Jonathan Franzen - Freedom

“Well, you’re making her more uncomfortable.”

“I don’t think so. I think we make our own heaven and hell. If she wants to be less uncomfortable, she can sell the estate. All I’m asking for is enough money so I don’t have to work.”

“What’s wrong with working?” Patty said, hearing an echo of a similar question that Walter had once asked her. “It’s good for the self-esteem to work.”

“I can work,” Veronica said. “I’m working now. I’d just rather not. It’s boring, and they treat me like a secretary.”

“You are a secretary. You’re probably the highest-IQ secretary in New York City.”

“I just look forward to quitting, that’s all.”

“I’m sure Joyce would pay for you to go back to school and get some job more suitable for your talents.”

Veronica laughed. “My talents don’t seem to be the kind the world’s interested in. That’s why it’s better if I can exercise them by myself. I really just want to be left alone, Patty. That’s all I’m asking at this point. To be left alone. Abigail’s the one who doesn’t want Uncle Jim and Uncle Dudley to get anything. I don’t really care as long as I can pay my rent.”

“That’s not what Joyce says. She says you don’t want them getting anything, either.”

“I’m only trying to help Abigail get what she wants. She wants to start her own female comedy troupe and take it to Europe, where people will appreciate her. She wants to live in Rome and be revered .” Again the laugh. “And I’d actually be fine with that. I don’t need to see her that much. She’s nice to me, but you know the way she talks. I always end up feeling, at the end of an evening with her, like it would have been better to spend the evening alone. I like being alone. I’d rather be able to think my thoughts without being distracted.”

“So you’re tormenting Joyce because you don’t want to see so much of Abigail? Why don’t you just not see so much of Abigail?”

“Because I’ve been told that it’s not good to see no one. She’s sort of like TV playing in the background. It keeps me company.”

“But you just said you don’t even like to see her!”

“I know. It’s hard to explain. I have a friend in Brooklyn I’d probably see more of if I didn’t see so much of Abigail. That would probably be OK, too. Actually, when I think about it, I’m pretty sure it would be OK.” And Veronica laughed at the thought of this friend.

“But why shouldn’t Edgar feel the same way you do?” Patty said. “Why shouldn’t he and Galina get to keep living on the farm?”

“Probably no reason. You’re probably right. Galina is undeniably appalling, and I think Edgar knows it, I think that’s why he married her—to inflict her on us. She’s his revenge for being the only boy in the family. And I personally don’t really care as long as I don’t have to see her, but Abigail can’t get over it.”

“So basically you’re doing this all for Abigail.”

“She wants things. I don’t want things myself, but I’m happy to help her try to get them.”

“Except you do want enough money so you never have to work.”

“Yes, that would definitely be nice. I don’t like being someone’s secretary. I especially hate answering the phone.” She laughed. “I think people talk too much in general.”

Patty felt like she was dealing with a huge ball of Bazooka that she couldn’t get ungummed from her fingers; the strands of Veronica’s logic were boundlessly elastic and adhered not only to Patty but to themselves.

Later, as she rode the train back out of the city, she was struck, as never before, by how much better off and more successful her parents were than any of their children, herself included, and how odd it was that none of the kids had inherited one speck of the sense of social responsibility that had motivated Joyce and Ray all their lives. She knew that Joyce felt guilty about it, especially about poor Veronica, but she also knew that it must have been a terrible blow to Joyce’s ego to have such unflattering children, and that Joyce probably blamed Ray’s genes, the curse of old August Emerson, for her kids’ weirdness and ineffectuality. It occurred to Patty, then, that Joyce’s political career hadn’t just caused or aggravated her family’s problems: it had also been her escape from those problems. In retrospect, Patty saw something poignant or even admirable in Joyce’s determination to absent herself, to be a politician and do good in the world, and thereby save herself. And, as somebody who’d likewise taken extreme steps to save herself, Patty could see that Joyce wasn’t just lucky to have a daughter like her: that she was also lucky to have had a mother like Joyce.

There was still one big thing she didn’t understand, though, and when Joyce returned from Albany the following afternoon, full of anger at the senate Republicans who were paralyzing the state government (Ray, alas, no longer being around to rag Joyce about the Democrats’ own role in the paralysis), Patty was waiting in the kitchen with a question for her. She asked it as soon as Joyce had taken off her raincoat: “Why did you never go to any of my basketball games?”

“You’re right,” Joyce said immediately, as if she’d been expecting the question for thirty years. “You’re right, you’re right, you’re right. I should have gone to more of your games.”

“So why didn’t you?”

Joyce reflected for a moment. “I can’t really explain it,” she said, “except to say that we had so many things going on, we couldn’t get to everything. We made mistakes as parents. You’ve probably made some yourself now. You can probably understand how confused everything gets, and how busy. What a struggle it is to get to everything.”

“Here’s the thing, though,” Patty said. “You did have time for other things. It was specifically my games that you weren’t going to. And I’m not talking about every game, I’m talking about any games.”

“Oh, why are you bringing this up now? I said I was sorry I made a mistake.”

“I’m not blaming you,” Patty said. “I’m asking because I was really good at basketball. I was really, really good. I’ve probably made more mistakes as a mother than you did, so this is not a criticism. I’m just thinking, it would have made you happy to see how good I was. To see how talented I was. It would have made you feel good about yourself.”

Joyce looked away. “I suppose I was never one for sports.”

“But you went to Edgar’s fencing meets.”

“Not many.”

“More than you went to my games. And it’s not like you liked fencing so much. And it’s not like Edgar was any good.”

Joyce, whose self-control was ordinarily perfect, went to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of white wine that Patty had nearly killed the night before. She poured the remainder in a juice glass, drank half of it, laughed at herself, and drank the other half.

“I don’t know why your sisters aren’t doing better,” she said, in an apparent non sequitur. “But Abigail said an interesting thing to me once. A terrible thing, which still tears me up. I shouldn’t tell you, but somehow I trust you not to talk about these things. Abigail was very . . . inebriated. This was a long time ago, when she was still trying to be a stage actress. There was an excellent role that she’d thought she was going to be cast in, but hadn’t been. And I tried to encourage her, and tell her I believed in her talents, and she just had to keep trying. And she said the most terrible thing to me. She said that I was the reason she’d failed. I who had been nothing, nothing, nothing but supportive. But that’s what she said.”