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By Root 872 0

her into his arms and carry her, too. Their mother followed with the blanket and camera and picnic basket, herding Faith and Barry. Only when they’d all finished eating would their father set his canvas on the easel and stand before it anxiously. Often he couldn’t paint, couldn’t make himself even begin and finally gave up, resting his head in their mother’s lap. But occasionally Faith would wander over and hand him a glittering purple flower she’d picked from the ice plant and something would hit him just right. “Baby, can you stay there a minute?” he’d ask, and always Faith would; Phoebe couldn’t remember her sister ever refusing in favor of some game or a fort she and Barry were building, though there must have been times when she’d wanted to. Or maybe not. Maybe nothing of her own could compete with their father’s need of her, her unique and seemingly bottomless power to save him.

Now and then Barry would emerge after hours alone in his room holding a machine, which he would show their father. Phoebe always dreaded these occasions, for try as their father might to look alert, machines were his work, and he loathed them. “You made this stuff in school, right, Dad?” Barry would say, always hopeful at first. “You got any ideas of how I can make this go backwards?” When he realized their father was only half listening, Barry would fall silent. “Forget it,” he’d say, and storm off, leaving their father startled, with no idea what he’d done wrong. No! Phoebe wanted to holler outside her brother’s door. No, no, no! He made everything worse. She felt such a terrible pain, knowing what would happen, unable to stop it. It left her sick. She pitied her brother and wanted no part of his weakness.

Their father was always struggling, always tired, but there came a time when he struggled harder to do what he’d always done, when suddenly he was exhausted. The circles under his eyes turned dark and moist as clay. Even his skin seemed weaker, bruising at the smallest impact. Phoebe and Barry and Faith no longer wumphed against him when he tottered home from work; now they seized his legs and held them tightly, filling him up with their strength, replenishing what IBM had drained away.

When Phoebe was five, she looked across the dinner table one night and saw her father sleeping. Her mother crouched at the oven with Faith, easing a toothpick into a chocolate cake. The kitchen was warm, an arc of steam on each windowpane.

“Daddy,” Phoebe said softly. He didn’t move. His lips were white. “Daddy?”

Barry sat beside their father, pouring salt on the tablecloth and arranging it in piles with his fork. Normally their father would have stopped him—the salt mounds were a regular battle between them—and Barry wore a smirk of incredulous triumph at what he was getting away with. He looked up at their father, whose head hung to one side. They heard his labored breathing. Barry grinned at Phoebe and pulled a few hairs on their father’s arm.

Faith galloped back to the table holding her cake between two red potholders. At the sight of their father she stopped. “Mom,” she said.

“Good Lord,” their mother said, dropping into a chair and gathering their father to her, so his head lolled against her shoulder. “Let’s get you to bed.” He nodded, rising slowly from his chair.

When their parents had left the room, the three of them stared at one another, unsure how to react. Barry’s grin still hung tentatively on his face. But Faith looked afraid and Phoebe felt it, too, like ice water down her spine. The cake plate still hung in Faith’s hands, forgotten.

The next day was Sunday. Monday their father would go to the doctor. There was a false heartiness in the air, too much loud, bright laughter.

After church they went to Baker Beach. Normally the waves were bloated and sodden, pulling away from the gritty sand with a sound like deep-frying. But today the sea was flat, silvery as a lake.

Their mother leaned against a log, one arm around their father. Faith and Barry rolled up their pants to wade and Phoebe ran behind them, shrieking when the icy water