The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [18]
It worked. To Phoebe’s vast relief, their father stirred behind her. He rubbed his eyes, shook his head and looked out to sea. He looked up and down the beach. “Where’s Faith?” he said.
“Swimming.”
He leapt to his feet, holding Phoebe under her arms. He set her down on the sand.
“Jesus Christ,” he said. “Where is she?”
It hadn’t occurred to Phoebe that Faith herself might be in danger. Now a sick, guilty feeling swelled in her stomach as her father bolted to the water’s edge. She followed slowly.
“Faith!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Faith!” His voice cut the wind, and the force of yelling so loudly made him start to cough. “Faith,” he cried over and over again. Then he stood, one hand shielding his eyes, and stared at the water. “I think I see her,” he said. “I think she’s out there.”
He turned to Phoebe, who waited timidly at his side. Her father’s pants were soaked to the thighs. He took Phoebe’s arm and walloped her behind so quickly and efficiently that she hardly knew what was happening until it was over. “How could you let her get so far out?” he shouted helplessly. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
Phoebe began to sob. She had no idea why.
Their father resumed calling out to Faith. He hollered until he had almost no voice left, then he coughed and coughed, unable to stop, until, to Phoebe’s horror, he doubled over and vomited into the water. Afterward he wiped his mouth and began shouting to Faith again.
She was swimming back. Phoebe saw her sister’s tiny arms plowing the sea. Their father’s face was gray; he looked on the verge of collapse. He stood back from the water, breathing hard. Phoebe clung to his leg, and absently he cupped a palm over her head. “She’s coming back,” he said. “You see her?”
Finally her sister emerged from the water, frail and exhausted, nearly gasping for breath. From the look on their father’s face, Faith must have known she was in trouble. “You said you’d watch,” she said, without confidence.
Their father slapped her across the face, his palm making a loud, wet noise against her cheek. Faith looked stunned, then tears filled her eyes. “That didn’t hurt,” she said.
He hit her again, harder this time. Phoebe, standing to one side, began to whimper.
Faith was shaking, her thin limbs covered with gooseflesh. With each breath her ribs stood out like a pair of hands holding her at the waist. “Didn’t hurt,” she whispered.
He hit her again, so hard this time that Faith bent over. For a moment she didn’t move. Phoebe began to howl.
Then he lifted Faith into his arms. She clung to him, sobbing. Their father was crying, too, which frightened Phoebe—she’d never seen him cry before. “How could you scare me like that?” he sobbed. “You know you’ve got my heart—you know it.” He sounded as if he wanted it back.
Phoebe put her arms around whatever parts of them she could reach, her father’s wet pants, Faith’s slippery calves. A long time seemed to pass while they stood like that.
Finally their father lowered Faith onto the sand. She looked up at him, her teeth chattering violently. “Daddy, are you going to die?” she said.
There was a pause. “Of course not,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“You’re not scared?”
“No, I’m not scared. Why, are you scared?”
Faith took a moment to answer. Phoebe thought of her father coughing, vomiting into the waves. She wished she hadn’t seen it.
“No,” Faith said slowly, “I’m not scared.”
He was dead within the year.
four
After her father died, Phoebe sleepwalked among the other second-graders, cut off from the high spirits that buoyed them through games of jump rope and tetherball and two-square. Her own legs felt so heavy. Even her head felt heavy. She wanted to take it off and leave it somewhere.
She had never believed their