“Sylvie said she was going to switch the books out when they’re due back at the library,” he said. “I mean, I told her she didn’t have to, but…” He shrugged. He was acutely aware of his relief that Cecelia, and not Sylvie, was here now. He was comfortable with Cecelia. She was who she’d always been with him, and his feelings for her remained unchanged. This wasn’t the case with Sylvie. It felt like William had seen Sylvie through a sliver in a doorway, and now the door had been thrown wide open. She commanded his full attention in a way that mystified him, and whenever they were together, goosebumps rose on William’s arms. Sylvie showed up at his place every few days, and her presence always jolted him, as if he’d been dealt an electric shock.
He knew, rationally, that this change could be explained by the fact that Sylvie had accompanied him through the most turbulent moment of his life. She’d sat beside his hospital bed, spoken to the psychiatrist. She had received his secrets. He’d been confused when he woke up in the hospital to find Sylvie next to him, but she’d looked confused too, and somehow they’d started over from the same groggy place. She had accepted him unquestioningly, even when he was bloated with lake water. This had surprised William, and still surprised him. No one in his life, except perhaps Kent, had ever accepted him just as he was, and Sylvie had accepted him when he was so broken he was barely a person.
“The kitchen is a bit drab,” Cecelia said, frowning at the sink, mini-refrigerator, and hot plate. “Not sure what we can do about that.”
“Cecelia?” he said.
She looked at him. Of all the sisters, she reminded him the most of Julia. She shared her older sister’s searing focus. Cecelia was more curious than Julia, though, and more interested in getting to the bottom of things. He’d heard Cecelia tell her sisters once, “I don’t give a shit what people think of me.” William had been startled by this, partly because he believed her, and partly because it hadn’t occurred to him that this was an option.
“Thank you for the painting of Alice, but I don’t want to hang it up. I”—he hesitated—“I don’t want it.”
Cecelia didn’t look offended; she studied William’s face the same way Izzy was currently studying the knob on the bedroom door. “It’s too painful to look at her?”
“I’m not her father anymore.”
Cecelia’s eyes flashed; William was engaging with her, and that pleased her. “You’re still her father,” she said. “You gave her up because of your depression. And to please Julia. That doesn’t mean you don’t love Alice. And it doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to look at her.”
William had been raised by unhappy parents, and he’d been unhappy from his own earliest memories. William knew that a father could be present and nonviolent in a child’s life and still destroy that child. William’s parents’ grief had shaped him, like a glacier moving silently through a valley. Alice would be better off if her universe was filled with Julia’s light and none of his darkness. He said, “I don’t want to.”
Cecelia gave him an appraising look. “It’s an interesting thing to get to know you now,” she said, “after being in your life for so long. You’ve made a bold decision. I’m not sure it’s right, but it’s bold. It’s the kind of decision Julia would make.”
William nearly smiled, because Cecelia was right. His ex-wife was the orchestrator of big plans and life-shifting moves. It felt ironic that he’d made the same kind of decision in her absence. William almost told Cecelia that he would be fine with a portrait of Julia on his wall, that the idea of that didn’t bother him. Their marriage was over. William had said goodbye to his parents in a train station and goodbye to his wife in their living room. He was grateful that Julia had left Chicago. He’d departed his old life, and so had she. But William turned away from thoughts of Alice, so he naturally turned away from Cecelia’s painting.
“I’ll paint you something else,” Cecelia said. “You know you’re coming to Sylvie’s place for Christmas, right? She said you were making noises about being alone, but that’s not acceptable. Our family has gotten too small as it is.” She picked up the painting of Alice from where she’d leaned it against the wall and slung her purse over her arm. “Come on, bean,” she said. Izzy appeared out of the open closet and headed toward them. Were you counting my sneakers? William thought. He took a step back, out of her way, but Izzy walked toward him. She walked straight up to his leg, her head level with his hurt knee, and hugged his calf hard.
“Good job, Iz,” Cecelia said, and Izzy let go and went to hold her mother’s hand. After they left, William stood still in the middle of the room until he could breathe normally again. It was hard for him to be touched, and he hadn’t seen that coming.
* * *
—
WILLIAM SAT IN THE bleachers of the gym and watched the practices. He had no official role on the staff; he was there just to be helpful, for now. The program was strong this year, with an excellent roster of athletes. The NBA was in thrall to the rivalry between Magic and Bird, and the college players were inspired to mimic their no-look passes. The practices were loud, full of trash talk and whoops of pleasure when one of the players attempted a flashy move and managed to pull it off.
Arash had given William a binder of information that included the transcripts of his interviews from the summer; William had documented them on a miniature tape recorder, at Arash’s request. The player on the team with the highest vertical jump was the one who’d told William he’d been stabbed, and William noticed the worried expression on his face while he played. The young man with the large forehead tapped his shoulder sometimes, and William wondered if it had dislocated recently and if he was in pain. The boys with past concussions sometimes shied away from contact, and he wondered if they were scared of their brains thudding against their skulls a second time. William watched the players, and their histories, sweep up and down the court. He reread the contents of the binder at night in bed, because the better prepared he was, the better chance he had of being helpful. William could feel the information swirling around inside him. He believed—even if that belief was couched in worry—that he could provide a service to this team that no one else could. It might be something small, almost unnoticeable, but there was something. He just had to figure out what it was.
In rereading the transcripts of his interviews with the boys—his eyes so tired they landed heavily on each word—William was reminded of his own manuscript, where his questions also appeared in typeface. The manuscript was in an unopened box in his closet, along with other items from the Northwestern apartment; William and Kent had emptied the small storage locker shortly after he’d left the hospital. Written on the outside of the box, in Julia’s handwriting, was: WILLIAM’S BELONGINGS. He wasn’t ready to look at the manuscript, to consider whether he wanted to write more about the game of basketball. When William tried to recall his questions in the footnotes, all he could remember was self-doubt and anxiety, as if he were standing on thin ice. He could read a note of worry in his questions in the transcripts too. There, he seemed concerned about the state of the ice the boys were standing on. William had asked: Have you been hurt before? During high school or the summers? How bad was it? Was anyone there to help you?
* * *
—