Richard Ford - A Multitude of Sins

“That’s a rocket ship ready to blast off to outer space. Would you girls like to hitch a ride on it?” Roger, the brother-in-law, says to his daughters. Roger is the friendly-funny neighbor in a family sitcom, although not that funny. He is small and blandly handsome and wears a brush cut and black horn-rimmed glasses. And he is loathsome — though in subtle ways, like some TV actors Faith has known. He is also thirty-seven and prefers pastel cardigans and Hush Puppies. Daisy has been very, very unfaithful to him.

“It is not a rocket ship,” says Jane, the older child, putting her forehead to the foggy window, then pulling back to consider the smudge mark she’s left.

“It’s a pickle,” Marjorie says.

“And shut up,” Jane says. “That’s a nasty expression.”

“No it’s not,” Marjorie says.

“Is that a word your mother taught you?” Roger asks and smirks. He is in the back seat with them. “I bet it is. That’s her legacy. Pickle.” On the cover of Skier is a photograph of Hermann Maier, wearing an electric red outfit, slaloming down Mount Everest. The headline says, GOING TO EXTREMES.

“It better not be,” Faith’s mother says from behind the wheel. She has her seat pushed way back to accommodate her stomach.

“Okay. Two more guesses,” Roger says.

“It’s an atom plant where they make electricity,” Faith says, and smiles back at the nieces, who are staring out at the smokestacks, losing interest. “We use it to heat our houses.”

“But we don’t like them,” Esther says. Esther’s been green since before it was chic.

“Why?” Jane says.

“Because they threaten our precious environment, that’s why,” Esther answers.

“What’s ‘our precious environment’?” Jane says insincerely.

“The air we breathe, the ground we stand on, the water we drink.” Once Esther taught eighth-grade science, but not in years.

“Don’t you girls learn anything in school?” Roger is flipping pages in his Skier . For some mysterious reason, Faith has noticed, Roger is quite tanned.

“Their father could always instruct them,” Esther says. “He’s in education.”

“Guidance,” Roger says. “But touché.”

“What’s touché?” Jane says, wrinkling her nose.

“It’s a term used in fencing,” Faith says. She likes both girls immensely, and would happily punish Roger for speaking to them with sarcasm.

“What’s fencing,” Marjorie asks.

“It’s a town in Michigan where they make fences,” Roger says. “Fencing, Michigan. It’s near Lansing.”

“No it’s not,” Faith says.

“Well then, you tell them,” Roger says. “You know everything. You’re the lawyer.”

“It’s a game you play with swords,” Faith says. “Only no one gets killed. It’s fun.” In every respect, she despises Roger and wishes he’d stayed in Sandusky. But she couldn’t ask the little girls without him. Letting her pay for everything is Roger’s way of saying thanks.

“So. There you are, little girls. You heard it here first,” Roger says in a nice-nasty voice, continuing to read. “All your lives now you’ll remember where you heard fencing explained first and by whom. When you’re at Harvard …”

“You didn’t know,” Jane says.

“That’s wrong. I did know. I absolutely knew,” Roger says. “I was just having some fun. Christmas is a fun time, don’t you know?”

Faith’s love life has not been going well. She has always wanted children-with-marriage, but neither of these things has quite happened. Either the men she’s liked haven’t liked children, or else the men who loved her and wanted to give her all she longed for haven’t seemed worth it. Practicing law for a movie studio has therefore become very engrossing. Time has gone by. A series of mostly courteous men has entered but then departed — all for one reason or another unworkable: married, frightened, divorced, all three together. “Lucky” is how she has chiefly seen herself. She goes to the gym every day, drives an expensive car, lives alone in Venice Beach in a rental owned by a teenage movie star who is a friend’s brother and who has HIV. A deal.

