“What are you saying?” he asked, his voice angry and low.
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Just that I didn’t see any harm in going swimming.”
“You put them in danger.”
“Danger?” she sputtered. “From swimming?”
Phillip said nothing, just glared at her.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said dismissively. “It would only have been dangerous if I couldn’t swim.”
“I don’t care ifyoucan swim,” he bit off. “I only care that my children can’t.”
She blinked. Several times. “Yes, they can,” she said. “In fact, they’re both quite proficient. I’d assumed you’d taught them.”
“What are you talking about?”
Her head tilted slightly, perhaps out of concern, perhaps out of curiosity. “Didn’t you know they could swim?”
For a moment, Phillip felt as if he couldn’t breathe. His lungs tightened and his skin prickled, and his body seemed to freeze into a hard, cold statue.
It was awful.
Hewas awful.
Somehow this moment seemed to crystallize all of his failings. It wasn’t that his children could swim, it was that he hadn’tknownthey could swim. How could a father not know such a thing about his own children?
A father ought to know if his children could ride a horse. He ought to know if they could read and count to one hundred.
And for the love of God, he ought to know if they could swim.
“I—” he said, his voice giving out after a single word. “I—”
She took a step forward, whispering, “Are you all right?”
He nodded, or at least he thought he nodded. Her voice was ringing in his head—Yes they can yes they can they can they can—and it didn’t even matter what she was saying. It had been the tone. Surprise, and maybe even a hint of disdain.
And he hadn’tknown.
His children were growing and changing and he didn’t know them. He saw them, he recognized them, but he didn’t know who they were.
He felt himself take a gasp of air. He didn’t know what their favorite colors were.
Pink? Blue? Green?
Did it matter, or did it only matter that he didn’t know?
He was, in his own way, every bit as awful a father as his own had been. Thomas Crane may have beaten his children to within an inch of their lives, but at least he knew what they were up to. Phillip ignored and avoided and pretended—anything to keep his distance and avoid losing his temper. Anything to stop him from becoming his father all over again.
Except maybe distance wasn’t always such a good thing.
“Phillip?” Eloise whispered, laying a hand on his arm. “Is something the matter?”
He stared at her, but he still felt blinded, and his eyes couldn’t seem to focus.
“I think you should go home,” she said, slowly and carefully. “You don’t look well.”
“I’m—” He meant to sayI’m fine,but the words didn’t quite come out. Because he wasn’t fine, and he wasn’t good, and these days he wasn’t even sure what he was.
