
She shrugged. “I was trying to figure it out. It’s too late to phone, because Julia needs her sleep, and I wasn’t sure you’d be home. My guess is that I was going to sit here for a little while longer—it’s not too cold—and then get a bus to go sleep at Mrs. Ceccione’s place.”
William sat down on the edge of the bench, next to her. “Well, problem solved, because I have keys.”
She smiled. “I was also admiring the stars.”
“The stars?” At first he didn’t know what she was talking about, but then he tipped his head back. There they were.
“Are stars not your thing?”
This is a strange conversation, William thought. But he’d stepped outside his daily routine, and he felt less nervous with Sylvie in the shadowy darkness than he did inside the apartment. “I guess not?” he said. “I mean, I have nothing against them.”
They were quiet for a few moments, with their heads leaned back to take in the sky.
“I miss my father all the time,” Sylvie said. “I keep thinking it’s going to get easier.”
William looked over at her, and there were tears on her cheeks. He could see tears trapped in her eyelashes, and he lost his breath. He could see her sadness traced across the lines of her body, overlaying her arms and legs and the oval of her face. This struck him; he’d never been able to see so clearly what another person was feeling.