“You sound happy,” Julia had said at the end of one call.
“So do you.”
“I’m happy for us,” her sister said.
Beneath the heavy-limbed trees of the campus, Sylvie imagined her older sister shaking her head at her now. You can’t pull this off forever, the imagined Julia said. You have to make a choice. Sylvie’s older sister was part of her, in a way her younger sisters were not; the two older Padavano girls had been woven together as children. Perhaps because of this—or perhaps because Sylvie knew there were no boundaries, which meant Julia was part of her—she carried her sister with her, even though she’d left Chicago. Julia walked down the street beside Sylvie, sat across the table from her in restaurants, and stood by her side staring into bathroom mirrors. Sylvie was grateful for this version of her sister’s company. Recently something had come up in conversation, something about Julia, and Emeline had said, “You must miss her.” And Sylvie said, “Yes, but not too much.” And this was true, but in a way no one else could understand except perhaps Julia herself.
* * *
—
KENT FOUND OUT FIRST. He and Nicole—an upbeat young woman with a grin to rival Kent’s—came to visit William in early April, and Kent knew immediately that something had happened. William tried to ask about their engagement and admired Nicole’s ring, which used to belong to Kent’s beloved grandmother, but Kent just stared at him and said, “Tell me what’s going on. You look completely different.”
“I don’t look different,” William said. “I’m in slightly less terrible shape, maybe. I can run three miles now.”
Kent shook his head.
“Maybe it’s a girl,” Nicole suggested, studying William like he was a patient who’d come into her clinic.
Kent started to shake his head again, because that was impossible, but something changed in William’s face with those words, so he stopped. He stared at his friend. “A girl? Who is it?” Kent knew everyone in William’s small life, everyone involved in Northwestern basketball, everyone from the hospital.
William watched his friend comb through the possibilities and then said, in a quiet voice, “Sylvie.”
There was a pause while Kent took the pieces that had been handed to him and fit them together. The lakefront scene, the ambulance ride to the hospital, Sylvie seated by William’s bedside. “Of course!” he said, and tackled William with a hug, which made Nicole laugh with pleasure.
“Careful—don’t hurt him, Kent,” she said, because Kent weighed fifty pounds more than William.
Kent phoned Sylvie at the library and told her she needed to come over right away. He hugged her too, tightly, and she could feel his relief in the embrace. “This is wonderful,” he said. “I should have seen it coming. I’m a little disappointed in myself.” He looked at both of them. “I can see the inherent complications, though.”
Sylvie felt awkward in front of Nicole, who was beautiful, and whom she’d just met for the first time. She wondered if this young woman thought she was a terrible person for falling in love with her sister’s husband. This was the first time Sylvie had considered what the opinion of strangers might be, and she felt naked, lacking, under Nicole’s gaze. She could tell William had been rendered almost unconscious by sharing the news. He sat on the red couch with a stupefied expression on his face. Sylvie squeezed his hand to remind him she was here. To keep him from sinking beneath the water inside himself.
“This isn’t going to continue. We’re going to break up soon,” William said. “For Sylvie.”
Kent looked at Sylvie, and she shook her head.
“We need to keep this a secret, though,” she said. She’d been running the math and thought it was okay that Kent and Nicole knew. They weren’t in contact with the twins or Julia. They lived in Milwaukee. Their knowing simply meant that the tiny dorm room that William and Sylvie’s love inhabited had grown a little bigger. Sylvie thought this might be nice; she and William could, perhaps, go out to dinner with Kent and his girlfriend. A double date, like a normal couple. She and William could engineer a small, controlled expansion of their secret life. William would be able to talk to his best friend.
Kent paced in front of them. “You love each other?”
They moved their heads up and down. William reluctant; Sylvie bold.
“Wonderful. This is wonderful. But the secrecy has to stop. Immediately. It’s not healthy, and your health is the top priority, William. You know the drill.”
Sylvie put her hands over her eyes. She felt like a three-year-old on the verge of a tantrum, flushed with annoyance and embarrassment. Kent was directing his attention at William, to remind Sylvie that he was the fragile leg of the table. To remind her that if William weakened, everything would fall to the floor.
“Have you told your therapist?” Kent studied his friend’s face. “No? That’s no good. You have to tell everyone. That’s crucial.” Crucial for William to survive, Kent’s expression said. “You can’t hide love,” he said, and Sylvie, her hands still over her face, wondered, Is that true?
Where was their love? Could it be hidden? Sylvie saw love coming out of William’s face when he looked at her, like light streaming through cracks in a wall. Sylvie’s love for him was as much a part of her as her own hands, her face. She never would have chosen to love William; she never would have chosen to sweep her sister’s husband into her own heart. It wasn’t a feeling she and William gave each other, though; they were their love. Sylvie felt that if she walked away from him, she would end. She would no longer be Sylvie; she would be a shell of who she had been, moving through days that meant nothing.
Kent said, “To be clear, you have to either break up or tell everyone.” He looked at Sylvie. “Those are the only two options.”
A fog inside Sylvie cleared. She knew that William’s survival required him to live his life on his own terms. Lying to himself, and lying to others, was a departure from solid ground, and Sylvie couldn’t be party to that. William had been right, since their first kiss, that this secret needed to be temporary, and Sylvie had known, since their first kiss, that she couldn’t go back to living without William. He had become oxygen that she needed to breathe. Sylvie just hadn’t been able to merge those truths, until now.
Kent was still walking the floor. “You’ll tell your doctor, William. I’ll tell Arash. Don’t worry, I’ll be casual about it. And he’ll be thrilled—he loves Sylvie. That will take care of the people you spend your days around. Sylvie.” Kent looked at her, to chart her progress. He nodded, seeing that she had caught up. “You have to tell everyone else.”
Sylvie nodded and said, “Yes, Captain.”
* * *
—
SHE TOLD THE TWINS together. She called them to her apartment on a sunny May afternoon. The window was open, and the air traveling inside smelled of spring.
Cecelia was wearing painting clothes—a pair of olive-colored overalls with many pockets for brushes and rags. She was working on a mural on Loomis Street almost around the clock. She would paint during the day but then leave her house again at two o’clock in the morning—Izzy safe with Emeline—and work on the wall until she wanted to sleep again. This was the first mural commission she’d received, from a local arts council, for which she could paint whatever she wanted. Sylvie stopped by to visit her sister on her way to and from the library each day. She knew Cecelia didn’t like to talk about a painting while it was in progress, so she just watched. The outline of a woman’s face and shoulders had appeared on the wall first. In the past week, as the woman was filled in, she’d begun to seem familiar to Sylvie. She looked proud and fierce. Sylvie wondered if the woman was Cecelia herself, or perhaps Emeline or Julia. Today she’d felt a shiver of worry that her sister might be painting her. Cecelia might be revealing Sylvie’s own true self on the wall. If the woman on the wall was Sylvie, then her love and unfurling would be on display for everyone to see. It was this possibility that had made Sylvie stop procrastinating, made her call her sisters and ask them to come over. The idea of being revealed by Cecelia’s brush was unacceptable; she needed to reveal herself.