William leaned forward. “What do you mean, you saw my weak knee?”
Arash was a stocky man with powerful-looking forearms. “You protected it once or twice. I could also see how you used your other side to pivot and jump. That’s what happens when an injury occurs at a young age. The knee doesn’t operate in isolation. The hip and ankle start to get used differently, and your overall balance is thrown off. There’s interplay between the various joints, and no one told you to build the weak leg back to full strength. I bet you came out of the cast last time and immediately returned to the court without changing anything, right?”
William nodded.
“That’s what I thought.”
Julia arrived a few minutes after Arash had gone. She scanned William’s face; she could see he was riled up somehow. “Did something happen?”
“My knee is killing me.”
“You poor thing. Try to think about something else. Think about the wedding. You have something wonderful to look forward to, right?”
“That’s what Coach said too.”
She brightened. “How nice!”
She handed him her clipboard, which had pages of plans: the guest list, floral arrangements with taped photos of different flowers, a minute-by-minute schedule. A timeline of things to do and dates to have each item done by. A spreadsheet to show who was responsible for what. Almost every box had either Julia’s or Rose’s name beside it.
William flipped through the pages. The wedding was nine weeks away. It was a concrete event he could comprehend, like the reality of his knee. He needed to show up for one and be careful with the other.
Julia smoothed William’s hair; her touch felt good.
She was talking, so he tried to focus. “When I went into the history department to get your work, I asked around about teaching-assistant jobs. Turns out there’s a position for next fall that hasn’t been listed yet. Should I hand in your résumé for you?”
William would start the graduate program in history at Northwestern in September. He’d been surprised and relieved when the program accepted him. He thought of himself as a mediocre student, but the truth was that studying alongside Kent and Julia for the prior four years had changed that. His friend and girlfriend had modeled hard work and taught him how to study effectively. These skills, combined with William’s constant fear that a low grade-point average would knock him off the basketball team, had vaulted him onto the dean’s list.
The PhD application had required him to declare a historical period to focus on, and he’d struggled with the choice. His favorite part of history was its breadth, the sweeping connections between events and figures. How Leo Tolstoy had inspired Mahatma Gandhi, who had in turn inspired Martin Luther King, Jr. William didn’t see how he could confidently plant his feet in any particular century, continent, or war. When he’d discussed this quandary with Kent, his friend shook his head and said, “You already have an area of focus, dummy. You’re writing a book about the history of basketball.” This surprised William—it hadn’t occurred to him—and he said, “I can’t study basketball. That wouldn’t be seen as a serious academic subject.” But he’d applied to study American history from 1890 to 1969, a time frame that would allow his private interest and his legitimate work to at least exist side by side.
William would need teaching-assistant jobs to provide him and Julia with some income during the long PhD program. He arranged his face to show that he was paying attention to his fiancée and her plans, but somewhere inside was a repeated whisper of wedding, knee.
“Sure?” he said. “But I’m not sure my résumé is ready to go out.”
“I’ll clean it up; I’m good at that. I read so many résumés for Professor Cooper last summer, remember? You need a haircut when you get out of here.” Julia touched his arm. She paused and then said in a low voice, “I wish I could climb into bed with you.”
William imagined her curves fitting against his side. He imagined what would happen when he pulled the sheet over their heads.
“Kiss my hand?” he said.
She leaned forward and took his hand in hers. She kissed the outside, in the soft spot between his thumb and index finger. Then she turned his hand over and kissed the palm. Softly, over and over. Wedding. Knee.
* * *
—
ROSE AND JULIA CHAIRED a run-through meeting at the Padavanos’ dining room table a few days before the wedding. Charlie wasn’t there, but his absence wasn’t mentioned, and William wondered if the meeting had been timed for when he would be out. Sylvie sat in the corner farthest from her mother and read a book that she was holding on her lap. She paid attention only when she was addressed directly. Emeline had been told to take notes on decisions that were made, so she sat at the ready with a pad and pencil. Cecelia leaned against her twin’s arm, looking bored or sleepy.
It had taken William a while to get a handle on the differences between the twins, but he now had no trouble telling them apart. Cecelia always had flecks of paint on her hands and clothes, and she went from good-spirited to annoyed with startling speed. She liked to try out stern looks on people, in a way that reminded William of Julia. Emeline was more placid and slower to react than her twin. She was the quietest of the four sisters, but when the phone rang in the small house, it was usually a request for Emeline to babysit. William once had the thought that his fiancée seemed to stride about the world with a conductor’s wand, while Sylvie brandished a book and Cecelia a paintbrush. Emeline, though, kept her hands free in order to be helpful or to pick up and soothe a neighborhood child. Every time Emeline had seen William since his injury, she’d asked if she could carry something for him or open the door in his path.
William listened while Julia and her mother took turns reciting the schedule and the assigned tasks. When Rose stated that on the morning of the wedding Charlie would pick William up at Northwestern, he said, “That’s not necessary. I can get myself to the church.”
“You’re injured,” Rose said, in a tone that suggested the shattered kneecap was his fault. “And how exactly are you intending to get to the church in your wedding suit, on crutches—the city bus? Charlie will borrow our neighbor’s car, and he’ll drive you. That’s that.”
Emeline grinned. “Mama just wants to make absolutely sure that you’re at the church on time.”
“If that’s true, then she shouldn’t have appointed Daddy to be the driver,” Cecelia said.
Rose shook her head, her gray hair flying. “You girls be quiet. William and Charlie will look after each other, and they’ll both be there on time.”
“Oh!” Emeline said, and patted the table with her open palm. “That makes sense. You’re giving Daddy a responsibility and making Daddy William’s responsibility. You’re an evil genius, Mama.” She held her hand up in front of her mother’s face for a high five, which Rose ignored.
Rose said, “Have you given instructions to the best man?”
“Kent knows where he needs to be, at what time.”
“Will he be drunk?”
William looked at her, surprised. “No?”
“Don’t mind her,” Julia said. “She always assumes every man drinks too much.”
“Only until proven otherwise,” Rose said. “Cecelia, why are you lying on the table during a meeting? Sit up, please.”
“I feel like we’re all set,” Sylvie said. “This wedding is going to run like a finely tuned watch. I have to go to work soon, remember?”
Rose turned toward William and said, “After the wedding, you’ll call me Mom, or Mama. No more Mrs. Padavano.”
She glared at him while she said this, but he could feel another message being delivered with her eyes. She regretted that his parents weren’t coming to the wedding, and she regretted that his parents didn’t love him. She would love him, to fill their absence.