Hello Beautiful

William

March 1982–June 1982

The action — from the body angles of the players to his own leap in the air — felt so familiar that when William rose for the block, he thought, Be careful. Those words were still in his head when a colossal center with dreadlocks and goggles slammed into his chest. William was stronger than he used to be, so he shoved back, still in the air, and was propelled backward. He collided with another player and tipped sideways. When he hit the floor, he landed hard on his right knee.

Kent leaned over William and offered his hand to help him stand up. “You all right?” Kent said.

William could barely hear his friend. His knee was buzzing. He was unusually aware of the inside of his knee, which felt like a sandcastle being knocked down by a sneaky wave. He stared at the joint while the referee blew his whistle and men carried a stretcher onto the court. William had recognized the play, and now he recognized the accompanying fog, and the pain too.

He needed two surgeries, because the knee had to be reconstructed. Every time the surgeon or attending came into the hospital room, William listened carefully, wanting to understand. The knee was the only subject he could pay attention to; all other information seemed to travel from an impossible distance. He caught words, fragments, but not meaning.

He was lucky to have a hospital room to himself. Normally, a patient would have been sent home for the two weeks that separated his surgeries, but since William needed to keep his injured leg immobile and elevated, and his dorm room was up three flights of stairs, they kept him in the hospital. The nurses said a roommate might arrive at any time, but one never appeared. Kent visited when he could, but between schoolwork, basketball, and his job in the laundry room, he didn’t have much time to spare. Julia visited at least once a day, sometimes twice. She tried to make William laugh by performing an entrance: She twirled, like a ballerina entering the stage, or strode in with her chin up, playing a stern nurse. Once she came in with several books balanced on top of her head; she made it halfway across the room before they toppled. William enjoyed the entrances but didn’t need them. He was just happy she was there.

Julia brought his textbooks so he could try to keep up with his coursework. Finals were less than two months away, and then came graduation. “We’ll remember June 1982 as the best month of our lives,” Julia said. “Graduation and a wedding.” She named the two events with pleasure, savoring the solidity of the milestones. William liked it when his fiancée spoke like that; he admired how Julia saw her life as a system of highways to be expertly navigated, and he was grateful to be in her car.

When she left the room, though, William was often alone for hours. He ignored the textbooks and flipped between channels on the television in the corner. He watched Bulls games on mute. Kent had brought William’s mail on his last visit, and William had recognized his father’s spidery script on one of the envelopes. When he’d touched the letter for the first time, an icy sweat covered his skin. William had thought that he’d deadened himself to hope in regard to his parents, but with the appearance of the letter the emotion had shot, unwanted, through him. He’d stuck the envelope under his pillow while he worked to shoo the hope out of him, like a bird out a window. William had always accepted the fact that his parents didn’t want him in their lives. He’d felt mostly calm while he and Julia phoned his mother about the wedding, because he’d known what the result would be; his only concern that evening had been for Julia and her disappointment. But his parents would have had time to consider everything, in the wake of that phone call, and now they’d gone to the effort of writing him a letter. They couldn’t know he was in the hospital — how would they have heard? The university was covering his medical bills, and when the surgeon had offered to speak to William’s parents, he’d said that wasn’t necessary. William thought it was possible that his mother and father had written to him because they felt some remorse. Now that William was a man and getting married, perhaps they’d realized how much of his life they’d missed. Perhaps they wanted to be part of his adulthood. He hoped — again, the hope showed itself in an icy sweat — they might have written a long letter, one that included an apology for having been so uninterested in him for so long. The letter might ask for William’s forgiveness and for the chance to attend his wedding.

William switched off the television and pried open the envelope. He could tell right away that there was no letter inside. There was only a check. On the memo line, it said: Congratulations on wedding/graduation. The check was for ten thousand dollars. William looked at the zeros and thought, It’s really over now. He wouldn’t deposit the check — he knew that immediately. He wouldn’t touch their money. William’s heartbeat slowed to a murmur in his chest, and he had to breathe in a funny way to keep from crying. He was surprised by how upset he was; it felt like something had broken inside him.

