Emeline blinked in surprise, but she said, “Of course. You’re right.”
Julia pinned back Emeline’s hair in the mornings, both of them looking at their similar faces in the mirror. I need you, Julia thought, knowing that you meant more than just this one sister, but the need was so great that she couldn’t be picky. She couldn’t let Emeline leave without knowing when and how she would see her again. By the end of Emeline’s first day in New York, Julia had launched a campaign to convince her sister and Josie to move to her city. Transplanting her sister here would be a perfect solution. There were Manhattan daycares that would clamor for women with Emeline and Josie’s work experience, and no one cared if a person was gay here. Julia had discovered, after moving to New York, that Professor Cooper had been living with a man for thirty years. His boyfriend, Donny, was lovely; he wore beautifully tailored suits, and he’d helped Julia pick out rugs—the rug market had turned out to be secretly very expensive and confusing—for her apartment.
“I can’t imagine living anywhere but Chicago,” Emeline said when Julia raised the topic. But she was so admiring of the city, and so happy with Alice in her arms, that Julia felt confident that over the course of a few months she would be able to convince her. She planned to speak to Mrs. Laven about her sister renting an apartment in their building. Julia pictured Alice running back and forth between the two apartments, at home in more than one space. And the prospect of sharing her exciting workdays with Emeline over a glass of wine every evening made Julia shiver with pleasure. It felt like she’d been sipping air through a straw since she left Chicago, and suddenly she was able to take big gulps of oxygen. In Emeline’s presence, she laughed for very little reason and was pleased that Alice threw her little head back and laughed too. Julia thought, I’m better with my sisters.
“How is Sylvie?” she asked. It was Emeline’s last day in the city. Alice was down the hall with Mrs. Laven, so the two sisters could spend a few hours alone together. They were drinking coffee in the kitchen. Emeline had told her all about Cecelia’s art and the Italian jazz musician she was dating. She’d heard about how the two-year-old Izzy had recently discovered a tube of strong glue in Cecelia’s studio and created a skyscraper by gluing together all the canned vegetables and beans she found in their kitchen. But Emeline had barely mentioned Sylvie.
“You’re the only one who didn’t seem upset by my loving Josie,” Emeline said. “Sylvie and Cecelia tried to hide it, but the truth was that they were shocked at first. I mean, I understand. I was shocked too. And I expected Mama to lose her mind, which she did. But you just seemed happy for me.”
“I am happy for you. I wish you’d brought Josie with you so I could meet her.”
“I didn’t want to love Josie,” Emeline said. She stared down into her coffee cup. “It was hard for me to accept the fact that we don’t choose who we love, because who you love changes everything.”
They had talked about Josie a fair amount during Emeline’s visit, because the two women had decided to move in together and Rose had thrown a long-distance fit. Julia turned to look at her sister and felt a welling of affection for her.
Emeline said, “Do you agree that we can’t choose who we love?”
“I guess. Why?”
“I want you to know that I was upset about this at first, and I guess I still am. But…” Emeline closed her eyes. “Sylvie and William are in love.”
Julia shook her head, in disbelief and refusal. She lowered herself into the nearest chair, in case Emeline’s sentence doubled back on her.
“Cecelia was mad at Sylvie. I was too. It had gotten peaceful after you left. Everyone was okay. You were far away, but you were going to come back. I understand now, though. How could I not? Julia, they didn’t have a choice.”
The shock of this cleared a space inside Julia, and she remembered how Sylvie had somehow known that William needed to be searched for and saved. She remembered her and Sylvie’s strained goodbye. The two sisters’ phone calls, since Julia had moved, had been filled with facts and logistics, as if they were sharing their weekly calendars with each other. Sylvie, in particular, had never spoken about her feelings or what she was wondering or thinking, even though that was all the younger versions of Sylvie and Julia had spoken about while they lay side by side in their twin beds at night. Julia should have known something was going on; perhaps she had known but had averted her eyes and not allowed those thoughts to rise to the surface. She’d done the same thing, she knew, with William’s depression. Sylvie had been the one to tell Julia that her husband had tried to kill himself and then, later, that her husband didn’t want to see her, didn’t want to be married or a father anymore. Only now did Julia realize how strange it was that Sylvie had delivered all that news. William should have told her himself, even if it was over the phone. But his voice had gone through Sylvie. Whenever Julia studied her face in the mirror, she thought: Sylvie has freckles in that spot too, but they’re lighter. Sylvie’s hair is more obedient than mine. Julia thought about her sister as naturally as she thought about herself: Sylvie was part of Julia. And William had lain beside Julia in bed at night. He was the only man she’d ever been naked with. The two people Julia had been closest to had chosen each other.
Julia stood and walked to the sink. Her chest contracted, an oversized motion as if it were trying to clear a blocked pipe, and she inhaled too much air. She made a loud gasping sound. Emeline rubbed her back, the way the sisters had always rubbed one another’s backs when they were unwell.
“They love each other?” Julia said, when she could speak. The word love tugged at her throat on the way out.
Emeline rested her cheek on Julia’s shoulder blade. She nodded, and Julia felt the movement on her skin. Julia pictured Sylvie standing behind the desk in the library and thought, How could you do this? I would never do this to you.
“I’m sorry, Julia,” Emeline whispered.
“I’m so glad I decided to move here,” she said. “It’s the smartest thing I ever did.”