Jonathan Franzen - Freedom

“Don’t be.”

“I can’t help it.”

“You have no reason to be.”

This was what she hadn’t wanted to hear. “I’m having this one glass,” she said.

“You’ve mistaken me for somebody who gives a shit how much you drink.”

She nodded. “OK. Good. That helps to know.”

“You’ve been wanting a drink this whole time? Jesus. Have a drink.”

“Doing just that.”

“You know, you’re a very strange person. I mean that as a compliment.”

“So taken.”

“Walter got very, very lucky.”

“Ho, well, that’s the unfortunate thing, isn’t it. I’m not sure he sees it that way anymore.”

“Oh, he does. Believe me, he does.”

She shook her head. “I was going to say that I don’t think he likes the things that are strange about me. He likes the good strange all right, but he’s none too happy about the bad strange, and the bad strange is mostly what he gets these days. I was going to say that it’s ironic that you , who don’t seem to mind the bad strange, are not the person I’m married to.”

“You wouldn’t want to be married to me.”

“No, I’m sure it would be very bad. I’ve heard the stories.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, though not surprised.”

“Walter tells me everything.”

“I’m sure he does.”

Out on the lake a duck was quacking about something. Mallards nested in the reedy far corner of it.

“Did Walter ever tell you I slashed Blake’s snow tires?” Patty said.

Richard raised his eyebrows, and she told him the story.

“That’s really fucked up,” he said admiringly, when she’d finished.

“I know. Isn’t it?”

“Does Walter know this?”

“Um. Good question.”

“I take it you don’t tell him everything.”

“Oh, God, Richard, I don’t tell him anything.”

“You really could, I think. You might find he knows a lot more than you think he does.”

She took a deep breath and asked what kinds of secret things Walter knew about her.

“He knows you’re not happy,” Richard said.

“I really don’t think that requires great powers of discernment. What else?”

“He knows you blame him for Joey moving out of the house.”

“Oh, that,” she said. “That I have more or less told him. That doesn’t really count.”

“OK. So why don’t you tell me. Besides the fact that you’re a tireslasher, what does he not know about you?”

When Patty considered this question, all she could see was the great emptiness of her life, the emptiness of her nest, the pointlessness of her existence now that the kids had flown. The sherry had made her sad. “Why don’t you sing me a song while I get dinner on the table. Will you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Richard said. “Feels a little weird.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Just feels weird.”

“You’re a singer. That’s what you do. You sing.”

“I guess I’ve never had the sense that you particularly like what I sing.”

“Sing me ‘Dark Side of the Bar.’ I love that song.”

He sighed and bowed his head and crossed his arms and seemed to fall asleep.

“What?” she said.

“I think I’m going to leave tomorrow, if that’s all right with you.”

“OK.”

“There’s not more than two days’ work left. The deck’s already usable as is.”

“OK.” She stood up and put the sherry glass in the sink. “Can I ask why, though? I mean, it’s really nice having you here.”

“It’s just better if I go.”

“OK. Whatever’s best. I think it’s another ten minutes with the chicken, if you want to set the table for us.”

He didn’t stir from the table.

“Molly wrote that song,” he said, after a while. “I really had no business recording it. It was a very schmucky thing of me to do. Deliberate, calculated schmuckiness on my part.”

“It’s really sad and pretty. What were you supposed to do? Not use it?”

“Basically, yeah. Not use it. That would have been the nice thing.”

“I’m sorry about the two of you. You guys were together a long time.”

“We were and we weren’t.”

“Right, I know that, but still.”

He sat brooding while she set the table, tossed the salad, and carved the chicken. She hadn’t thought she would have any appetite, but once she took a bite of chicken she remembered that she hadn’t eaten a thing since the evening before, and that her day had started at five in the morning. Richard also ate, silently. At a certain point, their silence became remarkable and thrilling, and then, a while after that, exhausting and discouraging. She cleared the table, put away the leftovers, washed the dishes, and saw that Richard had removed himself to the little screen porch to smoke cigarettes. The sun was finally gone, but the sky was still bright. Yes, she thought, it was better if he left. Better, better, better.

She went out on the screen porch. “Thinking of going to bed now and doing some reading,” she said.

Richard nodded. “Sounds good. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“The evenings are so long,” she said. “The light just doesn’t want to die.”

“This has been a great place to be. You guys are very generous.”

“Oh, that’s all Walter. It didn’t actually occur to me to offer it to you.”

“He trusts you,” Richard said. “If you trust him, everything will be fine.”

“Oh, well, maybe, maybe not.”

“Do you not want to be with him?”

It was a good question.

“I don’t want to lose him,” she said, “if that’s what you mean. I don’t spend my time thinking about leaving him. I’m kind of counting the days till Joey finally gets sick of the Monaghans. He’s still got a full year of high school.”

“Not sure exactly what the point of that is.”

“Just that I’m still committed to my family.”

“Good. It’s a great family.”

“Right, so I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Patty.” He put out his cigarette in the commemorative Danish Christmas bowl of Dorothy’s that he was using as an ashtray. “I’m not going to be the person who wrecks my best friend’s marriage.”

“No! God! Of course not!” She was nearly weeping with disappointment. “I mean, really, Richard, I’m sorry, but what did I say? I said I’m going to bed and I’ll see you in the morning. That’s all I said! I said I care about my family. That’s exactly what I said.”

He gave her a very impatient and skeptical look.

“Seriously!”

“OK, sure,” he said. “I didn’t mean to presume anything. I was just trying to figure out the tension here. You may recall we had a conversation like this once before.”

“I do recall that, yes.”

“So I thought it was better to mention it than not mention it.”

“That’s fine. I appreciate it. You’re a really good friend. And you shouldn’t feel you have to leave tomorrow on my account. Nothing to be afraid of here. No reason to run away.”

“Thanks. I might leave anyway, though.”

“That’s fine.”

And she went inside to Dorothy’s bed, which Richard had been using until she and Walter arrived to kick him out of it. Cool air was coming out of the places where it had hidden during the long day, but blue twilight was persisting in every window. It was dream light, insane light, it refused to go away. She turned a lamp on to diminish it. The resistance fighters had been exposed! The jig was up! She lay in her flannel pajamas and replayed everything she’d said in the last hours and was appalled by nearly all of it. She heard the toilet’s tuneful resonance as Richard emptied his bladder into it, and then the flush, and the tuneful water in the pipes, and the water pump laboring briefly in a lower voice. For sheer respite from herself, she picked up War and Peace and read for a long time.