—

William’s basketball team and coach visited between the two surgeries. His teammates, several of whom had to duck as they walked through the doorframe, were wearing team sweats. Everything inside William sank while the group gathered around his hospital bed. It felt like his insides — his self — had narrowed to the point of a pencil. All color and lines vanished.

Every visitor wore a careful smile intended to cheer him up.

“You’re okay,” Kent said. He was nearest to William, and he tapped his shoulder twice, as if to hammer in some kind of certainty with the words. You’re okay.

I don’t think so, William thought.

The coach cleared his throat and said, “Son, you were lucky to have it happen when it did. You made it to the tournament and got that experience. You served us well during the meat of the season. And I hear you’re getting married soon?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Wonderful news. That’s the real stuff. See, everything is looking up.”

You don’t mean that, William thought. You know I won’t be able to play anymore. You know I’m finished.

Their point guard, Gus, handed him a get-well-soon card they’d all signed, a couple of guys made jokes about hospital food, and then, thankfully, they filed out.

The physio — a bearded man named Arash — hung back, though, and approached the hospital bed. He frowned and said, “What was the history with that knee?”

William nodded in appreciation of the question; the knee did have a history. The pencil point inside him softened, and he was able to gather enough air to breathe. “I broke the kneecap my junior year in high school. During a very similar play, actually.”

“I thought so. So the kneecap shattered the way it did because of an earlier weakness.”

Arash had the X-ray in his hand; he looked down at the image. William’s kneecap looked dustier, messier, than the bones above and below in the X-ray. The white knob was traced with multiple lines. “Looks like a mosaic.”

“A career-ender,” William said.

“That too. Look, I know you love the game,” Arash said. “I saw that, and I saw your weak knee. You can stay in basketball, you know. You can coach or be a trainer or play another role. Look around at all the support staff and see what appeals to you. Basketball is a big machine with a lot of parts.”

William leaned forward. “What do you mean, you saw my weak knee?”

Arash was a stocky man with powerful-looking forearms. “You protected it once or twice. I could also see how you used your other side to pivot and jump. That’s what happens when an injury occurs at a young age. The knee doesn’t operate in isolation. The hip and ankle start to get used differently, and your overall balance is thrown off. There’s interplay between the various joints, and no one told you to build the weak leg back to full strength. I bet you came out of the cast last time and immediately returned to the court without changing anything, right?”

William nodded.

“That’s what I thought.”

Julia arrived a few minutes after Arash had gone. She scanned William’s face; she could see he was riled up somehow. “Did something happen?”

“My knee is killing me.”

“You poor thing. Try to think about something else. Think about the wedding. You have something wonderful to look forward to, right?”

“That’s what Coach said too.”

She brightened. “How nice!”

She handed him her clipboard, which had pages of plans: the guest list, floral arrangements with taped photos of different flowers, a minute-by-minute schedule. A timeline of things to do and dates to have each item done by. A spreadsheet to show who was responsible for what. Almost every box had either Julia’s or Rose’s name beside it.

William flipped through the pages. The wedding was nine weeks away. It was a concrete event he could comprehend, like the reality of his knee. He needed to show up for one and be careful with the other.

Julia smoothed William’s hair; her touch felt good.

She was talking, so he tried to focus. “When I went into the history department to get your work, I asked around about teaching-assistant jobs. Turns out there’s a position for next fall that hasn’t been listed yet. Should I hand in your résumé for you?”

William would start the graduate program in history at Northwestern in September. He’d been surprised and relieved when the program accepted him. He thought of himself as a mediocre student, but the truth was that studying alongside Kent and Julia for the prior four years had changed that. His friend and girlfriend had modeled hard work and taught him how to study effectively. These skills, combined with William’s constant fear that a low grade-point average would knock him off the basketball team, had vaulted him onto the dean’s list.

