Less than three months after Ivy’s death, on a freezing January day, I moved across the world into a lunchbox-sized apartment with a sweet stranger in Paris. The city was a place neither Ivy nor I had ever been. On each of the flights, from Des Moines, Iowa, to Chicago, to Paris, I kept thinking about how much Ivy would have hated the version of Paris I dreamt of: she didn’t gawk over fashion or art museums, and much preferred mountains and beaches over bustling cities. But I also thought about how proud of me she would be. Ivy was so brave in such a standout way that I always suspected she thought I was a coward. And in comparison to her, I was. But not at this moment, I was doing a brave thing. I was doing a very Ivy thing.
A few weeks into the program, my creative writing teacher assigned us to walk 10 minutes in any direction from the classroom and write about what we saw. I made it to the Seine, where black coats, black boots, black scarves were all the eye could see. Gold chains on purses. A Shetland Sheepdog with a coat of marshmallow, nutmeg, and cinnamon fur, like the one we had as children. The gray Seine sparkled, almost sadly, as if it knew Ivy would never get to see it. My cheeks were turning grenadine red in my phone screen’s reflection from the cold, like hers always did.
I thought back to my professor’s question. What did I see? Even in Paris, a place unfamiliar to Ivy and me both, one thing was certain: Her absence made me see differently. It made it so she was all I could see.
After that day, Ivy was Paris and Paris was Ivy. From François Pompon’s statue of her favorite animal, a polar bear, at the Musée D’Orsay, to every all black outfit, overtly carnivorous French meal, and blonde woman sitting at a café having a glass of wine at what most Americans would consider an inappropriate hour, there she was. My sister. I started to believe she might like this magical city, maybe even love it, after all.
After some time, I began to find myself doing things that felt impossible in the immediate wake of her death: I tried new foods I had previously sworn off. I laughed at things she would’ve found funny. I sang karaoke. I packed friends into my apartment and made omelets for them all as they topped off each other’s mugs of 99-cent Champagne. I started listening to music again. I made new friends who thought I was brave.
