Hello Beautiful

During William’s first visit to Julia’s house, Julia worries about what William will think of her family. The Padavanos are working-class and have constant financial struggles. Julia’s mother, Rose, spends most of her time in her garden, while her husband, Charlie, prefers to drink and talk about poetry. Although she married for love, Rose is not satisfied in her marriage: Charlie has repeatedly failed to gain successful employment, and now he and Rose avoid each other at home. Julia hopes to avoid a similar fate in her relationship with William, feeling confident that with her passion and purpose, she will be able to achieve the life she wants and help her siblings as well.

Julia adores her sisters, each of whom has a different personality. Sylvie is not nearly as studious or driven as Julia, preferring to spend her time reading and kissing boys while at her job at the library. Cecelia has an artistic, independent nature, while Emeline is quieter and more nurturing. Julia plays the role of leader and problem solver for her siblings, and they often call on her guidance as the oldest.

When Charlie asks William about his future plans at their family dinner, William falters, and Julia jumps in to suggest that he might become a professor. She later reveals that this is because of a manuscript he is working on, but William is hesitant to reveal anything about the book.

When they are juniors in college, William proposes to Julia. She is majoring in economics and working for her professor, who is also a business consultant, while William follows her plan for him to become a history professor. When he tells his mother, she simply says it is nice they are getting married and ends the call. Feeling sad about the lack of love in William’s life, Julia steps in to care for him to the best of her ability.

Sylvie has worked at the library since she was 13 years old. There, she began to kiss boys during her breaks, telling Julia that she is practicing for the great love of her life. Sylvie and Julia have very different approaches to love, with Julia’s being practical and Sylvie’s more romantic. Sylvie doesn’t have a close relationship with her mother but instead is more like her father in both her literary pursuits and thoughtful nature. However, despite her romantic nature, Sylvie has no interest in dating and prefers her innocent kissing sessions: “If a steady boyfriend or sluttiness were the two available doors, she had found and opened a third” (37). She senses that Julia is propelling her relationship with William forward, and William’s fear of abandonment causes him to go along with it.

While Julia and William plan for their wedding, Sylvie works every available shift at the library, trying to make enough money to reenroll in community college; due to her father’s financial instability, she has been forced to pause her education. But Julia soon intervenes, talking to a patron of the library and helping Sylvie get a small loan so she can re-enroll.

On the day of Julia’s wedding, Rose wakes up all the girls at dawn; the wedding is being cobbled together by Rose, who barters with the neighbors to assist with the flowers, cookies, beverages, and more. She sends Sylvie to the florist, and while walking there, Sylvie runs into Cecelia, who is sitting on the curb. Cecelia tells her that she has a secret and asks her not to tell Julia: She is pregnant. At Julia’s wedding, Sylvie is distracted, still reeling from Cecelia ’s news and knowing that it will change everything in their lives.

Only months before his graduation and wedding, William injures his knee again, and this time, it requires two reconstructive surgeries. As he recuperates in the hospital, he is left with a lot of down time in which he begins to again feel depressed. While looking at some mail, he sees a letter from his parents. He breaks out in a sweat, daring to hope that his parents are feeling some remorse about how they’ve treated him. However, the envelope simply contains a check for $10,000 with “Congratulations” written on the memo line.

When his basketball team visits him, he feels even more depressed because his one reason for living has been taken from him: Even after his knee heals, he will not be able to play again. But when they leave, the physical therapist, Arash, hangs back to talk to William about his knee. Arash reassures William that he can continue to have a career in basketball, even if he can no longer play. Later that same day, Julia visits and offers to submit William’s resume for a teaching assistant job. When William expresses doubt, she overrides him, saying she can help edit the resume.

Before the wedding, Rose calls a family meeting to tell William that he is a part of their family now and can call her “Mom.” On the day of the wedding, Charlie picks William up and tells him a bit about their family history, such as how he and Rose eloped when she was pregnant with Julia. During the wedding celebrations, William feels everything is a blur. He is in pain from his knee, but he feels grateful when he looks at Julia, seeing in her a power that can propel him forward.

After their honeymoon, Julia and William move into the married housing unit on Northwestern’s campus. One day after she comes home from grocery shopping, she finds all three of her sisters waiting outside, requesting a tour of her home. She sees that Cecelia has the photo of St. Clare of Assisi under her arm, and when she asks Cecelia about it, her sister tells her it is her “scarlet letter.” Cecelia tells Julia that she is five months pregnant, has decided to keep the baby, and will not involve the father. Julia is upset, saying that she was supposed to have the first baby. The other sisters tell Julia that their mother is making Cecelia move out because of her decision. Julia, ever the problem solver, decides that the only way to remedy the situation is to have a baby herself. She believes that her pregnancy will be celebrated by their family and bring them back together.

The next day, Julia visits Rose, but Rose is in a dark mood, convinced that she has failed as a parent because Cecelia will repeat her history. When Cecelia goes into labor in late October, she asks for Julia in the delivery room. She names the baby Isabella Rose Padavano and calls her Izzy for short. Despite not having seen his daughter since she left home, Charlie visits Cecelia in the hospital and greets Izzy with “Hello beautiful,” his customary greeting for his daughters. He holds Izzy and quotes Walt Whitman to her before leaving the room. As he is leaving the hospital, Charlie collapses, has a heart attack, and dies before anyone can revive him.

At Charlie’s funeral, many people come forward with stories of his kindness and generosity to them in moments of need. This makes Sylvie realize that her father had a richer and more meaningful life than they’d imagined. Sylvie remembers the last time that she was alone with her father and his praise of her search for meaning in life. In her search for “third doors” and her rejection of society’s definition of success, Sylvie understands that she is like her father. Cecelia and Izzy are absent from the service; Rose blamed Charlie’s death on the shock of Cecelia’s pregnancy, further alienating her daughter and grandchild.

Sylvie and her mother, the only remaining residents of their home, walk back home after the funeral. Sylvie resolves to talk to her mother and establish a timeline for when she will also move out, but Rose immediately goes to her garden. Rose tells Sylvie to go stay with one of her sisters. Feeling rejected, Sylvie begins to sleep at William and Julia’s place. Julia develops a habit of crawling onto the couch with Sylvie every night and sleeping alongside her. Sylvie recognizes that for perhaps the first time in her life, Julia feels uncertain and unmoored by life. One night, she tells Sylvie that William quit his teaching assistant position for the rest of the summer so he could be there for Julia in her grief; however, Julia feels that this choice has put them in a financial bind. Feeling nervous about William’s career prospects and her future, Julia asks Sylvie to read William’s manuscript.

The manuscript is a jumbled work in progress full of half-finished thoughts and personal annotations. The footnotes fascinate Sylvie because they show William’s inner questions and struggle to understand himself. Sylvie recognizes in William the grief and instability she herself experienced after her father’s death but sees that these feelings have been part of William’s identity for a long time. Sylvie empathizes with William’s interior struggles. She tells Julia that the manuscript may not get him a professorship but that she’s never read anything like it.

Four months after Izzy’s birth and Charlie’s death, Rose calls a family meeting (without Cecelia) to inform her daughters that she has decided to move to Florida. She reveals that she’d taken out a mortgage on her house to help raise the girls and now can no longer afford it without Charlie. Julia is close to her due date and begs her mother to wait, but when Emeline mentions Izzy, Rose leaves the table, finalizing her decision.