went, Evangeline’s eyes falling upon chewing gum wedged in the cracks of the sidewalk, briefcases
and shopping bags and the endlessly shifting movement of people rushing to lunch dates, meetings,
and appointments—the frantic existence so different from the quiet life she and her father shared.
They had come to America when Evangeline was seven years old. Unlike her father, who struggled
to express himself in English, she learned their new language quickly, drinking in the sounds of
English, acquiring an American accent with little difficulty. Her first-grade teacher had helped her
with the dreaded th, a sound that congealed upon Evangeline’s tongue like a drop of oil, impeding her
ability to communicate her thoughts. She repeated the words “this,” “the,” “that,” and “them” over and
over until she said them properly. Once this difficulty had disappeared, her pronunciation rang as
clear and perfect as that of children born in America. When they were alone, she and her father spoke
in Italian, her father’s native language, or French, her mother’s, as if they were still living in Europe.
Soon, however, Evangeline began to crave English as one craves food or love. In public she returned
her father’s melodic Italian words with new, flawlessly articulated English.
As a child, Evangeline had not realized that their trips to Manhattan, taken many times a month,
were more than pleasurable excursions. Her father said nothing of their purpose, only promising to
take her to the carousel in Central Park, or to their favorite diner, or to the Museum of Natural
History, where she would marvel at the enormous whale suspended from the ceiling, catching her
breath as she examined the exposed underbelly. Although these day trips were adventures to
Evangeline, she realized as she got older that the real purpose for their journeys to the city revolved
around meetings between her father and his contacts—an exchange of documents in Central Park, or a
whispered conversation in a bar near Wall Street, or lunch with a table of foreign diplomats, all of
them speaking in rapid, unintelligible languages as they poured wine and traded information. As a
child, she had not understood her father’s work or his growing dependence upon it after her mother
died. Evangeline simply believed that he brought her to Manhattan as a gift.
This illusion fractured one afternoon the year she was nine years old. The day was brilliantly
sunny, with the first sharpness of winter woven into the wind. Instead of walking to an agreed-upon
destination, as they normally did, they had walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, her father leading her
silently past the thick metal cables. In the distance, sunlight slid over the skyscrapers of Manhattan.
They walked for miles, finally stopping at Washington Square Park, where her father insisted they
rest for a moment on a bench. Her father’s behavior struck Evangeline as extremely odd that
afternoon. He was visibly edgy, and his hands shook as he lit a cigarette. She knew him well enough
to understand that the slightest nervous reflex—the twitch of a finger or his trembling lips—revealed
a well of hidden anxiety. Evangeline knew that something was wrong, and yet she said nothing.
Her father had been handsome as a young man. In pictures from Europe, his dark curly hair fell
over one eye, and he wore impeccable, finely tailored clothing. But that afternoon, sitting there
shaking on a bench in the park, he seemed to have become, all at once, old and tired. Taking a square
of cloth from his trouser pocket, he dabbed sweat off his forehead. Still she remained silent. If she
had spoken, it would have broken an implicit agreement between them, a silent communication that
they had developed after her mother had died. That was their way—a tacit respect of their mutual
loneliness. He would never tell her the truth about what worried him. He did not confide in her.
Perhaps it was her father’s strange condition that made her pay particular attention to the details of
that afternoon, or perhaps the magnitude of what happened that day had caused her to relive it time
and time again, searing the events into her memory, because Evangeline could recall each moment,
each and every word and gesture, even the smallest shift in her feelings, as if she were still there.
“Come,” her father said, tucking the pocket square into his jacket and standing suddenly, as if they
were late for an appointment.
Leaves crunched under Evangeline’s patent-leather Mary Janes—her father insisted that she dress
in the fashion he felt appropriate for a young girl, which left her with a wardrobe of starched cotton
pinafores, pressed skirts, tailored blazers, and expensive shoes shipped to them from Italy, clothes