Half Life by Jillian Cantor (easy to read books for adults list txt) 📕

the need to write. Whatever happened between us, whatever would happen between us, now resided in my stomach, a giant nauseating punch.

“All right,” Hela said with a shrug, then a laugh. “You know Bronia. She will have prepared a feast for you already.”

Hela walked briskly, and I followed after her. My sister-twin had a lightness about her that I’d never seen in her before. Her cheeks glowed pink, her stride was quick, and she bounced a little as she went. I practically had to run to keep up with her.

ONE HOUR AND TWO DIZZYING OMNIBUS RIDES LATER, WE were in La Villette, standing in front of Bronia’s home. It was three stories tall and built of red bricks, and it sat on a quaint cobblestone street, reminding me of something from a storybook I might have found in the Kaminskis’ nursery once upon a time. But no, this was my sister’s real life here in Paris. The life she told me was too much, the life she would be escaping soon to move to Zakopane. I stood in the street, staring up at her house for a moment before walking inside, stifling a laugh, or maybe a scream. It was hard to believe anyone would want to leave this. It was hard to believe that a woman with a wonderful professional life, two beautiful children, and a very nice husband would ever want for anything different than what she had. Maybe happiness was a bubble, floating by us, something none of us could quite hold in our hands. Not even Bronia.

“Marya,” Hela called my name. “You’re catching flies.”

I shut my gaping mouth and followed her up the front steps and into Bronia’s home. The way she skipped up the steps, opened the front door without knocking, she was at ease here. I, on the other hand, stepped carefully, keeping a distance behind her, looking all around me as I walked inside.

Hela had been right, of course. The inside smelled strongly of my favorite Polish food: Bronia’s zupa grzybowa, and I supposed that here, in Paris, the mushrooms were fresh and affordable, and her broth would be savory and rich. I inhaled, and then my stomach turned again. I was somehow both starving and still overwhelmed with nausea.

“Bron,” Hela called out. “I’ve found our little sister, wandering off a train from Poland, and now I’ve brought her here and we’ll keep her forever.” She smiled at me, reached for my hand, and squeezed it. I knew she was joking, but still, I wondered: Could I stay here forever? What would Kazimierz do back in Poland without me? What would I do here, on my own? Could I use the remainder of Papa’s rubles to finally pay tuition at the Sorbonne? They would only cover a semester, a year at most. But that could be a start.

Bronia rushed down the stairs, looking uncharacteristically unkempt, her hair askew, wisps tumbling out of her normally neat bun. “Shhh, Hela. The children have finally gotten to sleep.”

“Sleep? It’s the middle of the afternoon,” Hela said.

“Marya, moja mała siostrzyczka,” Bronia called out to me as her little sister affectionately, her tone softening as she noticed me standing there behind Hela. “How was the trip? It’s very long, hmmm? You must be exhausted.” She didn’t give me a chance to answer before she turned back to Hela and kept talking. “Both the children got suddenly ill with a summer flu, and they were up all night coughing. Dr. Curie just came to administer breathing treatments, and now they’ve both finally fallen asleep.”

“Dr. Curie—Jacques’s father—is quite good with the children,” Hela said to me, beaming.

Bronia frowned, as if the implication was that she wasn’t, and maybe she resented Hela for saying this. But then she sighed and hugged Hela’s shoulders, and I wondered if perhaps I was misreading their faces. Bronia looked exhausted herself, and I guessed she’d been up all night, tending to the children and their coughing. “I’ve discussed it with Dr. Curie, and Marya can stay there until the children are better,” Bronia said more to Hela than to me. “They have plenty of room for her.”

I opened my mouth to object—I had not come all the way to Paris to stay with Jacques’s family, strangers. And besides, I needed my sisters now. More than either one of them knew. But before I could get a word in, Hela was already talking over my head. “Oh yes, and the estate in Sceaux is lovely this time of year. Marya will adore the flowers.”

“I don’t mind the children being sick,” I protested. There had been many days I’d gone to the Kaminskis and nursed the twins through one cold or another. I’d caught many of them myself and still returned to the work the following day. “I can—”

“Nonsense,” Bronia said, cutting me off before I could finish saying I’d be happy to help her out with them at night. “I’m not going to have you get sick from my children. You are here to help Hela plan her wedding, not to be in bed, coughing for weeks. Come, have some soup before Hela takes you out to Sceaux to settle in.” The idea of being taken anywhere else, riding on another horse-drawn carriage or another train or another anything, turned my stomach again, but Bronia left me no room to argue. And anyway, I was too tired to argue now, too tired to think or do anything but accept her delicious soup and then let Hela take me away.

THE CURIES LIVED IN A LARGE ESTATE IN SCEAUX, ON THE outskirts of Paris, but when Hela and I finally arrived it was dark, and I could not really see the grounds. I awoke at dawn the next morning, stretching out in the unfamiliar comfort of the Curies’ guest room, the bed softer than any I’d ever felt in my entire life. I stood and went to the window, and I saw what Hela meant about the flowers: