Sylvie felt her shoulders relax. William had spoken to Dr. Dembia; he’d given the subject thought and made a careful decision. She still thought he was wrong, but it wasn’t her decision to make, and it occurred to Sylvie that perhaps the truth was more complicated for William because of his past. Now that she knew about his lost sister—a baby girl who had died—it made sense to Sylvie that his worry over his daughter might be heightened. Perhaps the two babies shared space inside him, and the right thing for him was to step away. She could see this possibility and the way grief and depression tangled inside him; Sylvie found that she could accept his choice even if she didn’t fully understand.
William leaned forward and said, “Do you have any concern, any concern at all, that Julia won’t take excellent care of Alice?”
Sylvie didn’t even have to think about this. “No.”
He nodded. “I’m the risk factor,” he said. “That’s why I removed myself.”
* * *
—
JULIA DIDN’T WANT A group goodbye; she said it would be too painful. She asked Sylvie to come over the morning before her flight to New York. Sylvie found her sister and Alice in a small clearing in the middle of stacks of boxes in the living room.
“I can’t actually do this,” Julia said, without looking at Sylvie. “I can’t say goodbye.”
“I can’t either.” Sylvie gave her attention to Alice, who was sitting on the small blanket on the floor. Julia had clipped a pink bow into the baby’s scant blond hair, and Alice looked tremendously pleased about this development. Sylvie felt slightly breathless. She’d been missing her sister since William had been hospitalized, and now Julia was leaving. It felt like compounded loss. And this beautiful baby, who was beaming up at her mother and aunt, was going to disappear too. Sylvie loved Alice so much, and six months was such a long time in a baby’s life. Alice would be one year old the next time Sylvie saw her. She might be walking. She might have forgotten the sight of her three adoring aunts.
“Bah,” Alice said with delight, and Sylvie leaned down to kiss her cheek.
Julia was wearing jeans and an old T-shirt. She seemed over-caffeinated, jittery. “I never thought I would leave Chicago. But I never thought Daddy would die. And I never thought Mama would move away.” She paused and then said, “I never thought you would visit my husband in the hospital every day.”
Shocked, Sylvie took the words like a punch to the stomach. She had been on her knees, to be close to the baby, but now she rose to her feet. “Not every day,” she managed.
Julia nodded. “I wasn’t sure you were visiting him at all.”
Sylvie looked at her sister directly for the first time. She could feel the distance that had grown between them over the last few months. “You didn’t have to trick me,” she said. “You could have just asked.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d tell the truth.”
Sylvie took this in. “He has no one else,” she said. “I feel bad for him.”
Julia left the clearing of boxes and came back holding a folder. “These are the divorce and custody papers,” she said. “Please give them to William the next time you see him.”
Sylvie felt despair. She felt her sister cutting at the threads that connected them. Was this Sylvie’s fault? Or was Julia lashing out because otherwise she couldn’t bear to leave? “I love you,” Sylvie said.
Julia pushed her hair off her face. She shook her head at the same time, as if annoyed, as if this sentiment were not the point. But she said, “I love you too.”
* * *
—
SYLVIE SHOWED UP EARLY on the cold November morning that William was due to be checked out. She knew Kent was coming, as was Arash. Dr. Dembia would probably be on hand. Sylvie could tell that the doctor cared about William as a person and would miss her time with him. Cecelia, whose antagonism toward William had been extinguished with the revelation that Emeline had also been depressed, was going to meet them at his new Northwestern apartment to judge whether the walls would benefit from colorful paint. When Sylvie stepped out of the elevator on the psych-unit floor, she found herself glancing around for Julia. Her sister was gone, eight hundred miles gone, but still Sylvie half-believed she would find Julia here, her jaw set, ready to organize her husband back into her life.
William was standing by the window when Sylvie got to his room. He barely had anything to pack. He hadn’t wanted to ask Julia for any of his belongings when he first arrived in the hospital. He had been adamant about this, although he needed clothes, and he was so tall he couldn’t wear anything from the hospital’s lost-and-found bin. Hearing this, his friends from the basketball team had dropped off clothes from their own closets. William was wearing a pair of khaki pants, worn sneakers, and a Northwestern sweatshirt. He had signed the divorce and custody papers, and Sylvie had mailed them to the lawyer. When she left Chicago, Julia had arranged for his possessions to be put in a storage locker for him. As of the day he was leaving the hospital, William was no longer married and no longer a father.
“Big day,” she said.
“Sylvie,” he said. He looked down at his hands. “I don’t know how to thank you for everything you’ve done.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I’ve been selfish. I should have told you to stop coming, but I liked when you were here. I hope you know that when I leave the hospital, you don’t have to worry about me anymore. Please know that. I have my medication”—he gave a trace of a smile—“and my mantra. I’ll try to help Arash.” He paused. “Everyone has been so kind to me. I’m not going to waste their kindness.”
These words hit Sylvie strangely. It felt like William had put together sentences that took aim at what was inside her. She could tell, intellectually, that he’d said a nice thing, something she agreed with. William was healthier. He was telling her she could walk away, but she knew—the knowledge sharp, like pain—that she didn’t want to, that she might not be able to. This was her real secret, the one no one could know. Sylvie’s eyes smarted, and she had a flash of worry that she might cry. She said, “Did you know that I searched for you for that whole night with Kent and the other guys?”
William squinted, as if there was light in the room that hurt his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Kent told me.”
Why am I thinking about this? Why am I talking about it? She said, “When they carried you out of the water, I thought you were dead.” She couldn’t stop herself from picturing it now: the tall, tired young men bearing William’s limp body. “I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t help move you, but I wanted to do something to help. So I held your hand while Kent and Gus carried you to the ambulance. And in the ambulance too.”
William was quiet for a moment, then said, “I didn’t know that. I don’t remember most of that day. Sylvie, I’m really sorry you had to go through that. It must have been very frightening.”
When Sylvie lay in bed at night, she recalled, over and over again, Kent calling her name and her running across the sand. She remembered the shards of panic and grief in her chest because William was gone. She remembered when she reached out and took William’s ice-cold hand. She didn’t want William to be alone, even if he was no longer alive. And yet, in that moment, she had never felt so alone.
She heard herself say, “Can I hold your hand again, for one second?”
William crossed the room to stand in front of her. He held his hand out, palm facing up. His skin was soft and warm, so different from that day. A wave of feelings ran through Sylvie. A radio dial spun inside her, the volume loud. I love you, she thought, and the words—impossible now to deny—brought her both desolation and deep joy. William was her one. He was her heart. He had changed all the molecules inside her. Sylvie had known love would come for her with the force of a tsunami. She’d dreamed of this ever since she was a little girl, and her dream had actually come true. But she hadn’t known her love would be impossible, a dead end, unspeakable, because he had been married to her sister.
She thought, I’m in so much trouble. The thought made her laugh.
“Are you okay?” William asked.
She didn’t want him to worry, so she said, “I’m okay.”