Zweig was Viennese-born and Jewish, like Rose Downes. Lizzie moved to the window seat with coffee and Zweig’s memoir in hand. She began to read. Zweig called the period in which he grew up before World War I in Vienna “the golden age of security.” Politics took a backseat; theater, music, and literature were revered. Zweig wrote of once passing Gustav Mahler on the street and boasting about it for months. As a student, he took part not in political rallies but in demonstrations that protested the tearing down of the house that Beethoven had died in. Lizzie read about the pleasures of the Viennese coffeehouse, where not only Austrian but also French and English and Italian and American papers and magazines were on offer. This dreamy, intellectual world that Zweig was describing would not hold, Lizzie knew, and she read the nostalgic passages with growing dread.
What happened to Zweig? Lizzie skipped ahead in the book to find out, and read the publisher’s note at the end. After Hitler overtook Austria, Zweig had fled, first wending his way to France, then England, then New York, eventually landing in Brazil. Despondent over his exile and the state of the world, he and his wife committed double suicide in 1942.
Lizzie shut the book, shuddering. Zweig had gotten out—he was, in a sense, lucky—and still he had ended his life. And he had killed himself in 1942, before the world knew about the concentration camps, before the full extent of the terror was understood.
But Rose had lived. For decades afterward, however painful it might have been, she had decided to live. Through the window Lizzie saw a snowy egret wade into the shallow waters of the canal, peck at a bobbing yellow something, far too brightly colored to be natural. She stared at the bird but it barely registered.
Then she heard a noise: her phone, vibrating against the glass of Max’s coffee table, Sarah calling. Oh God, Lizzie had forgotten all about lunch with her sister.
“Sorry, sorry,” Lizzie said, sliding into her seat across from Sarah on the café’s patio, her hair still damp from the shower.
Sarah waved off the apologies, kissed her. “It’s fine. I ordered myself some courage while I was waiting.” She nodded at a frothy, milky glass in front of her.
“Your drink has courage?” Lizzie asked. It felt surreal to be sitting across from her sister now, blithely chatting. Sarah still thought she was staying with Claudia.
“It’s called ‘courageous.’ I don’t know if that means it encourages courage. Or contains courage. Either way, it is seriously foul.”
A willowy waitress with a buzz cut handed Lizzie a menu. She was wearing a button that said, What Fulfills Your Heart? Lizzie scanned the menu: “pure,” “openhearted,” “radiant.” “I’ll get the breakfast tacos,” she said, and pointed to the item, unable to bring herself to say “superb,” the dish’s name. “And coffee, please.”
The waitress nodded stonily. “Anything else?” She gestured at Sarah with her chin.
“I’m good with my ‘courageous,’” Sarah said, smiling sweetly. “Thank you.”
The waitress left. “I hate this place,” Sarah said.
“So what are we doing here?” Lizzie said. It had been Sarah’s suggestion. When Lizzie had looked up the café online and read that it had a motto—“stay, acknowledge, be”—she thought: Of course. This is exactly what Sarah would choose.
Sarah shrugged. “Its pretentions are only matched by how good it is. They hand-hull the nuts for the almond milk. This drink probably has more nutrients in it than everything else I’ll ingest this week.” She downed the remains like a shot.
“Do you need a lot of vitamins these days?” Lizzie said.
Sarah studied her, her eyes narrowing. “Excuse me?”
Lizzie blushed. The words had popped out. “Nothing,” she muttered, and she played with her fork.
“You are a liar.” Sarah let out a snort. “You’ve always been an awful liar. It’s like that time when I told Dad I was at Amelia’s—”
“You were fourteen! You guys wanted to go to Tijuana. I wasn’t a bad liar; I just wouldn’t cover for you.”
“Don’t change the subject,” Sarah said, and she sat up straight, like the actress she had once wanted to be. She folded her hands, her long tapering fingers—their mother’s, not the stubby ones of their father’s that Lizzie had inherited—on top of each other. She fixed those deep hazel eyes of hers on her sister. “I know you.”
“When I was staying at your place,” Lizzie admitted, “I saw something, a prescription bottle, for Clomid—”
“What? You knew about the Clomid? You knew and you didn’t say!”
Lizzie nodded, embarrassed. “I didn’t know what to say,” she finally said, and that admission felt like a small but essential truth.
“I know. It must have been a surprise. It’s not like I talked about wanting kids. I never thought I did.” Sarah ducked her head, her dark hair curtaining off her face. “But I don’t know—Angela and I kept talking about it, and something just changed. Once it shifted, that was that. I’m excited; I really want this.” She looked back up, her fine features settling, growing serious. She reached for her sister’s hand. “It scares me, being this excited.”
Sarah’s fingers were cool to touch. Lizzie understood, she wanted to say. She knew that fear. But it was thrilling too: her sister, a mother. Then she felt something burble up, an unsettling sensation—she was forgetting something. There was something she needed to do.
“Dad,” Lizzie said to her sister, on the edge of tears. “You should be telling this to Dad.”
“I know,” Sarah said, squeezed Lizzie’s hand, bit her lip. “I was thinking that too.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then Lizzie heard herself say: “I have something to tell you too. I haven’t been staying with Claudia. I’ve been with Max.”
Lizzie pulled her hand back, reached for her water. She glanced at her sister, but Sarah’s open, expectant expression hadn’t changed. “Max . . . ? Max Levitan?”
Lizzie nodded, unable to speak. Was Sarah disgusted?
“You and Max, what?” Sarah said, uncomprehending.
“We’ve been—seeing each other,” Lizzie finished. For a wild moment, she thought: I’ll call it off now. I will.
“Wait, you and Max, together?” Sarah did look truly surprised, her mouth open, her big eyes growing bigger. “How? Wait, forget that,” she said, waving off her own question. “I mean, how long has this been going on—since before Dad?”
“God no,” Lizzie said, horrified. “No, not long at all. But, it’s happening.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that; I was just—not expecting it. But of course, it’s fine; it’s great!” Sarah said, recovering. “Not that you’re asking for my approval. But it’s not all that surprising. I had a crush on him when I was a kid too.”
“Well, I didn’t,” Lizzie said weakly. Her words sounded small, ungenerous, which wasn’t what she had intended. She had only meant this: what had happened with Max had surprised her like nothing else. And of course she wanted her sister’s approval.
“Sure you did,” Sarah said, waving her off. “All our secrets are coming out now, aren’t they?”