“What does it feel like?” he said, without looking away from the screen.
“Like all the walls have been knocked down. Like we’re past needing a roof or doors. They’re irrelevant.”
“So we’re outside.” He turned his head and smiled at her. It was his new smile, which had appeared after their first kiss. William used to smile rarely, and when he did, the smile looked obedient, like he knew the moment called for a smile and so his face pulled the correct levers to form one. Sylvie wanted to spend the rest of her life causing this new smile. William’s face looked alive, and grateful, and happy. Sylvie knew William was happy with her, knew he was grateful; he whispered his happiness into her skin at night.
He also wanted to keep their relationship secret forever, which to him meant until Sylvie came to her senses and broke up with him. William didn’t feel like this contradicted his mantra; this secrecy was actually just a delay tactic, a moment of stolen joy before they gathered the strength to walk away from each other. “I don’t deserve this,” he said almost daily, until Sylvie told him to please not say it anymore. But he said it again now, because he couldn’t help himself.
She said, “Do I deserve happiness and wholeness?”
“Of course.”
“Then do this for me.”
“Love you for you?” William stood to switch off the TV. Hung above the television was the painting Cecelia had recently dropped off. William had told Sylvie about how Cecelia was flustered when she showed it to him. “I always paint portraits,” she’d said. “But I like a challenge. I’m not sure what this is, but technically something about it works.” Sylvie thought the painting was beautiful. If she hadn’t known her sister painted it, she never would have guessed. It was part landscape, part exploration of light, and rain. Sylvie remembered Cecelia telling her sisters that she wanted to paint rain like Van Gogh painted stars. There was pelting water on the canvas, intermixed with faint light. It was the light that drew your eye.
“I’m going to love you no matter what,” William said. “But I don’t want to hurt anyone else. I couldn’t bear to hurt you, Sylvie. I’m supposed to be alone. What is your family going to say? What about Julia?” He grimaced as he said her name. “Those memories you’re writing down. Most of them are about you and her.”
“Well, of course. They’re about the four of us.”
William shook his head sadly. She could hear him thinking, No bullshit, no secrets. He said, “I can tell how much you miss your sister, when I read your writing.”
Sylvie was annoyed, enough to motivate her to close her book, push her nightgown and toothbrush back into her purse, and leave. She walked through the campus toward the bus stop, the cold air chilling her hot cheeks. She was annoyed at herself for overreacting to what William had said. She would phone him when she got back to her apartment. He was right, of course. For her, this was about Julia. William wanted them to stay secret so they could walk away from each other without anyone else being pulled into, or even knowing about, their orbit. Sylvie wanted to keep their love secret because of her older sister. When she tried to imagine what it would be like if Julia found out that she and William were in love, Sylvie had to shake her head hard to dispel the images of heartbreak. Julia would hate her; Sylvie was betraying her; the only solution was that no one could know.
It was March, and Julia and Alice had been gone for almost five months. Professor Cooper’s project had been extended, and Julia, without consulting anyone in the family, had decided to stay in New York. “For how long?” Cecelia had asked her on the phone. “We’ll see,” Julia said. “I miss you, but Alice and I are doing well here.” Sylvie had been relieved to hear about the delay. She and her older sister spoke twice a month after Alice was in bed at night; they traded off on initiating the expensive long-distance call. Neither she nor Julia mentioned the tension embedded in their goodbye; they both pretended that hadn’t happened. Julia was always tired from a long day of work, but she was excited too, about the city, about the smart people she worked with, about the clothes the women in New York wore. She sounded shiny, burnished by exhilaration, and more alive than she’d been in a long time. “Tell me about you,” Julia would say to Sylvie when she was done sharing her news. “I miss you. Tell me everything.” And Sylvie would talk about the fringes of her life—her job, the leaky sink in her studio, the last time she’d babysat Izzy—but leave out what mattered.
“You sound happy,” Julia had said at the end of one call.
“So do you.”
“I’m happy for us,” her sister said.
Beneath the heavy-limbed trees of the campus, Sylvie imagined her older sister shaking her head at her now. You can’t pull this off forever, the imagined Julia said. You have to make a choice. Sylvie’s older sister was part of her, in a way her younger sisters were not; the two older Padavano girls had been woven together as children. Perhaps because of this—or perhaps because Sylvie knew there were no boundaries, which meant Julia was part of her—she carried her sister with her, even though she’d left Chicago. Julia walked down the street beside Sylvie, sat across the table from her in restaurants, and stood by her side staring into bathroom mirrors. Sylvie was grateful for this version of her sister’s company. Recently something had come up in conversation, something about Julia, and Emeline had said, “You must miss her.” And Sylvie said, “Yes, but not too much.” And this was true, but in a way no one else could understand except perhaps Julia herself.
* * *
—
Kent found out first. He and Nicole—an upbeat young woman with a grin to rival Kent’s—came to visit William in early April, and Kent knew immediately that something had happened. William tried to ask about their engagement and admired Nicole’s ring, which used to belong to Kent’s beloved grandmother, but Kent just stared at him and said, “Tell me what’s going on. You look completely different.”
“I don’t look different,” William said. “I’m in slightly less terrible shape, maybe. I can run three miles now.”
Kent shook his head.
“Maybe it’s a girl,” Nicole suggested, studying William like he was a patient who’d come into her clinic.
Kent started to shake his head again, because that was impossible, but something changed in William’s face with those words, so he stopped. He stared at his friend. “A girl? Who is it?” Kent knew everyone in William’s small life, everyone involved in Northwestern basketball, everyone from the hospital.
William watched his friend comb through the possibilities and then said, in a quiet voice, “Sylvie.”