The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [123]
“Phoebe?” Wolf said. She opened her eyes. “Stay here with me.”
“I’m here.”
“You’re not.”
Phoebe turned to him. In Wolf’s face she saw some trouble, like a shadow moving just behind the eyes. “Phoebe?” he said.
She refocused. “What?”
“Talk to me. Tell me what’s happening.”
“I don’t know.”
“What you’re thinking about.”
“Going up there.”
Wolf sat up. “Don’t do this,” he said. “It’s freaking me out.”
“Do what?”
“Use that zombie voice.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re still doing it!”
“I’m sorry,” Phoebe said.
“Stop apologizing!”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“Fine,” Wolf said. “Let’s stop talking.”
He stood up. With angry movements he gathered a change of clothes and left the room to shower. When he’d gone, Phoebe shut her eyes again, giving herself to that drift, the gentle teasing coax of her thoughts.
Mirasol: the last trip while their father was alive, late summer it must have been, before he’d gone back in the hospital for the last time. By then he was weak, no longer could ride the amusement park rides or even attempt the long ocean swims he’d once favored in the early mornings. Illness forced upon their father precisely the leisure he’d scorned in health; he slept late, lay on the beach fully dressed even under a pounding sun. Still, he rarely alluded to his illness. “I’ll sit this one out,” he’d say as Faith headed for the roller coaster, or to Phoebe, “Bring your lazy old man an OJ, will you?” They took comfort in the day-to-day illusion that he was just under the weather, and Phoebe recalled that last trip as having upon it a glaze of perfection, her parents walking hand in hand on the beach and napping together in the middle of the day, her father taking Barry to the aquarium, the Naval Museum, outings that overjoyed her brother to a degree Phoebe found oddly sad. She and Faith and Barry were exemplary children, returning from the beach well before sunset each day so that no one would have to come fetch them, going to bed when asked without a word of protest. Yet within this harmony ran a jittery cord of apprehension. There was something studied, artificial in it.
And a strange thing was happening to Faith. She and Phoebe attended Mass each day, and while the priest gave his sermon, Faith would shut her eyes and tense her muscles limb by limb, starting at her feet and moving up, legs, torso, neck, and finally her face, which contorted into a terrible knot. Faith could hold this posture for staggering lengths of time, eyelids aflutter, breath coming and going in gasps while every strand of her slim thirteen-year-old’s body stood out in quivering relief. For Phoebe these minutes were agony; she was terrified the priest would notice and halt his sermon, or that Faith would fall off the pew foaming at the mouth or even die—who knew? Mercifully, the congregation was small, and often she and Faith had a pew to themselves. Only when the priest reached the Last Supper did Faith suddenly relax. A tired, peaceful smile would float to her face.
After church Faith usually slept, in the car, on a couch or the sand, devouring slumbers much like the ones their father was prone to. But the exertions in church seemed to drain her of something, leave her weak. On the Scrambler one night she took the outside seat as usual, but when Phoebe and Barry were flung against her, Faith lost control of her limbs; twice her head slammed back against the metal beam with an awful thunging noise. After the ride Barry left the car but Faith sat stunned, gripping her head. “Should I tell Daddy?” Phoebe asked.
“No!” Faith said, sitting up. “No.” When they departed the ride, she was smiling again, a manic grin overlaid on her worn-out face, as if by failing for one instant to engage and astonish their father, she would be delivering him to his