Afterlife - Julia Alvarez Page 0,14

name she prefers, rather than by Toni, the childhood nickname the extended family still insists on using.

People turn to look. Foreigners with loud voices, expressive faces, gesticulating. Pipe down, their American classmates were always hushing them those first years after their arrival.

The two sisters hug, let go, hug again, ready, not ready to let go.

The first rule of sisterhood: Always act pleased to see them.

Antonia is pleased to see Tilly. They are the middle sisters—Izzy and Mona at either end. A mere eleven months separate each sister from the next in line. Sometimes it feels as if only together are they a whole person—referred to reverentially as “the sisterhood.”

Antonia and Tilly last saw each other in Vermont right after Sam’s death. Tilly flew in the morning after. The first responder of all Antonia’s friends and family.

But then, that’s always been Tilly’s role. She is the doer—whether true or not anymore, by now their roles have self-perpetuating lives of their own. The mask stuck to the face; take it off at your own peril. Who am I going to be anymore? Antonia had asked Tilly in the wake of the wake. No longer a teacher at the college, no longer volunteering and serving on a half dozen boards, no longer in the thick of the writing whirl—she has withdrawn from every narrative, including the ones she makes up for sale. Who am I? the plaintive cry.

I don’t know. Tilly had shrugged, eyebrows and shoulders riding up, emphasizing the extent of her ignorance. Ask your sisters, Tilly had advised. I’m no good at all that shrink stuff.

Apparently, they’ve divvied up the skills in the sisterhood. You need something done, funeral meats and cheeses set out on the table after a memorial service—that’s where Tilly shines. In emotional anguish—you aren’t sure what you want, whether to leave or not leave your philandering husband, throw in the towel on a friendship, call Izzy. For answers of the miscellaneous kind—the perfect breed of dog, the real estate market, the best shampoo for thinning hair, Mona’s your gal.

So, what can Antonia contribute to the sisterhood? Its pundit, with a head full of quotes? Its nervous system, as a highly sensitive person? But all the sisters are nervous types, high strung.

Whoever she will be now, she knows better than to trespass into another sister’s domain. Honor thy sister’s turf, another of the rules of the sisterhood.

Welcome to Ill-y-noise, Tilly jokes, imitating their father. Ill-y-noise, Papi would parse out the name. How can it be a good place to live with a name like that? Now that he’s gone, his corny jokes are part of their nostalgia riffs. Papi was always trying to convince Tilly to move east with the grandchildren, closer to Mami and him. Of course, bring Kaspar, too, Papi added if prodded—the sons-in-law always an afterthought with paterfamilias.

Where’s Kaspar? Antonia asks out of politeness. When Tilly first introduced her husband-to-be to the sisterhood, they didn’t think he’d be a keeper. He took himself too seriously. He might be a math-whiz scientist, but his sense of humor was in the minus numbers.

So are you a friendly ghost? Izzy had jokingly asked him.

I beg your pardon, he had replied.

But Kaspar has stuck around almost forty years.

Is he double parked? Antonia asks now, feigning concern.

Hell, no, Tilly laughs, her smoker’s cough exploding, giving heft to her laughter. I drove. Will wonders never cease? Tilly, who never drives on highways because, she says, highways have too many cars. That’s like saying a city has too many people, Antonia likes to tease her. Fuck you! Tilly’s response to any mockery is to cuss loudly—no matter where she is. Zero self-control.

By the way, Mona tells me you didn’t believe me that my daffodils were up, Tilly reports. So you think it’s all a pigment of my imagination?

Figment, Antonia corrects. Figment of your imagination.

Up yours. Tilly curls her upper lip.

So what else did Mona tell you? Antonia probes. Though she hates these sisterhood triangulations, bifurcations, she can’t help wanting to know the current Sturm und Drang. They might be one whole person, but not without constant altercations, meltdowns, hurt feelings. It’s exhausting.

As she drives, Tilly rummages in her purse for a piece of gum to mask her smoker’s breath so that Kaspar doesn’t smell it. She adjusts the bobbing dog with a neck spring attached to the dashboard to help her spot her car in parking lots. The doer cannot not do. But it means she misses her exit, and they have