“That is the ever-loving truth,” Rose said. “And I’m not going to get in trouble by telling you anything without her approval.”
“I don’t know my father’s last name. Can you tell me that?”
“Ask your mother,” Rose said, and hung up.
Alice tried to get information about her mother from Mrs. Laven, but the older woman was indignant to be asked. “Your mother is gorgeous and brilliant, and she’s worked her derrière off to run her own business,” Mrs. Laven said. “You are, bar none, the luckiest little girl in the world.” Alice sighed and changed the subject. She knew that her mother had given an internship to Mrs. Laven’s troubled nephew one summer and that Julia gave Mrs. Laven an expensive purse from a fancy store every Christmas; it was clear that if this was the last road Alice had access to, it was closed. She considered, as a final resort, writing a letter to one of her aunts, but she didn’t know their addresses or what to say. Hi, I’m your niece. How are you? She knew it was possible that her mother was right, that sisters grew apart when they hit adulthood and no longer had a home in common. How would Alice know? Perhaps they barely thought of one another anymore.
She stopped asking her mother questions. There seemed to be no point, and the practice agitated Julia, which Alice couldn’t risk. Stress could contribute to high blood pressure, which could lead to a heart attack or a stroke, and Julia’s health needed to be prioritized. Alice told herself: If I stop asking questions, I’ll stop growing. She’d been making these kinds of bets with herself since the growth spurt began. If I stop chewing my nails, I’ll stop growing. If I give up candy. If I put my hand up in class when the teacher wants me to. None of these trade-offs had panned out, though, and this one didn’t either. Alice went quiet on the subject of her mother’s past, and yet she continued to rise.
Sylvie
SEPTEMBER 1989–DECEMBER 2003
CECELIA HAD ADOPTED WILLIAM’S MANTRA for parenting: No bullshit and no secrets. If Izzy asked a question, no matter what it was, Cecelia answered honestly. Sylvie and Emeline both happened to be in Cecelia’s kitchen one evening when the six-year-old Izzy asked where babies came from.
Sylvie ate with her sisters a few days a week, when William was at Northwestern for late practices. She and William had been together for almost six years and had married the year before. They’d recently moved into a two-bedroom apartment not far from where the twins lived, and William was about to start a job for the Chicago Bulls. The franchise had created a new position for him, with responsibilities both in player development and as a physio. The Bulls were flush with optimism and eager to expand their staff. They hadn’t yet won a championship, but with Michael Jordan on the roster, the trophy seemed inevitable. William’s job description stipulated that he wouldn’t travel with the team; he would be based in Chicago, and he would use his specialized program to try to target areas where young players needed assistance. William probably would have chosen to stay at Northwestern out of loyalty to Arash and the university, despite the flattering offer from the Bulls, but Arash was retiring, and the head coach was leaving for another job, so Sylvie convinced William that he should move on too. “We have to keep growing,” she said, “or we don’t live.” He’d smiled at her, because she’d avoided saying the word die. He knew Sylvie was invested in keeping him away from even the thought of that word.
“A baby is made by a man and a woman having sex,” Cecelia said.
Izzy nodded, and her dark curls bobbed around her intent face. “And what is sex?”
Emeline and Sylvie blushed furiously while Cecelia drew pictures of various sexual positions on a sketch pad. Izzy paid close attention and then said, “How do Aunt Emmie and Aunt Josie do it?”
“Oh my God,” Emeline said, and left the kitchen while Cecelia drew pictures to illustrate that too. Sylvie laughed helplessly in the corner. She missed Alice suddenly, a feeling that always came at her as if from around a corner, when she didn’t expect it. She had the feeling that Alice belonged in this kitchen right now, in this ridiculous scene. She was meant to be here, seated beside her cousin. Sylvie carried Julia with her, but she ached for the baby girl who had left the family with her mother.
This was one of the unexpected sorrows that trailed in the wake of losing Julia. Sylvie knew in her heart that her sister was flourishing in New York. Julia had sounded excited and alive when Sylvie spoke to her during her first year in the city, when she was building her new self and new life. Julia was the rocket their father had known she could be, with nothing to hold her back. But Sylvie had only known Alice when she was a baby; she was in the unusual position of loving her but not knowing her at all, and Sylvie was unable to shake the feeling that the girl belonged with the rest of them in Pilsen. Sylvie imagined Alice playing chess with Izzy in the library, their blond and brunette heads bent toward each other. And she played, as if on a video loop, a scene in which she walked down the street with Alice’s hand in her own. The child was half William, after all, and half Julia, which made her Sylvie’s heart.
But Sylvie had broken Julia’s heart, which meant she had no right to Alice. And William had not only given his daughter up legally, he’d somehow managed to remove the thought of her from his mind. This removal seemed almost surgical in nature; Sylvie watched him carefully and saw no sign that he ever considered the existence of his daughter. There were paintings of Alice in Cecelia’s house, and Sylvie watched William avert his eyes from each one as he walked down the halls, an obstacle course so ingrained that he wasn’t even aware he was running it. When he joined Sylvie for dinner at the twins’ house, he would talk to Izzy about the history she was learning at school. He seemed to have forgotten his own history, though, and the fact that Alice had entered the world on Izzy’s heels. He’d forgotten that there had once been two little girls in his universe, and not one. Sylvie never mentioned Alice within William’s hearing. The further they traveled from her husband’s suicide attempt, the more grateful she was for his steadiness and his obvious contentment. She had watched him put down roots in this life, watched him fill the breaks inside himself with love and meaningful work. Sylvie accepted William’s choice to stay away from his daughter; she accepted all of him, every day, and he did the same for her.
* * *
—
IN 1993, WHEN IZZY was ten years old, Emeline and Josie bought the house next door to the one Cecelia had purchased. Josie, a warm, auburn-haired woman with a business degree, was savvy with money. She’d negotiated the purchase of the daycare where she and Emeline had met; shortly after that, she bought another local daycare. The twins decided to share the two homes; after all, they’d been living together their entire lives. They knocked down the fence separating the houses, and the family spent the summer renovating and cleaning up the new house. Sylvie, after a few years of a regular schedule, enjoyed the disruption and the way her family once again gathered and labored together in all their free time.
Sylvie was now the head librarian at the Lozano Library, so she could set her own hours. She’d been slightly surprised to find that she enjoyed running the library; the decision-making the position entailed was satisfying, and she liked being the person who had the final say on issues big and small. Sylvie now knew not only all the regular patrons but, in the case of many of them, their parents and children too. Frank Ceccione, who had grown up two doors down from the Padavanos, read the newspaper at a table by the front windows each day. He’d struggled with addiction for much of his adult life, and she thought they both took comfort in greeting each other every morning. To Sylvie’s delight, Izzy loved the library almost as much as Sylvie did and often walked there after school. Nothing made Sylvie happier than watching her niece play chess or read at one of the tables while she worked behind the desk.