The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [5]
If Phoebe could string together the hours she’d spent circling this event, they would surely total years. She lost herself in these contemplations, her own life falling away like a husk as she sank into the rich, bottomless well of her sister’s absence. And the longer Phoebe circled, the more certain she became that a great misunderstanding was at work; that if Faith had taken her life, she’d done it without a hint of the failure or hopelessness the word “suicide” implied. When Phoebe thought of her sister’s death, it was always with a curious lilt to the heart, as if Faith had been lifted into some more spectacular realm, a place so remote she could reach it only by forfeiting her life. Like kicking away a ladder. Where was the failure in that?
Phoebe’s mother, Gail, had flown to Italy and returned with Faith’s ashes in a box. She and Phoebe and Barry scattered them from the clifftops near the Golden Gate Bridge, a place where their family used to picnic. Phoebe remembered staring in disbelief at the silty, uneven chunks, like debris left in a fireplace. Her hands had been sweating, and as she tossed fistfuls into the wind, the finest powder stuck in the creases of her palms. No matter how hard Phoebe shook, the powder remained. Afterward she’d locked the door to her room and gazed for a long time at her open hands. The house was quiet. Phoebe stuck out her tongue and lightly ran its tip along her palm. The taste was sour, salty. Horrified, Phoebe fled to the bathroom and scoured her hands and mouth in the sink, staring into the toilet and willing herself to be sick. Lately she’d wondered if what she tasted that day was her own sweat.
A white door at the end of a hallway. “Come on,” Faith had said, reaching for Wolf. They closed it behind them.
Phoebe pacing outside, driving her toes deep into the soft rug. Terrified—of what? That her sister was gone. That the door would never open. That when finally it did, she would find herself alone in a bright, empty room.
two
When Phoebe rode with her brother in his Porsche, they played a tacit game of chicken: Barry accelerated steadily, knowing it scared Phoebe, wanting her to ask him to slow down. Phoebe would plunge straight into the jaws of death before she gave him that satisfaction. When they rode alone together, grim silence would overwhelm them as the needle edged across the speedometer, Phoebe begging God please for one red light. How long can this go on, she would think, before something happens to us? But she wasn’t giving in.
“Honey, calm yourself,” their mother said when Barry began gunning the engine three blocks out of the driveway. “I’d like a few more birthdays after this one.”
The day was warm and clear, rare for a San Francisco June. Barry was duly elated. He’d been planning their mother’s birthday for weeks, proposing first a long weekend in Hawaii, then a hot-air balloon ride, finally an all-day sail on a chartered yacht. “I’m your mother, not the CEO of Sony,” she’d chided him, laughing gently so Barry wouldn’t take it wrong. “Why not a picnic?”
At twenty-three, Phoebe’s brother was a millionaire. The seed of his wealth had been their father’s five thousand dollars, engorged by careful investments while Barry was at Berkeley. After graduation he’d used the money to start a software company, and when Phoebe last asked, his employees had numbered fifty-seven. He owned a four-bedroom house in the hills outside Los Gatos, and showered Phoebe each holiday with gifts that left her weak with gratitude, a Prince tennis racket, a digital watch, a string of real pearls that radiated a faint pink glow in certain lights. Barry often dropped the names of important people he’d met at parties, always stressing how they’d sought him out, how some moment of unique communication had transpired. According to Barry, his employees were off the genius charts, his products so phenomenally great that customers were nearly fainting away at their computer terminals. Against her better judgment, Phoebe found herself