Jonathan Franzen - The Corrections

“It’s your choice,” Gary said. “But it would mean a lot to your grandma if you came.”

“What if it’s not fun, though?”

“There’s never a guarantee that something’s going to be fun,” Gary said. “But you’ll make Grandma happy. That’s one thing I can guarantee.”

Jonah’s face clouded. “Can I think about it for an hour?”

“OK, one hour. But then we have to pack and go.”

The end of the hour found Jonah deeply immersed in God Project II . One strain of his bacteria had blinded eighty percent of Aaron’s small hoofed mammals.

“It’s OK not to go,” Caroline assured Jonah. “Your personal choice is what matters here. This is your vacation.”

Nobody will be forced to go .

“I’ll say it one more time,” Gary said. “Your grandma is really looking forward to seeing you.”

To Caroline’s face there came a desolation, a deep tearful stare, reminiscent of the troubles in September. She rose without a word and left the entertainment room.

Jonah’s answer came in a voice not much louder than a whisper: “I think I’m going to stay here.”

If it had still been September, Gary might have seen in Jonah’s decision a parable of the crisis of moral duty in a culture of consumer choice. He might have become depressed. But he’d been down that road now and he knew there was nothing for him at the end of it.

He packed his bag and kissed Caroline. “I’ll be happy when you’re back,” she said.

In a strict moral sense Gary knew he hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d never promised Enid that Jonah was coming. It was simply to spare himself an argument that he’d lied about Jonah’s fever.

Similarly, to spare Enid’s feelings, he hadn’t mentioned that in the six business days since the IPO, his five thousand shares of Axon Corporation stock, for which he’d paid $60,000, had risen in value to $118,000. Here again, he’d done nothing wrong, but given the pitiful size of Alfred’s patent-licensing fee from Axon, concealment seemed the wisest policy.

The same also went for the little package Gary had zipped into the inside pocket of his jacket.

Jets were dropping from the bright sky, happy in their metal skins, while he jockeyed through the crush of senior traffic converging at the airport. The days before Christmas were the St. Jude airport’s finest hour — its raison d’être, almost. Every garage was full and every walkway thronged.

Denise was right on time, however. Even the airlines conspired to protect her from the embarrassment of a late arrival or an inconvenienced brother. She was standing, per family custom, at a little-used gate on the departure level. Her overcoat was a crazy garnet woolen thing with pink velvet trim, and something about her head seemed different to Gary — more makeup than usual, maybe. More lipstick. Each time he’d seen Denise in the last year (most recently at Thanksgiving), she’d looked more emphatically unlike the person he’d always imagined that she would grow up to be.

When he kissed her, he smelled cigarettes.

“You’ve become a smoker,” he said, making room in the trunk for her suitcase and shopping bag.

Denise smiled. “Unlock the door, I’m freezing.”

Gary flipped open his sunglasses. Driving south into glare, he was nearly sideswiped while merging. Road aggression was encroaching in St. Jude; traffic no longer moved so sluggishly that an eastern driver could pleasurably slalom through it.

“I bet Mom’s happy Jonah’s here,” Denise said.

“As a matter of fact, Jonah is not here.”

Her head turned sharply. “You didn’t bring him?”

“He got sick.”

“I can’t believe it. You didn’t bring him!”

She seemed not to have considered, even for a moment, that he might be telling the truth.

“There are five people in my house,” Gary said. “As far as I know, there’s only one in yours. Things are more complicated when you have multiple responsibilities.”

“I’m just sorry you had to get Mom’s hopes up.”

“It’s not my fault if she chooses to live in the future.”

“You’re right,” Denise said. “It’s not your fault. I just wish it hadn’t happened.”

“Speaking of Mom,” Gary said, “I want to tell you a very weird thing. But you have to promise not to tell her.”

“What weird thing?”

“Promise you won’t tell her.”

Denise so promised, and Gary unzipped the inner pocket of his jacket and showed her the package that Bea Meisner had given him the day before. The moment had been fully bizarre: Chuck Meisner’s Jaguar in the street, idling amid cetacean puffs of winter exhaust, Bea Meisner standing on the Welcome mat in her embroidered green loden coat while she dug from her purse a seedy and much-handled little packet, Gary setting down the wrapped bottle of champagne and taking delivery of the contraband. “This is for your mother,” Bea had said. “But you must tell her that Klaus says to be very careful with this. He didn’t want to give it to me at all. He says it can be very, very addictive, which is why I only got a little bit. She wanted six months, but Klaus would only give me one. So you tell her to be sure and talk to her doctor. Maybe, Gary, you should even hold on to it until she does that. Anyway, have a wonderful Christmas”—here the Jaguar’s horn beeped—“and give our best love to everyone.”

Gary recounted this to Denise while she opened the packet. Bea had folded up a page torn from a German magazine and taped it shut. On one side of the page was a bespectacled German cow promoting ultrapasteurized milk. Inside were thirty golden pills.

“My God.” Denise laughed. “Mexican A.”

“Never heard of it,” Gary said.

“Club drug. Very young-person.”

“And Bea Meisner is delivering it to Mom at our front door.”

“Does Mom know you took it?”

“Not yet. I don’t even know what this stuff does.”

Denise reached over with her smoky fingers and put a pill near his mouth. “Try one.”

Gary jerked his head away. His sister seemed to be on some drug herself, something stronger than nicotine. She was greatly happy or greatly unhappy or a dangerous combination of the two. She was wearing silver rings on three fingers and a thumb.

“Is this a drug you’ve tried?” he said.

“No, I stick with alcohol.”

She folded up the packet and Gary took control of it again. “I want to make sure you’re with me on this,” he said. “Do you agree that Mom should not be receiving illegal addictive substances from Bea Meisner?”

“No,” Denise said. “I don’t agree. She’s an adult and she can do what she wants. And I don’t think it’s fair to take her pills without telling her. If you don’t tell her, I will.”

“Excuse me, I believe you promised not to,” Gary said.

Denise considered this. Salt-splashed embankments were flying past.

“OK, maybe I promised,” she said. “But why are you trying to run her life?”

“I think you’ll see,” he said, “that the situation is out of hand. I think you’ll see that it’s about time somebody stepped in and ran her life.”

Denise didn’t argue with him. She put on shades and looked at the towers of Hospital City on the brutal south horizon. Gary had hoped to find her more cooperative. He already had one “alternative” sibling and he didn’t need another. It frustrated him that people could so happily drop out of the world of conventional expectations; it undercut the pleasure he took in his home and job and family; it felt like a unilateral rewriting, to his disadvantage, of the rules of life. He was especially galled that the latest defector to the “alternative” was not some flaky Other from a family of Others or a class of Others but his own stylish and talented sister, who as recently as September had excelled in conventional ways that his friends could read about in the New York Times . Now she’d quit her job and was wearing four rings and a flaming coat and reeking of tobacco …