Julia hugged her mother, and the two women gripped hard and hung on for a long moment. When Rose pulled away, she said, “William?”
William took in the entire scene: the stone church; the crowd of tipsy, smiling people; his basketball teammates, taller than everyone else, their long legs wavering with drink. The white streamers connecting the tree branches overhead. His new sisters-in-law working the edges of the party, kissing the older guests goodbye.
“Thank you for everything, Mom,” he said. Mom hurt his throat on the way out; he’d rarely used the term—his own mother had seemed to prefer he call her nothing at all, so he’d done that. The word had long been dormant, covered with rust, inside him.
Rose nodded, satisfied, and turned to clear a path for them to the waiting car, to whatever happened after wedding, knee, and the rest of their lives.
Julia
JUNE 1982–OCTOBER 1982
JULIA FOUND HERSELF STRANGELY UNPREPARED for their honeymoon, which took place at a resort on the shore of Lake Michigan. She’d spent so much time and energy planning the wedding that she hadn’t given much thought to her and William’s trip. In moments of daydream, she’d pictured them lying side by side on sun loungers, holding hands. In reality, there were heavy winds for the five days they were at the lakeside hotel, which choked the beach with whipping sand, and it was difficult for William to walk on uneven terrain with his crutches. In fact, it was difficult for him to walk anywhere. After he traveled about a hundred feet, his forehead creased and he grew pale. The steps he did take were so slow, Julia had a hard time restraining herself to his pace. She developed a habit of walking ahead and then circling back. They were both exhausted from the end of the school year and the wedding, so once Julia stopped feeling like they had to do something—explore the town, go out to lunch, look at antiques because the area was known for antiques—they were able to enjoy the last day and a half, when they barely left their bedroom.
Back in Chicago, they went straight to their new apartment in the married-housing building on Northwestern’s campus. They qualified for the housing because William would start graduate school there in the fall, and he’d gotten a summer job on campus in the admissions office, helping to reorganize their filing system. Julia immediately loved the place. It was a one-bedroom with a living room window that looked out over a quad. Sunlight poured in. She’d never lived anywhere other than the small house on 18th Place, with her parents and sisters. This apartment was almost impossibly peaceful, with just her and William. They had their own kitchen, bathroom, and small round yellow table to eat meals together.
She went with William for his checkup with the surgeon. The man examined the lacework of scars around and across his kneecap and declared his healing excellent. “Time to ditch the crutches, young man. You need to increase your walking too,” the doctor said. “These muscles need to move or they won’t strengthen. You’re a ball player, so I recommend you go for a long walk every day while dribbling a ball.”
“I was a ball player,” William said.
“Dribbling the ball is for the distraction and to get your balance back,” the doctor said. “Your wife is paying attention, in any case.”
“I’m paying attention.” William sounded offended.
The doctor looked at Julia. “Make sure your husband walks. If he’s sedentary, the knee will always be a problem. Don’t let him disrespect my work.”
The following Monday, William reported to Northwestern’s admissions office, and Julia went grocery shopping. This was delightful too. She could buy bananas, even though Rose hated the smell of bananas and refused to have them in the house. Emeline was allergic to peanuts, so they never bought peanut butter, but Julia could put a jar in her basket now. She bought cold cuts, bread, and a fancy mustard for William’s packed lunches. She took more time than was necessary, trailing up and down the aisles of the market. When she got back to the apartment, she found her three sisters standing in front of her door. Her heart leapt at the sight of them.
“I missed you!” she said. “But what are you doing here? We’re coming over to the house for dinner tonight.”
“We wanted to see your place,” Sylvie said.
Julia tried to frown, but her face wouldn’t stop smiling. She was happy to be the subject of her sisters’ collective attention. She knew she was beaming, and she could see the girls’ pleasure in causing it. “Next week, I said. I wanted to add some touches first, hang pictures. So it looked really nice when you saw it for the first time.”
“Was the honeymoon terribly romantic?” Emeline leaned against the wall, as if in a mild swoon.
“We’re not here to see your house,” Cecelia said. “Let’s go inside, though.”
Julia handed off her shopping bags and opened the door with the key.
Her sisters gave similar sighs of pleasure.
“How lovely!” Sylvie said.
It did look lovely, with the morning sun streaming in. The three visitors understood the preciousness of having your own space. When you grew up in a crowded, small house like they had, much of the dream of adulthood became living somewhere less crowded. Somewhere that was your own and didn’t need to be shared.
Julia gave them a brief tour, and then they sank down onto the sofa and armchair in the living room. Julia noticed that Cecelia was carrying something under her arm, and said, “What is that?”
“Oh.” Cecelia pulled it free. “It’s my scarlet letter, from Mama. She wants me to carry it everywhere for a week, at least. I told her I would.” It was one of the framed saints from the dining room wall. Julia stared at it, trying to match the woman with her name. She knew the saints only in context, listed in a row, on the wall of their house.
“St. Clare of Assisi,” Cecelia said.
Sylvie and Emeline looked down, as if to study their own legs and feet. Their mother had taught them lessons related to each saint, but she’d never removed a saint from the wall, much less assigned one as a traveling penance to a daughter.
Julia remembered this saint now. St. Clare had refused to marry at the age of fifteen and had run away from home. She’d cut off all her hair and devoted her life to God. She created the Order of Poor Ladies, and her own sister and mother went to live with her in her abbey. She was the first woman in history to write a monastic rule, which the Order of Poor Ladies lived by. Julia studied her youngest sister. Cecelia had been born three minutes after Emeline, so they sometimes called her Baby. Charlie liked to croon Frank Sinatra at her: Yes sir, that’s my baby. No sir, I don’t mean maybe.
“What happened?” Julia was aware that her hands were freezing and she was scared.
“I’m pregnant. Almost five months along.” Cecelia spoke the words calmly. “Mom has decided that I’m headed for a life of destitution. But I’m going to keep the baby. I’m not telling the father, because—” She stopped for a second. “Because there’s no good to come from his knowing.”
Julia shook her head in refusal. This couldn’t be correct. “You’re pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“You’re having a baby, at the age of seventeen.”
“I’ll be eighteen when the baby’s born.”
Julia felt something inside her harden. She studied her other sisters; clearly she was the last to know. They had already swallowed this news and found a way to accept it. Emeline was unconditionally loyal to her twin, and besides, she adored babies. Sylvie was disappointed in Cecelia—Julia had seen this in her sister’s eyes—but Sylvie looked at life like a story, and she would be impressed at how their younger sister had made herself a main character in their shared narrative.
Julia said, “I’m supposed to have the first baby.”