“You’re the only one who didn’t seem upset by my loving Josie,” Emeline said. “Sylvie and Cecelia tried to hide it, but the truth was that they were shocked at first. I mean, I understand. I was shocked too. And I expected Mama to lose her mind, which she did. But you just seemed happy for me.”
“I am happy for you. I wish you’d brought Josie with you so I could meet her.”
“I didn’t want to love Josie,” Emeline said. She stared down into her coffee cup. “It was hard for me to accept the fact that we don’t choose who we love, because who you love changes everything.”
They had talked about Josie a fair amount during Emeline’s visit, because the two women had decided to move in together and Rose had thrown a long-distance fit. Julia turned to look at her sister and felt a welling of affection for her.
Emeline said, “Do you agree that we can’t choose who we love?”
“I guess. Why?”
“I want you to know that I was upset about this at first, and I guess I still am. But…” Emeline closed her eyes. “Sylvie and William are in love.”
Julia shook her head, in disbelief and refusal. She lowered herself into the nearest chair, in case Emeline’s sentence doubled back on her.
“Cecelia was mad at Sylvie. I was too. It had gotten peaceful after you left. Everyone was okay. You were far away, but you were going to come back. I understand now, though. How could I not? Julia, they didn’t have a choice.”
The shock of this cleared a space inside Julia, and she remembered how Sylvie had somehow known that William needed to be searched for and saved. She remembered her and Sylvie’s strained goodbye. The two sisters’ phone calls, since Julia had moved, had been filled with facts and logistics, as if they were sharing their weekly calendars with each other. Sylvie, in particular, had never spoken about her feelings or what she was wondering or thinking, even though that was all the younger versions of Sylvie and Julia had spoken about while they lay side by side in their twin beds at night. Julia should have known something was going on; perhaps she had known but had averted her eyes and not allowed those thoughts to rise to the surface. She’d done the same thing, she knew, with William’s depression. Sylvie had been the one to tell Julia that her husband had tried to kill himself and then, later, that her husband didn’t want to see her, didn’t want to be married or a father anymore. Only now did Julia realize how strange it was that Sylvie had delivered all that news. William should have told her himself, even if it was over the phone. But his voice had gone through Sylvie. Whenever Julia studied her face in the mirror, she thought: Sylvie has freckles in that spot too, but they’re lighter. Sylvie’s hair is more obedient than mine. Julia thought about her sister as naturally as she thought about herself: Sylvie was part of Julia. And William had lain beside Julia in bed at night. He was the only man she’d ever been naked with. The two people Julia had been closest to had chosen each other.
Julia stood and walked to the sink. Her chest contracted, an oversized motion as if it were trying to clear a blocked pipe, and she inhaled too much air. She made a loud gasping sound. Emeline rubbed her back, the way the sisters had always rubbed one another’s backs when they were unwell.
“They love each other?” Julia said, when she could speak. The word love tugged at her throat on the way out.
Emeline rested her cheek on Julia’s shoulder blade. She nodded, and Julia felt the movement on her skin. Julia pictured Sylvie standing behind the desk in the library and thought, How could you do this? I would never do this to you.
“I’m sorry, Julia,” Emeline whispered.
“I’m so glad I decided to move here,” she said. “It’s the smartest thing I ever did.”
Julia realized, her hands pushed against the kitchen counter, that Emeline had come to New York to tell her this news. Sylvie hadn’t been home when Julia called her over the last few weeks, and Julia had assumed her sister was simply out, busy. But Sylvie hadn’t answered the phone because she knew Emeline was on her way here. And Emeline would never move to New York; that possibility had been entirely in Julia’s imagination. She had been an idiot, and she was barely able to look at her younger sister in the remaining hours before Emeline’s flight back to Chicago.
For the next few weeks, every morning when Julia went into Alice’s room and lifted her out of her crib, Alice said, “Anemie?” in a hopeful voice, and Julia shook her head. She hated to disappoint her daughter, and she was angry at herself for being foolish, again. She had forgotten that her best self was independent and ambitious. During Emeline’s visit, Julia had started to place her happiness in someone else’s hands, which was a remnant of her Chicago self. Julia didn’t want to be that person anymore. In Chicago, she was part of the paper chain of Padavano sisters; they had never operated independently, and if one of them had a problem, they all had a problem. The fact that Sylvie had done something terrible and dispatched the sweetest sister, Emeline, to deliver the damage to Julia was an example of how Julia could no longer afford to live. She alone would make Alice happy, and she would never disappoint her.
At night, after the toddler fell asleep, Julia lay on her bed and stared at the wall. She felt hollowed out. She remembered Sylvie kissing boys at the library and dismissing the idea of a boyfriend, because she was waiting for her great love. Julia had thought the dream was sweet but impractical and at some point Sylvie would realize that relationships were a matter of compromise. How was it that Sylvie’s great love had turned out to be her sister’s husband? That didn’t feel destined or romantic. It felt like a brutal choice. Sylvie had chosen to betray her sister, and the twins apparently thought that was acceptable. Emeline had bought a plane ticket and traveled to the East Coast to pass on the news as if it were a pedestrian piece of gossip.
Late one night, upset, Julia called Rose. “What do you think of all this?” she said. “How could Sylvie…” She found she couldn’t finish the sentence.
“It’s unbelievable,” Rose said. “One of my daughters is a lesbian, one is a divorcée, and I don’t even know what to call Sylvie. Oh, and I forgot about the daughter who gave birth as a teenager, out of wedlock.” She gave a hard laugh. “Thank God I left Pilsen when I did! The amount of gossip going on in the neighborhood about our family is obscene.”
“Are you okay with this, in any way?” Julia asked. She wanted to say, What Sylvie and William did was cruel. I’m in pain. Help me, Mama.
“No, I’m not okay with it, but who cares what I think?” Rose sighed. “I know you feel like the victim, Julia, but the truth is that you shoved your sister in front of William by never going to the hospital and then leaving Chicago. And now Sylvie has shoved you out of Chicago by dating William.” She made a harrumphing noise. “Sylvie falling in love with him is ridiculous, obviously. I can’t even tell my closest friends here about that—it’s the stuff of soap operas! Two of my daughters choosing the same man. And it’s not like William’s a Kennedy, or…or Cary Grant, for goodness’ sake.”