The man looked up. He stared at her for a second.
“Zoe?”
She ran to him and almost jumped into his arms. They held on to each other for a long time, neither of them speaking, just holding each other. A moment earlier she’d been lost in a strange city, and now she left like her heart could burst from joy.
Finally, her father stepped back a little and looked at her. “What are you doing here?” He froze, the color draining from his face. “You’re not. .?”
Zoe shook her head. “No. I’m not dead. I just needed to see you.”
Her father pulled her to him again. “It’s wonderful to see you, but you shouldn’t be here.”
Zoe pushed him away, but held on to his sleeve. “Dad! Don’t say that! Don’t say you don’t want to see me?”
He put his hand on her cheek. “It’s wonderful to see you. But you still shouldn’t have come here.”
Zoe pushed her father harder this time and stepped back. “Why do you keep saying that?” she yelled, not caring if anyone heard her. Tears welled up in her eyes. “What did I do wrong? Why did you have to go? Do you blame me and Mom?”
Her father took a step toward her, but Zoe took another step back. He stayed where he was and said, “Baby, I would never leave you and your mother if I could help it. But I died, and the dead can’t live in your world.”
Zoe nodded, hugging her arms across her chest. “One minute you were there and then you were just gone.”
“I miss you both. And I’m mad, too, you know. I was taken away from the only people I ever really loved.”
“I used this weird machine. I saw your life from inside your head,” she said. “You were so unhappy working all the time. It felt like you wanted to go.”
“Not for a second,” said her father. He put his hands on Zoe’s shoulders. “Yeah, I was unhappy with the way things were, but that was about bad choices. Work and money and things. It was never about you or your mom. Your mom and I were already talking about me working less and her working more, trying to find a little more balance for all of us.”
“Really? You swear?”
“I’d never lie to you.” Zoe’s father put his arms around her and she let him. Zoe cried against his chest and this time the tears didn’t feel like they were being torn out of her.
After a few minutes, her father asked, “What do you think of my new home?”
Zoe looked around. “What is this place? Heaven?”
Her father laughed. “That’s everyone’s first question.”
“It’s not hell, is it?”
“That’s everyone’s second question,” he said. “We’re in a place called Iphigene. It’s a kind of way station. A place where you spend time before moving on.”
“How long do you have to stay here?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it varies. A lot of things are like that here. You kind of feel your way along. Not much is written down,” he said. He grew quieter, more thoughtful. “I think you have to figure out the rules for yourself. Iphigene is kind like a video game, you know? What do you need right now, the golden key or the flaming sword? When you figure that out, you get on a bus and move on to the next level.”
“Iphigene,” said Zoe. “It reminds me of Coney Island. Kind of old and messed up, but in a cool way. Can we look around?”
Her father nodded. “Let me give you the tour.” As they crossed the street, he took her hand. Zoe smiled, feeling about six again.
They walked back to the corner where the bus had dropped her off. There was an open-air newsstand with a dark green awning. They sold magazines and newspapers in what looked like a hundred languages. A clothing store, with mannequins modeling different coats, stood next to it. Farther along was a movie theater with an old marquee where the name of the movie was announced with removable plastic letters: JEAN COCTEAU’S ORPHÉE. At the end of the block was a bar with a big picture window looking out over the ocean and a crescent moon on the door, where people talked and laughed in the semidark.
“Look at all the restaurants,” she said as they crossed to the next block. “Do you eat here?”
“Some do,” said her father. “I think it’s another choice. I haven’t eaten a bite and I’ve never been hungry. Some souls never leave the restaurants. They just eat and eat. I guess it’s comforting. Some don’t seem to know they’re dead. Hell, I wasn’t sure at first. But you learn.”
Zoe stopped walking and hugged him. “I hate that you’re dead,” she said. “Everything’s wrong. Nothing works. My life sucks.”
“I’m so sorry. I wish I was with you. But your mother will take care of you. She’s strong.”
Zoe let out a harsh laugh. “She can’t do anything. We lost the house. We live in a shitty little apartment. I don’t have any friends. Mom just cries all the time.”
They sat down on a bench and looked out at the calm, black sea. “Your mother is the strongest person I know. She might be upset now, but if you can help her, you’ll both get through this okay.”
“But everything is such shit.”
“And everything is going to be shit for a while,” he said. “That’s what happens when you lose someone you love. Then, one day, weeks or months from now, things aren’t quite so shitty. Then, little by little, they start to get better. Eventually, you’ll get back to who you really are, and what your life is supposed to be.” He sighed. “But for a while, things are just going to be rotten and it helps to have someone to help you through it. You and your mother can do that for each other.”
Zoe nodded. She sat back and laid her head on her father’s shoulder. He said, “When you two aren’t fighting, what’s your mom doing with herself?”
“She’s trying to find a job, but it’s been so long. It’s really hard for her.”
He shook his head. “So many stupid choices,” he said. “That’s another lousy part about being dead. You can see your whole life laid out in front of you. Every stupid, mean, and pointless thing you ever did. Me working all the time and your mother not working was a terrible idea.”
“Mom did all this art before.”
“She stopped a little while before you were born so she could be a stay-at-home mom,” he said. “We wanted you to have a kind of home neither of us had.” He fell silent for a minute. Zoe sat up and looked at him. He was frowning. Deep lines creased his forehead, and crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes darkened his expression.
“You know, it could have been me who stayed home,” he said. “I wouldn’t have minded being a house husband. But I’d played with computers and was good at it, so when a friend started his own company, a job just landed in my lap. And your mom ended up being the one who stayed home.”
“That’s funny. I thought what you did, working all the time, was the sacrifice.”
He laughed at that. “Did you see any of the album covers your mom designed? She had a really savage talent,” he said. Zoe could hear the pride in his voice. “She’d stroll into the offices of these little labels and all the tough-guy wannabe artists would try to intimidate her. She’d just stare ’em down.”
“I remember,” Zoe said. “Some of those old covers were really good.”
“If I’d worked less I could have spent more time with you, and let your mom do more of her own art.” He shrugged. “But I didn’t. That’s one of my biggest regrets.”
The sun was getting lower, burning a deeper, redder shade of orange as it slid toward the horizon. Below them on the beach, the amusement park was lit up like a birthday cake.
“Let’s go on the carousel,” her father said. He took her hand and they ran across the street, down a wooden staircase, and across the light, clean sand to the park.
There weren’t many people on the rides, and no ticket sellers. No one was in charge to tell them to stay behind the yellow line or to wait until the ride stopped, so they both leaped onto the carousel while it was still turning. Zoe chose a white stallion, trimmed in gold and crimson. Her father chose a snarling sea serpent, painted in lurid pinks and purples. After the carousel, they rode the spinning teacups and then the Ferris wheel. At the top of the wheel, Zoe could see Iphigene laid out below her. Behind the long street that ran along the ocean, row upon