Late last spring she met a man. A stock market hotsytotsy with a house on Nantucket. Jack. Jack flew to Nantucket from the city in his own plane, had never been married at age roughly forty-six. She came east a few times and flew up with him, met his stern-looking sisters, the pretty, socialite mom. There was a big blue rambling beach house facing the sea, with rose hedges, sandy pathways to secret dunes where you could swim naked — something she especially enjoyed, though the sisters were astounded. The father was there, but was sick and would soon die, so life and plans were generally on hold. Jack did beaucoup business in London. Money was not a problem. Maybe when the father departed they could be married, Jack had almost suggested. But until then, she could travel with him whenever she could get away — scale back a little on the expectation side. He wanted children, could get to California often. It could work.

One night a woman called. Greta, she said her name was. Greta was in love with Jack. She and Jack had had a fight, but he still loved her, she said. It turned out Greta had pictures of Faith and Jack together. Who knew who took them? A little bird. One was a picture of Faith and Jack exiting Jack’s building on Beekman Place. Another was of Jack helping Faith out of a yellow taxi. One was of Faith, alone, at the Park Avenue Café eating seared swordfish. One was of Jack and Faith kissing in the front seat of an unrecognizable car — also in New York.

Jack liked particular kinds of sex in very particular kinds of ways, Greta said on the phone. She guessed Faith knew all about that by now. But “best not make long-range plans” was somehow the message. Other calls were placed, messages left on her voice mail, prints arrived by FedEx.

When asked, Jack conceded there was a problem. But he would solve it, tout de suite (though she needed to understand he was preoccupied with his father’s approaching death). Jack was a tall, smooth-faced, handsome man with a shock of lustrous, mahogany-colored hair. Like a clothing model. He smiled and everyone felt better. He’d gone to public high school, Harvard, played squash, rowed, debated, looked good in a brown suit and oldish shoes. He was trustworthy. It still seemed workable.

But Greta called more times. She sent pictures of herself and Jack together. Recent pictures, since Faith had come on board. It was harder than he’d imagined to get untangled, Jack admitted. Faith would need to be patient. Greta was, after all, someone he’d once “cared about very much.” Might’ve even married. Didn’t wish to hurt. She had problems, yes. But he wouldn’t just throw her over. He wasn’t that kind of man, something she, Faith, would be glad about in the long run. Meanwhile, there was the sick patriarch. And his mother. And the sisters. That had been plenty.

Snow Mountain Highlands is a smaller ski resort, but nice. Family, not flash. Faith’s mother found it as a “Holiday Getaway” in the Erie Weekly . The package includes a condo, weekend lift tickets, and coupons for three days of Swedish smorgasbord in the Bavarian-style lodge. The deal, however, is for two people only. The rest have to pay. Faith will sleep with her mother in the “Master Suite.” Roger can share the twin with the girls.

Two years ago, when sister Daisy began to take an interest in Vince, the biker, Roger simply “receded.” Her and Roger’s sex life had long ago lost its effervescence, Daisy confided. They had started off well enough as a model couple in a suburb of Sandusky, but eventually — after some years and two kids — happiness ended and Daisy had been won over by Vince, who liked amphetamines and more importantly sold them. Vince’s arrival was when sex had gotten really good, Daisy said. Faith believes Daisy envied her movie connections and movie lifestyle and the Jaguar convertible, and basically threw her own life away (at least until rehab) as a way of simulating Faith’s, only with a biker. Eventually Daisy left home and gained forty-five pounds on a body that was already voluptuous, if short. Last summer, at the beach at Middle Bass, Daisy in a rage actually punched Faith in the chest when she suggested that Daisy might lose some weight, ditch Vince and consider coming home to her family. Not a diplomatic suggestion, she later decided. “I’m not like you,” Daisy screamed, right out on the sandy beach. “I fuck for pleasure. Not for business.” Then she waddled into the tepid surf of Lake Erie, wearing a pink one-piece that boasted a frilly skirtlet. By then, Roger had the girls, courtesy of a court order.