Greta’s balled up on the couch under a blanket, now, hair everywhere, monstrous, lush hair. Dark, dusty, brown velvet curtains hang behind her. I’ll paint this someday, I promise myself. I must remember exactly how she looked in case I never see this house again. I will paint her. I ask her how she’s doing, if she’s taking care of herself. If she’s all there, if she’ll survive this. I am thinking about her and my brother, too, if their marriage is going to make it, but it’s not for me to ask, not now, anyway. Greta tells me a little bit about why they made this decision, a few recent health setbacks for Sigrid, a conversation with a doctor, another conversation with a doctor, and then she says, “It actually doesn’t even matter anymore. This story is over.” Shaking her head, her weariness, both spiritual and physical, slowing down even that simplest of motions. She takes her time with this next sentence, but at last she says it: “I’m going to miss you, Andrea, when I don’t get to talk to you anymore.” “Don’t say that,” I say. “We’ll talk.” She gives me a useless smile.
My brother walks through the doorway. I look at the two of them as I hold this baby. Greta is watching me hold her daughter, and she is weeping freely. He is on the other side of the room, leaning on the small entrance that leads to the study, hunched slightly in pain, his beard so wild it seems nearly afloat. Come together, I think as I hold their dying child. Now is when you come together, not drift apart. They were the relationship I wanted all these years, or the relationship I thought I should want, the one that seemed closest to something I could achieve, if I ever actually decided I wanted love. And they can’t even bear to hold each other up just when they might collapse. Come together. Forgive yourself, I want to tell them. This is no one’s fault, no one’s failure. This is your success, even, for keeping her alive this long, for committing to this thing, this unknowable creature, breathing small puffs of air in my arms, a tiny train pulling into the station. I could never have done it. I admire you. Don’t give up on each other. But no one moves. I think: I’m going to count to ten. And when I’m done counting, one of you will move toward the other, and that’s how I’ll know you’re going to make it. I hold the sick baby’s hand. It’s nearly cold. She does not stir. I begin to count.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my early readers for their big brains & hearts: Lauren Groff, Courtney Sullivan, Bex Schwartz, Emily Flake, and Alex Chee.
Thanks to my people: Rosie Schaap, Stefan Block, Maris Kreizman, Rachel Fershleiser, Jenn Northington, Megan Lynch, Zach & Sarah Lazar, Jason Kim, Steve Toltz, Hannah Westland, Vannesa Shanks, and John McCormick.
A portion of this book was written at the Frontispiece Hudson Residency. Much gratitude to Colby Bird and Jacqui Robbins for their generosity.
Thanks to Brooklyn, New Orleans, bookstores, libraries, readers, and people on the internet, you know who you are.
Thanks to my perfect agent, Doug Stewart.
Thanks to my perfect editor, Helen Atsma.
With love, as always, to my family.