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

I watched the two of them go, yawned, and stretched before I stood. I walked back upstairs. Jacques sat in a chair by the bed, the baby asleep in his arms, and Hela sat up in bed, looking more like herself. Perhaps she had gotten some rest too, or at least she had combed her hair back into a neat bun, and her color was more regular.

She smiled at me, seeming more at ease than when I’d left her. “There you are,” she said.

“Sorry, I was so tired. I sat down for a moment and fell asleep downstairs.”

“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “It was a long, exhausting day and night, and you stayed with me through all of it. Thank you.”

“Of course I did. You’re my sister,” I said. She smiled at me. “Pierre told me you decided on a name?”

“Yes.” She clapped her hands together gently, so as not to wake the baby. “Marie Sophie Curie. We named her after you, Marya, with her middle name after Jacques’s maman.”

“Me?” I felt stunned. Why would Hela and Jacques do such a thing? Surely Bronia was more deserving, if they were to choose a family name, as Bronislawa had also been our mother’s name. And Bronia’s daughter, who we all called Lou as a nickname, was given the name Helena at birth: Hela’s name. “You are making a mistake,” I insisted.

“Marya. Sweet, dear Marya.” Hela reached for my hand. “So strong and so beautiful. Look at you, in our native country, raising your wonderful daughter while educating so many young women.”

I blinked back tears at Hela’s words, wondering if they were true. If that was really the way my sisters saw me. It wasn’t the way I saw myself, saw my life, as it compared with the two of them, both of whom had doctoral degrees. Hela was making real contributions to science, and Bronia was healing sick people in Zakopane. And I was still poor, without an advanced degree, and living in a small apartment in Loksow. “I really don’t think . . .” I stammered.

“You, my sister, are a revolutionary,” Hela said. “And that is exactly who we want Marie Sophie to grow up to be.”

A FEW WEEKS WENT BY, AND KLARA GOT OVER THE SIZE OF little Marie’s toes. Or maybe her toes were already growing too fast, her life as a newborn slipping away quickly, as it had with Klara, too. I could barely remember those early days now, though they hadn’t been all that long ago.

Hela had trouble nursing. Marie was losing weight, and Dr. Curie suggested a wet nurse, an idea which first made Hela sob uncontrollably, and then, once she was hired and Marie began growing, made Hela sigh with relief. In the beginning of June, Hela returned to the lab with Jacques, and I stayed with Klara during the day.

Only until we find an acceptable nanny, Hela insisted.

But I quite enjoyed her baby smells, and her baby toes, and her baby cuddles, and I did not feel in any rush for Hela to find someone else. Besides, Dr. Curie showed up many weekdays to spend time with his granddaughter and insisted I go out, enjoy the summer in France, the gardens and the sites with Klara.

When Kaz wrote me to ask when I might be coming home—I had already delayed my train ticket twice—I wrote back that Hela needed my help still. I consoled myself with the fact that it was only partially a lie. Kaz wrote that he missed me and Klara desperately, and I told him we missed him too. Klara missed him and asked about him often. But I was busy in Paris, surrounded by my family and by the beauty and culture of the city. And except for when his letters came, or when Klara asked, I didn’t remember to miss Kaz very much at all.

ON SATURDAYS IN JUNE, I TOOK BICYCLE RIDES WITH PIERRE. He brought Jacques’s old fixed-up bicycle to my sister’s house on boulevard Kellerman, with the intent that I could use it to sightsee with him, to ride and learn the city firsthand from a native Parisian.

“Goodness,” Hela exclaimed, eyeing the rusty old frame. “I can give you some francs to hire a carriage instead.”

“Your sister enjoys this,” Pierre insisted to Hela, who stared at me, eyebrows raised.

“I do,” I acknowledged. “I don’t even own a bicycle in Poland, and besides, the streets are too narrow to ride with all the carriages in Loksow, I’d be killed.”

She shrugged, not at all understanding the appeal. She preferred riding a carriage, even over walking, because she claimed walking required too much of her attention to stay alive on the way to her destination. She preferred to think problems through in her head while someone else got her from place to place. But I quite enjoyed moving myself, pushing hard against the pedals until my legs ached and I felt the wind tangling my hair.

One Saturday near the end of June, Pierre offered to show me the Bois de Vincennes, a spectacular park in the middle of Paris. He pointed in the right direction, and I pedaled out ahead of him, my hair coming loose from my bun, blowing back behind my shoulders as the wind whipped around my face.

“Slow down,” Pierre called from behind me. But he was laughing.

I was breathless and sweating, but I pedaled and I pedaled like fire. Past the gates of the park and the blossoming cherry trees. Until we neared the water, and I slowed down.

I hopped off, lay the bicycle on its side, and sat down by the edge of the lake, resting my sweaty face against the cool edge of my sleeve. Pierre was a moment behind me, and when he stopped, he pulled a bouquet of white daisies from his bicycle basket, then held them out to me, like a prize for reaching the lake first. I took the flowers and our fingertips touched, sending a current