Jonathan Franzen - The Corrections

Denise laughed with relief. “Poor Mom. She wanted this cruise so badly.”

“Well, I’m afraid her cruising days with Dad are over.”

The doorbell rang again. Immediately there was a pounding on the door as well, a pounding and a kicking.

“Gary, hang on one second.”

“What’s going on?”

“Let me call you right back.”

The doorbell rang so long and hard it changed its tone, went flat and a little hoarse. She opened the door to a trembling mouth and eyes bright with hatred.

“Get out of my way,” Robin said, “because I don’t want to touch any part of you.”

“I made a really bad mistake last night.”

“ Get out of my way! ”

Denise stood aside, and Robin headed up the stairs. Denise sat in the only chair in her penitential living room and listened to the shouting. She was struck by how seldom in her childhood her parents, that other married couple in her life, that other incompatible pair, had shouted at each other. They’d held their peace and let the proxy war unfold inside their daughter’s head.

Whenever she was with Brian she would pine for Robin’s body and sincerity and good works and be repelled by Brian’s smug coolness, and whenever she was with Robin she would pine for Brian’s good taste and like-mindedness and wish that Robin would notice how sensational she looked in black cashmere.

Easy for you guys , she thought. You can split in two .

The shouting stopped. Robin came running down the stairs and went on out the front door without slowing.

Brian followed a few minutes later. Denise had expected Robin’s disapproval and could handle it, but from Brian she was hoping for a word of understanding.

“You’re fired,” he said.

FROM: Denise3@cheapnet.com

TO: exprof@gaddisfly.com

SUBJECT: Let’s maybe try a little harder next time

Lovely to see you on Saturday. I really appreciated your effort to hurry back and help me out.

Since then, Dad’s fallen off the cruise ship and been pulled out of icy water with a broken arm, a dislocated shoulder, a detached retina, short-term memory loss, and possibly a mild stroke, he and Mom have been helicoptered to New Brunswick, I’ve been fired from the best job I may ever have, and Gary and I have learned about a new medical technology that I feel certain you would agree is horrifying and dystopic and malignant except that it’s good for Parkinson’s and can maybe help Dad.

Other than that, not much to report.

Hope all’s well wherever the fuck you are. Julia says Lithuania and expects me to believe it.

FROM: exprof@gaddisfly.com

TO: Denise3@cheapnet.com

SUBJECT: Re: “Let’s maybe try a little harder next time”

Business opportunity in Lithuania. Julia’s husband, Gitanas, is paying me to produce a profit-making website. It’s actually a lot of fun and not unlucrative.

All your favorite high-school groups are on the radio here. Smiths, New Order, Billy Idol. A blast from the past. I saw an old man kill a horse with a shotgun on a street near the airport. I’d been on Baltic soil for maybe fifteen minutes. Welcome to Lithuania!

Talked to Mom this morning, got the whole story, made my apologies, so don’t worry about that.

I’m sorry about your job. To be honest, I’m stunned. I can’t believe anyone would fire you.

Where are you working now?

FROM: Denise3@cheapnet.com

TO: exprof@gaddisfly.com

SUBJECT: Holiday responsibilities

Mom says you won’t commit to coming home for Christmas, and she expects me to believe it. But I’m thinking no way could you talk to a woman who’s just had the highlight of her year truncated by an accident, and who otherwise has a shitty life with a semi-disabled man, and who hasn’t gotten to be at home for Christmas since like Dan Quayle’s vice presidency, and who *survives* by looking forward to things, and who loves Christmas the way other people love sex, and who’s seen you for all of forty-five minutes in the last three years: I’m thinking no way could you have told this woman, nope, sorry, staying in Vilnius.

(Vilnius!)

Mom must have misunderstood you. Please clarify.

Since you ask, I’m not working anywhere. Subbing a little at Mare Scuro but otherwise sleeping until two in the afternoon. If this continues, I may have to do some therapeutic thing of the sort that will horrify you. Got to regain my appetite for shopping and other non-free consumer pleasures.

The last thing I heard about Gitanas Misevicious was that he’d given Julia two black eyes. But whatever.

FROM: exprof@gaddisfly.com

TO: Denise3@cheapnet.com

SUBJECT: Re: “Holiday responsibilities”

I intend to get to St. Jude as soon as I make some money. Maybe even by Dad’s birthday. But Christmas is hell, you know that. There’s no worse time. You can tell Mom I’ll come early in the new year.

Mom says that Caroline and the boys will be in St. Jude for Christmas. Can this be true?

Don’t not take a psychotropic on my account.

FROM: Denise3@cheapnet.com

TO: exprof@gaddisfly.com

SUBJECT: “The only thing I hurt was my dignity”

Nice try, but no, sorry, I insist that you come for Christmas.

I’ve been talking to Axon, and the plan is to give Dad six months of Corecktall beginning right after New Year’s, and to let him and Mom stay with me while that’s going on. (Helpfully, my life is in ruins, so it’s easy to make myself available.) The only way this scenario won’t happen is if Axon’s medical staff decides that Dad has non-drug-related dementia. He admittedly seemed pretty shaky when he was in New York, but he’s been sounding good on the phone. “All I hurt when I fell was my dignity,” etc. They took the cast off his arm a week early.

Anyway, he’s probably going to be with me in Philly for his birthday, and for the rest of the winter and spring too, and so Christmas is the time for you to come to St. Jude, and so please don’t argue with me anymore, just do it.

I eagerly (but with confidence) await confirmation that you will be there.

P.S. Caroline, Aaron, and Caleb are not coming. Gary’s coming with Jonah and flying back to Philly at noon on the 25th.

P.P.S. Don’t worry, I say NO to drugs.

FROM: exprof@gaddisfly.com

TO: Denise3@cheapnet.com

SUBJECT: Re: “The only thing I hurt was my dignity”

I saw a man shot six times in the stomach last night. A paid hit in a club called Musmiryte. It had nothing to do with us, but I wasn’t happy to see it.

It’s not clear to me why I’m required to come to St. Jude on some specific date. If Mom and Dad were my children, whom I’d created out of nothing without asking their permission, I could understand being responsible for them. Parents have an overwhelming Darwinian hardwired genetic stake in their children’s welfare. But children, it seems to me, have no corresponding debt to their parents.

Basically, I have very little to say to these people. And I don’t think they want to hear what I do have to say.

Why don’t I plan to see them when they’re in Philadelphia? That sounds more fun anyway. That way all nine of us can get together, instead of just six of us.

FROM: Denise3@cheapnet.com

TO: exprof@gaddisfly.com

SUBJECT: A serious flaming from your pissed-off sister

My god you sound self-pitying.

I’m saying come for MY sake. For MY sake. And also for YOUR OWN sake, because I’m sure it’s very cool and interesting and adult-feeling to watch somebody get shot in the stomach, but you only have two parents, and if you miss your time with them now you won’t get another chance.

I’ll admit it: I’m a mess.

I will tell you — because I want to tell someone — even though you never told me why YOU got fired — that I was fired for sleeping with my boss’s wife.