The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [15]
“She told me to,” he said, shaken, abashed. “She kept saying ‘Higher.’”
Faith was white-faced, her lips dry. Grains of sand fell from her hair. “Look at her,” their mother chided, lifting Faith up. “Honestly, Gene, she’s four.”
“Not hurt,” Faith whispered. When her parents eyed her skeptically, she insisted, “Not hurt.”
Years later the grandparents still would tease her, asking, Does it hurt? Does it hurt? No way, Faith always said, laughing. She was famous for that.
Phoebe tried in small ways to match her sister’s daring, taking little chances on her trike or with the neighbor’s dog, but Faith was always older, always doing more. When her sister’s exploits led her into trouble, Phoebe felt a surge of guilty satisfaction. Once Faith came home crying after a hunting trip in Sonoma with their father, a dead rabbit clutched to her chest. “Well of course it’s dead. You shot it, for Christ’s sake,” their father said, exasperated, but Faith hadn’t meant to: she loved to shoot clay pigeons but had never hunted, and failed somehow to realize that firing at a flash of brown fur would lead to something dying. She buried the rabbit in the backyard among the other beloved family pets (“Killed by me,” read its epitaph, inked on kindling wood with Magic Marker, and underneath that, “i am sorry, Bunny”). Years later Faith still mentioned the incident, that poor rabbit she’d murdered, by accident.
On the Osage River one Sunday: someone’s pier, slippery wooden slats, Faith pushing with the other kids until a boy sent her flying into the river with her sun hat on, in front of all the parents. Faith emerged dripping river water, laughing crazily under the sopping hat, waited until her assailant wasn’t looking and then threw her weight against him so the boy slipped, fell unevenly into the water, smacking his head on the pier as he went down, a big gash just above the left eye. Faith’s horror at the sight of his face running with blood, all the parents leaping from white grille chairs in a single motion. They rushed to the boy, whose eye was saved by half an inch—less—and while they rallied to get him to a hospital, Phoebe followed her sister to a hidden corner of lawn, powerless to stop her sobbing. Phoebe felt afraid then, touched by the bad thing Faith had done. Her sister disappeared for the rest of that day. They found her at nightfall, coiled tightly in a spare bedroom, fast asleep. Their father carried her to the car. Back at Grandma and Grandpa’s, Phoebe stood outside her parents’ door and overheard them arguing. “I’m saying stop encouraging her,” her mother said. “You see what happens.”
“How do you mean? Encourage her how?”
“I mean she does it for you. That wildness? Come on, Gene. You know perfectly well that’s for you.”
Her father’s voice was hushed, furious. “You think I told her to knock that kid in the river?” he said. “I don’t tell her to be wild, Christ Almighty. She just does it.”
“You don’t have to tell her,” her mother said. “Any fool can see it makes you happy.”
Remembering her father, Phoebe pictured a man always struggling to carry too many things at once, children, briefcases, rolls of un-stretched canvas. She saw him leaping up the garage stairs late for dinner after a poetry reading by one of the Beats he so admired, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, Michael McClure—all were his acquaintances. He’d even been present on the legendary night when Allen Ginsberg challenged a heckler to take off his clothes, then flung off his own before a stunned audience. Often their father painted late at night, stealing an hour or two when they’d all gone to sleep. He’d be up the next day before anyone, clean-shaven, smelling of limes. With dark circles under his eyes he kissed them all good-bye and drove downtown to his other life, the one he despised.
Weekends, he would haul his easel and canvas and paintbox to the cliffs near the Golden Gate Bridge. If Phoebe walked slowly enough, her father would sling