Chapter 23

Sunday morning, while we were having breakfast, Dad said he had a longing to see the ocean again. “I want to see it and smell it. How about you?”

I shrugged.

“What does that mean?” Dad said. “Is that indifference or agreement?”

“It means if you want to go to the ocean, it’s okay with me.”

“I don’t want to do something you won’t enjoy.”

I shrugged again.

Dad looked at me with a little smile. “Emmy—come back.”

“I’m right here,” I said, but I knew what he meant. Since last night I felt sort of cool and removed.

We put on jeans and sweatshirts, and we took the subway, a long ride, over an hour, out to Coney Island. I didn’t feel like talking, but Dad kept a conversation of sorts going. “I know you’ve been to the ocean before, Emmy, but not Coney Island. Coney Island is special. Too bad we’re going this time of year.”

“The water will still be there,” I said.

“Yes, but in the right season there’d be music, we could eat the famous Nathan’s hot dogs, and take a ride on the loop-the-loop, and the boardwalk would be crowded with thousands of people. Thousands!” His eyes sparkled.

When we finally got there, there weren’t thousands but there were quite a lot of people, old people mostly, sitting on the benches along the boardwalk. I thought it was beautiful. Below us, the sand stretched for what seemed like miles. The sky was pale and there was a blurred sun behind a ripple of clouds. The wind was blowing, and I zipped up my sweatshirt as we walked down the steps and over the sand toward the water. From a distance, the sand had looked smooth, but walking on it, I saw that it was full of bits of shells and plastic and chunks of glass.

And it wasn’t as empty as I’d thought at first, either. A girl and a boy, standing in the middle of the beach, looking like a poster for a movie, were kissing passionately. A man was fishing, and a bunch of kids were playing on the big finger rocks that reached out into the ocean. Dad and I walked along the edge of the water. I turned around to look at the Ferris wheel and the roller coaster behind us. They looked black and sort of bony against the sky. I wished I had my journal with me to write that down.

“Great, isn’t it?” Dad said. All of a sudden he took off running. He ran a little distance, turned, and came running back, whooping and panting. Just as he came close to me, he picked up something from the sand. “Hey, look what I found!” He grinned and held it up. It was a green plastic water gun. “It must have washed in. Fruits of the sea!” He handed it to me.

I was going to put it in my pocket and give it to Wilma. But suddenly I bent over, filled it with water and aimed at Dad. A jet of water hit him in the arm. I shot again and got him in the chest. “Emily!” I didn’t stop. I was squirting him, shooting him. I shot again and got him full in the face. And again and again.

“You’re going to pay for this,” he said, ducking and covering his face.

The fingers I’d burned last night started to tingle. I dropped the gun and walked away. What did he mean, pay? What would he do? Go away? Leave me here on the beach? Walk away from me and never look back? I don’t care. Let him go! I looked over my shoulder. Dad was coming after me, waving for me to wait for him. Instead, I started running, running really hard. The wind was in my hair, I picked up my feet and let them slap down on the sand. I don’t care … I don’t care … I don’t care.… My feet pounded to that rhythm.

Then I heard Dad calling me again, and I looked back. He was bent over, kneeling on the sand, his head down, as if he’d collapsed. I turned, skidded in the sand, half fell. I ran. Oh, please … I was praying again. I do care … I do care … When I got to him, he was brushing off his knees, and he looked chagrined, not sick. “Dad?” I said.

“I got out of breath running after you. Stupid.” He sat down on the sand, and I sat down beside him. The sand was cold through my jeans.

“Dad, you’re out of shape,” I said.

“I know, I know.” He handed me the water gun. “Don’t you want to bring it to Chris?”

“Chris hates guns. Wilma will like it better.”

“Wilma …” he said musingly. “Yeah, I can see it. I wonder if Rachel will be like her. Or you? You’re all so different. You, you were always looking, from the time you were a little thing. Your mother and I used to joke that you were taking notes on the world.”

“What else?” I wanted him to remember more about me.

“Let me think. Oh, yes, the way you talked, that was something. You could say anything. Any big word, you’d just repeat it.” He put his hand on my shoulder.

It was just a touch, my father’s touch, my father’s hand on my shoulder, nothing unusual, but it brought me a kind of revelation. Maybe it was the sun that did it, the dazzle of light on the water clearing out my mind. Or maybe it was just that warm, ordinary touch of his hand. Because, right then, I knew with a kind of pure certainty that, even if Dad didn’t think of us as much as we wanted him to, even if he forgot to call us and write us, even if he was away from us, no matter where he was, he was still and always our father. And we were his children, and nothing could take that away from us. Nothing could change that.

I leaned back, leaned against him, and he put his arm around me and kissed my hair. “Emmy,” he said. Then we sat there for a while, looking out at the bright metallic water.