The PhD application had required him to declare a historical period to focus on, and he’d struggled with the choice. His favorite part of history was its breadth, the sweeping connections between events and figures. How Leo Tolstoy had inspired Mahatma Gandhi, who had in turn inspired Martin Luther King, Jr. William didn’t see how he could confidently plant his feet in any particular century, continent, or war. When he’d discussed this quandary with Kent, his friend shook his head and said, “You already have an area of focus, dummy. You’re writing a book about the history of basketball.” This surprised William — it hadn’t occurred to him — and he said, “I can’t study basketball. That wouldn’t be seen as a serious academic subject.” But he’d applied to study American history from 1890 to 1969, a time frame that would allow his private interest and his legitimate work to at least exist side by side.

William would need teaching-assistant jobs to provide him and Julia with some income during the long PhD program. He arranged his face to show that he was paying attention to his fiancée and her plans, but somewhere inside was a repeated whisper of wedding, knee.

“Sure?” he said. “But I’m not sure my résumé is ready to go out.”

“I’ll clean it up; I’m good at that. I read so many résumés for Professor Cooper last summer, remember? You need a haircut when you get out of here.” Julia touched his arm. She paused and then said in a low voice, “I wish I could climb into bed with you.”

William imagined her curves fitting against his side. He imagined what would happen when he pulled the sheet over their heads.

“Kiss my hand?” he said.

She leaned forward and took his hand in hers. She kissed the outside, in the soft spot between his thumb and index finger. Then she turned his hand over and kissed the palm. Softly, over and over. Wedding. Knee.

—

Rose and Julia chaired a run-through meeting at the Padavanos’ dining room table a few days before the wedding. Charlie wasn’t there, but his absence wasn’t mentioned, and William wondered if the meeting had been timed for when he would be out. Sylvie sat in the corner farthest from her mother and read a book that she was holding on her lap. She paid attention only when she was addressed directly. Emeline had been told to take notes on decisions that were made, so she sat at the ready with a pad and pencil. Cecelia leaned against her twin’s arm, looking bored or sleepy.

It had taken William a while to get a handle on the differences between the twins, but he now had no trouble telling them apart. Cecelia always had flecks of paint on her hands and clothes, and she went from good-spirited to annoyed with startling speed. She liked to try out stern looks on people, in a way that reminded William of Julia. Emeline was more placid and slower to react than her twin. She was the quietest of the four sisters, but when the phone rang in the small house, it was usually a request for Emeline to babysit. William once had the thought that his fiancée seemed to stride about the world with a conductor’s wand, while Sylvie brandished a book and Cecelia a paintbrush. Emeline, though, kept her hands free in order to be helpful or to pick up and soothe a neighborhood child. Every time Emeline had seen William since his injury, she’d asked if she could carry something for him or open the door in his path.

William listened while Julia and her mother took turns reciting the schedule and the assigned tasks. When Rose stated that on the morning of the wedding Charlie would pick William up at Northwestern, he said, “That’s not necessary. I can get myself to the church.”

“You’re injured,” Rose said, in a tone that suggested the shattered kneecap was his fault. “And how exactly are you intending to get to the church in your wedding suit, on crutches — the city bus? Charlie will borrow our neighbor’s car, and he’ll drive you. That’s that.”

Emeline grinned. “Mama just wants to make absolutely sure that you’re at the church on time.”

“If that’s true, then she shouldn’t have appointed Daddy to be the driver,” Cecelia said.

Rose shook her head, her gray hair flying. “You girls be quiet. William and Charlie will look after each other, and they’ll both be there on time.”

“Oh!” Emeline said, and patted the table with her open palm. “That makes sense. You’re giving Daddy a responsibility and making Daddy William’s responsibility. You’re an evil genius, Mama.” She held her hand up in front of her mother’s face for a high five, which Rose ignored.

Rose said, “Have you given instructions to the best man?”

