Florence Adler Swims Forever(96)

Isaac’s throat grew tight as he felt her arms reach around his waist. Eventually, he found his words: “Get your shoes on, Gus-Gus.”

“I’ll come,” said Joseph.

Isaac stifled a laugh. “You will not.”

“Why can’t Papa come?” Gussie asked as she rooted around under the bed for her sandals.

“Because Papa is very busy,” said Isaac, reaching for one sandal, which he had spotted under her bedside table. He tossed it onto the floor, beside her. “Isn’t that right, Papa?”

Gussie scooted back out from under the bed, holding the second sandal up in the air, triumphant.

“I’m not,” said Joseph. “In fact, I’d prefer to come.”

Isaac found it impossible to make eye contact with Joseph, so he simply turned and began walking toward the front of the apartment. He passed Esther and Joseph’s room and then Anna’s. “If you must send someone to mind us, send Anna.”

Isaac called to Gussie over his shoulder and kept walking, out the door and down the stairs to the waiting sidewalk. Gussie followed a few steps behind.

“Should we wait for Anna?” Gussie asked when she was outside. She bent down to finish buckling her sandals.

Isaac looked over his shoulder at the bakery and the little door that led to the building’s upstairs apartment. “She won’t be long.”

“Where are we going?”

“A walk?”

Isaac had thought about where he wanted to take Gussie, about how he wanted to remember her and she him. He pictured her on the Boardwalk, the wind ruffling her hair, but couldn’t think much further ahead than that.

He took Gussie’s small, sweaty hand in his and headed down Virginia Avenue, toward the ocean. By the time they passed the Islesworth Hotel, Anna had caught up with them, although she seemed to instinctively know to keep her distance. He wondered how much Joseph had told her.

“Want a frozen custard?” he asked Gussie as they approached the Boardwalk.

“It’s ten in the morning.”

“Right.” Isaac had grown so unfamiliar with reading his daughter’s cues that he could no longer tell discordance from disinterest. “Shall we get one anyway?”

Gussie shrugged her shoulders, and Isaac led her several more blocks to Kohr Bros., where he exchanged two nickels for a pair of cake cones, piled high with an orange-and-vanilla swirl.

“You forgot Anna,” said Gussie as he handed one to her.

“I don’t think she’s hungry,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at Anna, who was pretending to be well occupied with a rack of souvenir postcards, which sat outside the shop next door.

“How do you know? Hey, Anna—”

Isaac poked Gussie’s arm and said, “Knock it off.”

Gussie stared at her feet and the cone in her hand leaned perilously to one side. He hadn’t meant to upset her and certainly didn’t want his reprimand to become a lasting memory. Isaac reached out, righted the cone, touched Gussie’s chin.

“Sorry, Gus.” To Anna, he shouted, “Do you want a cone?”

She shook her head no.

“See, she doesn’t want one.” Gussie seemed satisfied, so he asked, “Do you want to get a chair? Sit for a while?”

Gussie made slow progress as she followed Isaac onto the sand and toward a row of canvas-clad beach chairs. The custard was melting fast in the hot sun, and she stopped every few feet to lick the cone and her own hand clean. Isaac had rented two chairs and pulled them close together by the time Gussie caught up with him.

“Sit,” he said, reaching for his handkerchief. He wondered if he should wait until she was finished before allowing her to mop herself up with it. If he had been more gracious to Anna, she probably would have managed the cleanup. He looked behind them. Anna had remained on the Boardwalk, where she stood leaning against the railing, as watchful and rigid as an egret in the marsh grass of the Thorofare.

There was no good way to tell her, Isaac decided. Whatever he said was sure to break her heart. “Gus-Gus, I’m going to go away soon.”

Gussie stopped working on her cone and looked over at him. “Where?”

“Florida, probably.”

“Florida,” she repeated—the word almost a question but not quite.

“You’ve never been there but it’s very pretty. And hot.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“Awhile.”

“How long?” she asked again. Isaac stared at his daughter. She could scarcely wait for the first day of school, her birthday, or the Easter Parade. Time moved slowly for a girl of seven. Weeks felt like months, months like years. Could she even comprehend real years? That enough of them, when strung together, made up a lifetime?

“Maybe a year, or a little longer.” He added, “It could be a very long time, in fact.”

“What about the baby?”

What could he say? That he wouldn’t meet the baby? She’d never understand. “I think you’ll be a very good big sister. You’re such a big help and so very kind.”

Gussie didn’t answer, didn’t arch her back into the compliment, the way she often did when adults said something nice about her. In fact, Isaac might have wondered if she’d heard him at all but for the fact that she had stopped licking the custard. She leaned forward in her chair, holding the cone away from her body, and for several minutes, both of them watched in a kind of quiet torpor as the treat dripped down her hand and onto the sand. Isaac held his handkerchief at the ready but didn’t hand it to her, not until the mess had congealed into a thick pool between them.