Page 53 of Upstate

“That’s not the same.”

“Isn’t it, Hazel?”

The conductor blew his whistle. The train hissed and lurched forward. Our long-anticipated reunion devolved into an awkward hauling of luggage from the platform to the parking lot. Once Mai’s suitcases and Billy’s duffel were stowed in the back of your station wagon, the four of us clustered near the tailgate.

“Are you hungry?” I asked. “Do you want to go somewhere to eat?”

Billy translated into Vietnamese. The sounds that came out of his mouth were nonsensical to me, but when Mai responded, I could better appreciate the cadence of her language.

“No, thanks, we ate in the city,” Billy said. “We just want to go home.”

“Sure thing,” you said, opening the driver’s door.

“Hazel.” Billy caught my arm before I could get in beside you. “Mai wants to sit with you, to get to know her new sister.”

You looked back at me, eyebrows raised in a silent question. I dipped my chin to let you know I was okay. “Bien sûr.”

You and Billy were deep in conversation about the police riots that happened at the Democratic convention in Chicago before we even pulled out of the parking lot. In the back seat, Mai turned sideways, took my hands, and started talking. Her French was fluent and fast, with an accent that was new to my ear. I hadn’t spoken the language much since college. I listened hard, trying to keep up.

Mai was asking about the house—not ours, I realized, but the one I’d grown up in, the one that would belong to Billy one day, the next McIntyre in a line that went from my Scottish great-grandfather to the baby in Mai’s belly.

I told her the house was old but cozy. “Très vieille mais aussi confortable.”

“J’ai aussi grandi dans une maison ancienne,” she said, smiling.

“Quand est-ce que tu—” I couldn’t remember how to say “due” in French. Instead, I rephrased and asked when the baby would arrive.

“Sometime in December.” Billy turned around, stretching his arm across the front seat. The French he’d learned in school was good enough to understand my question, but he answered in English.

“Were you thinking of living at home until then?” I asked, hoping he hadn’t given Mai the impression that Mother would be of any help with a baby.

“God, no. I met a guy in Saigon from the State Department who knows the governor’s advisor on international affairs, a man named Henry Kissinger. I have a meeting with him next week to talk about serving on his staff. If I get the job, we’ll find a place in Albany.”

“A power broker already,” you said, ribbing my brother with your elbow.

“Pretty much the opposite,” Billy said, “but it’s a foot in the door. I like the idea of working in Nelson Rockefeller’s administration. He’s the reason the United Nations is headquartered in New York, did you know that? Anyway, we’ll visit for a few days while Mom and Dad get to know Mai. I thought I’d move your bed into my room and make a double out of the two twins, if you don’t mind, Hazel.”

“Why should I care?” I snapped, thinking of the elaborate precautions you and I took to prevent anyone from suspecting we slept together. It didn’t seem fair that my brother could rearrange a house to suit himself just because he got married.

In fact, none of this felt fair. Billy and Mai would face some prejudice, sure. I’d noticed the dirty looks a few of the disembarking passengers shot their way. All I could think about, though, as we drove toward Schuywich was how they were allowed to wear gold rings and hold hands and look at each other with love no matter who was watching simply because one of them was a man and the other a woman. You and I were born to love each other as surely as any other couple, but instead of recognition, let alone celebration, we were condemned to secrecy and shame. Their lovemaking created new life, while our coupled bodies were barren—biology’s penalty, it seemed, for our deviance from the natural order. I was happy for my brother, truly, but when I caught your eye in the rearview mirror, I knew you understood the struggle raging inside me.

Mai and I made small talk in French as the miles rolled by, mostly about their journey and what they’d seen in Manhattan. When you turned onto the state road that ran alongside the Battenkill, I rolled down the window to take in the sound and smell of the river.

Mai touched my shoulder. “Est-ce que tu vas bien, ma sœur?”

“Oui, je vais bien.” I touched her belly. “Comment vas-tu appeler le bébé?”

“Peter si c’est un garçon,” she said. “Et si c’est une fille, Patience.”

I was glad to hear they wouldn’t be dredging up the name William again if they had a boy. As for Patience—well, it was a terribly old-fashioned name to give an American girl born in 1968, but as Mai said the word, I heard the babble of the creek Billy and I both loved.

“Très bon choix.” The smile I gave her was genuine.

Like you said, Evelyn, we had our home and our careers and each other. Now I had a sister, and soon we’d have a niece or nephew. You were right, of course, about lesbians who married men for the security of a spouse and the chance for a family. That wasn’t you, and it wasn’t me, either. There were things we’d never have, living the way we did, but there was plenty to be grateful for. With this baby, we’d have a hint of what it might have been like to raise a child of our own. A grandchild would be good for my parents, too. I imagined Billy’s relationship with our father eased by a little boy to bond over, or Mother’s heart softened by a baby girl to spoil.

“Almost there,” you announced as we passed Ridgetop Road and headed down the valley.

“On arrive bientôt,” I translated for Mai.