“Kent knows where he needs to be, at what time.”

“Will he be drunk?”

William looked at her, surprised. “No?”

“Don’t mind her,” Julia said. “She always assumes every man drinks too much.”

“Only until proven otherwise,” Rose said. “Cecelia, why are you lying on the table during a meeting? Sit up, please.”

“I feel like we’re all set,” Sylvie said. “This wedding is going to run like a finely tuned watch. I have to go to work soon, remember?”

Rose turned toward William and said, “After the wedding, you’ll call me Mom, or Mama. No more Mrs. Padavano.”

She glared at him while she said this, but he could feel another message being delivered with her eyes. She regretted that his parents weren’t coming to the wedding, and she regretted that his parents didn’t love him. She would love him, to fill their absence.

Julia squeezed his good knee under the table.

It took him a moment to find his voice. “Thank you,” he said.

“Nonsense.” Rose had already turned back to her list.

But he thanked her again and covered Julia’s hand with his own.

Later, it occurred to William that Rose had called the meeting to tell him this. She didn’t need to run through the plans. She was the commander-in-chief, and she would direct her soldiers on the day. She didn’t delegate — she ordered. She’d simply wanted to make this declaration to him, in front of witnesses.

—

Graduation fell one week before the wedding, and since that event included its own celebrations of various sizes, the days began to feel punctuated by William climbing into or out of nice clothes. The night before the wedding, he and Kent went out for burritos and toasted their way through too many beers. On Monday, Kent was moving to Milwaukee for medical school. “It’s less than two hours away,” he said. “I know you’re going to miss me, but we can both visit. We’ll do laundry together, for old times’ sake.”

Sareka, the laundry room boss who had tried to send William away the first time he showed up in the basement, had attended their graduation and cheered wildly when William’s and Kent’s names were announced. She never officially changed her tune; she always professed to distrust William and like Kent, but by his junior year it was clear she was pretending, and William took her affection as the highest compliment. He’d invited her to the wedding, but she’d said no without hesitation. “I prefer not to be around that many white people.”

“You’re going to be a great doctor,” William said.

Kent eyed him. “Are you looking forward to being a professor?”

“Did I tell you that Arash noticed that my right knee had a weakness before the injury? He told me in the hospital.”

“No shit. That’s interesting. I’m not surprised, though. That guy has a talent. He told Butler that his ankles were moving stiffly, and a few days later he broke one of them in a scrimmage. Remember that?”

“If I’d known, I could have strengthened the knee and avoided this break.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Nuh-uh what?”

Kent shook his head. “Stop talking like that. We’re graduated. Rehab that knee and we can get serious about pickup ball, but it’s time for us to be full-grown men now.” He lifted his beer bottle. “A toast to you and the General, and to me and a million hours of studying.”

—

Charlie was right on time, and William was waiting on the curb. It had taken him a long time to get dressed that morning. He’d taken two freezing showers, because he felt overheated and worried about sweating in his nice suit. Once he had the suit on, he attached and detached his knee brace countless times, trying to make sure his pants were pulled smooth around the metal brace and not bunched up.

William slid his crutches into the back seat of the blue sedan Charlie had borrowed and lowered himself into the front seat, after sliding it back for maximal legroom.

“Big day.” Charlie was wearing a suit; he looked small and uncomfortable behind the wheel. “I only wear this thing for funerals, usually,” he said, as he pulled out into traffic.

William looked at the buildings and houses outside the window. He felt like he was playing a scene in a movie: young man with his almost father-in-law on brink of wedding. He wanted to act his part as well as possible.

“You’re going to be good to Julia.” Charlie stated this like it was a fact.

“Yes, sir. I will be.”

Charlie took a corner smoothly, then switched lanes after checking his mirrors. A fat truck appeared in front of their car, and he slowed to allow enough distance between the vehicles. He was a good driver, which surprised William. Julia’s father always presented as the distracted, mildly incompetent man his daughters and wife believed him to be. It was interesting to see him be competent, and William wondered, for the first time, how much of Charlie’s usual behavior was an act.

