Emeline shook her head. “I wonder how William feels. I feel better.” Her face was brighter; she sat taller. “Now you have to tell me a truth from your lives,” she said. “Your turns. In honor of William.”
This reminded Sylvie of the future-predicting game they used to play. Even though they’d just left Julia, Sylvie missed her sister, a sensation like a painful stab in her side. She could see that her sisters had also remembered the game, and there was a crease between Emeline’s eyebrows that meant she regretted how she’d phrased the request. They had recently learned that Julia was leaving them for six months. The departure had struck each of them as a mistake. “The timing is awful,” Cecelia said. “She’s running away,” Emeline said. But Sylvie suspected her sister was running toward something. A new life. Julia wanted to reimagine herself, and it was hard to do that in the presence of people who had known her since she was a small girl. Sylvie worried, though, that Julia had sensed Sylvie was keeping something secret from her, and that secret had opened space for Julia to leave. If Sylvie and Julia had stayed close-knit, and stayed honest, the older sister wouldn’t have considered departure a possibility. Deep inside herself, Sylvie believed it was her fault that Julia would soon be gone.
“I’ll go first,” Cecelia said. “I wish I could have sex. I’ve only had it once.”
Emeline must have known this, but Sylvie was surprised. She had assumed that Cecelia had bedded many lovers on a painter’s tarp, before or after a project. She felt like Cecelia had pulled on the fabric of adulthood more easily than the rest of them. She moved with a confidence that Sylvie lacked and seemed unfazed by other people’s expectations. When Cecelia was with Izzy, they both laughed a great deal; they visibly delighted each other. Sylvie had assumed that her sister had cherry-picked men to delight her physically too.
“I know I make it look like everything is great,” Cecelia said, to answer Sylvie’s expression. “And it’s really good, but not great. The guy who owns this car would happily have sex with me, but he’s a billion years old, and sleazy. I have bills to pay, and the boys anywhere near my age are so immature I can’t stand it.”
“Sylvie?” Emeline said.
“Oh,” Sylvie said, and the syllable came out like a little moan. It was warm in the car now, and the windows were fogged up. Sylvie had become a secret. She was changing in ways she couldn’t keep track of, much less explain. Would she tell them that she thought about William all the time and missed him as soon as she left his room? That sometimes, when he was sleeping in the hospital bed, Sylvie wanted to lie down next to him in the hope that he might mistake her for his wife and hold her? Instead, she said, “I’m writing something.”
Her sisters’ faces opened with pleasure. Of course, Sylvie saw them think.
“No,” she said, “it’s not like you’re thinking. It’s not a book. I’m having trouble sleeping, so when I get home at night, I write something about our childhood. It’s only scenes. Last night I wrote about the birthday party where that boy dared Julia to hold her breath for as long as she could, and she held it for so long she passed out.”
“Our ninth birthday,” Cecelia said. “The one with the terrible cake.”
“Bright-yellow icing,” Emeline said. “Sylvie! How wonderful. I’m so glad you’re doing that.”
“It’s not good.” Sylvie tried to impress this upon them with her eyes. She needed her sisters to understand. “It’s not about making it good.” She had gotten the idea, the possibility, from reading William’s book, of course. And from Whitman too. Sylvie had always thought that when, if, she wrote, it would have to be perfect. A beautifully crafted novel, ready to hand to the world. But William had shown her she could write for, and to, herself. And Whitman had rewritten, expanded, cut, and reimagined his poems across his life. He’d created not one beautiful book but different attempts at excellence and beauty as he aged and loved and reconsidered everything.
Sylvie found inhabiting herself in the present difficult; her skin had felt uncomfortably tight ever since William was rescued. She was aware that she was writing about her childhood in an attempt to make a third door; she needed to take a sledgehammer to a wall to find a way out of the here and now. When Sylvie did sleep, she was stricken on the beach, watching men carry a dead William out of the lake. And an ache ran through her, because Julia was leaving Chicago and she had no idea of the pain and longing Sylvie carried inside her. Every night, Sylvie sat at her tiny desk by the window, overlooking Pilsen, remembering and trying to re-create the times when her family was whole. When Charlie was alive, Rose in her garden, the twins giggling in their bedroom, Julia striding around the house doling out plans like gifts. Every moment Sylvie captured on the page couldn’t be lost.
* * *
—
SYLVIE FELT EXHAUSTED BY her desire for honesty but also drawn to it, as if the quality were a magnet. She loved that she could see a fuller version of Emeline now, after she’d told Sylvie and Cecelia her truth. Sylvie had stopped by the daycare one afternoon, because she wanted to meet Josie; she wanted to smile at the young auburn-haired woman who held her sister’s heart. Emeline was flushed and shooting off sparks of happiness in her work setting, surrounded by babies, with Josie nearby. Seeing the breadth of Emeline excited Sylvie, even though her sister hadn’t yet confessed her feelings to Josie and didn’t know if they would be reciprocated.
Sylvie appreciated that William’s healing was built on truthfulness. She remembered Dr. Dembia telling William that she wanted him to be relentlessly honest. The problem was that in her new state of heightened awareness, Sylvie had spotted a glaring dishonesty in William’s behavior, and it bothered her. She kept her mouth shut, because it was none of her business, and William was under the care of Dr. Dembia, not her. Surely the doctor would see what Sylvie saw and fix it? But nothing seemed to change, and it felt to Sylvie like William was building his new life on a rickety foundation.
One afternoon, William said, “You seem grumpy. Is something wrong?”
“I’m not grumpy,” Sylvie said, though she could feel herself scowling.
“If you say so,” he said.
“Well,” she said. “There is one thing that’s bothering me. William, of course you can do whatever you want, and I’m not judging your choice. Really.” She hesitated. “But I know your mantra, and I think you’re lying to yourself about something important.”
He looked at her, and she knew he could see her fear. He could see her concern that she might say something that could set his recovery back. “Don’t worry,” William said. “I’m all right. Just say it.”
“It’s about Alice.”
He flinched, but almost imperceptibly; this was the first time either of them had mentioned the baby.
Sylvie said, “You gave her up because you think you’d hurt her, but that’s wrong. You wouldn’t hurt Alice. I know you wouldn’t.”
William was quiet for a minute. “Dr. Dembia thinks the decision to give up custody is bullshit too.” His face looked worn, as if he had been alive for all of time and had seen every possible heartbreak. “I disagree, though, and I can’t take that chance. Alice is better off with Julia.”