“Did you know that Rose and I eloped? We didn’t have a wedding. I think that accounts for her feverishness about this one. It’s for her and for Julia.”

William shook his head. “I didn’t know that.”

“She was pregnant with Julia, and our mothers didn’t like each other. Some beef from the old country. We drove to Las Vegas.”

William smiled at the idea of Rose and Charlie on the Las Vegas Strip. Did Julia know that she’d been conceived before her parents’ marriage?

As if he’d heard his thought, Charlie said, “Julia knows. It’s family lore; we never hid the truth. Rose hated Las Vegas, though — she said she was disappointed in all the people that go there every year. She’s never gotten out of the funk Las Vegas put her in.”

This was supposed to be a joke, but Charlie’s overall mood was too somber for it to land. William felt bad for him. Charlie was about to give away his eldest daughter, and he was completely sober, which was a rare occurrence. Alcohol made Charlie lighter.

“I’ve never been good at providing Rose with what she wanted, other than the girls,” he said. “Try to give Julia what she wants, whenever you can. Julia’s strong, willful, like her mother — she’ll give your life a backbone. Rose holds me up, in a lot of ways, and I’m a lucky man. You’re a lucky man too.”

William felt the truth of this: He was lucky. Julia had already given him so much. All she seemed to want from him was his love and his enthusiasm for her plans. He could keep providing both of those things, easily, and he hoped that would be enough. From the outside, Charlie and Rose’s marriage seemed complicated, like a clock with inner workings that spun but didn’t quite connect.

Charlie leaned forward and peered through the wide windshield. “There’s the church. Look for a parking spot I can swing into.”

For the next six hours, with the exception of the time at the altar, William felt like he was always in the wrong spot. Julia, Rose, or Charlie kept calling his name. Asking him to speak to a distant cousin, hug the girls’ first-grade teacher, talk basketball with a Bulls fan or talk Boston with an uncle who had been there once. His knee ached no matter what position he was in. Julia would get upset that he wasn’t sitting and then pull him across the lawn to shake hands with the man who had done the flowers. Kent, who had the magical ability to make himself comfortable in any situation, hand-shook his way across the grass as if he were running for mayor. William noticed that he was always trailed by a flock of pretty young women. Sylvie, Emeline, and Cecelia revolved around William and Julia like pink constellations. “So much smiling,” Sylvie said to him once, in passing. Toward dusk, Cecelia handed William her high-heeled shoes and then walked away across the lawn. Charlie, hair standing up straight, a drink in his hand, clapped William on the back whenever they came near each other.

All of that was blurred, though, by Julia’s luminescence. Her white dress was covered with tiny white beads that swished when she walked. Her hourglass figure was hugged by the fabric; her hair was pinned up on top of her head; her eyes were bright. She looked like she had been plugged in to a power source the rest of them didn’t have access to. William was grateful all over again every time she took his arm or kissed his cheek. “My wife,” he whispered.

Rose came to find them when the limousine arrived. “It’s time for you to leave. You two have a wonderful time, and I’m going to sleep for three days.”

Julia hugged her mother, and the two women gripped hard and hung on for a long moment. When Rose pulled away, she said, “William?”

William took in the entire scene: the stone church; the crowd of tipsy, smiling people; his basketball teammates, taller than everyone else, their long legs wavering with drink. The white streamers connecting the tree branches overhead. His new sisters-in-law working the edges of the party, kissing the older guests goodbye.

“Thank you for everything, Mom,” he said. Mom hurt his throat on the way out; he’d rarely used the term — his own mother had seemed to prefer he call her nothing at all, so he’d done that. The word had long been dormant, covered with rust, inside him.

Rose nodded, satisfied, and turned to clear a path for them to the waiting car, to whatever happened after wedding, knee, and the rest of their lives.