Jonathan Franzen - Freedom

“I said I would call her tomorrow.”

“Do you honestly think you can use my daughter as a sex buddy for four years and then just walk away when it suits you? Is that really what you think? She was a child when you started having relations with her.”

Joey thought of the momentous day in his old tree fort when Connie had rubbed the crotch of her cutoff shorts and then taken his somewhat smaller hand and shown him where to touch her: how little persuading he’d required. “I was a child, too, of course,” he said.

“Hon, you were never a child,” Carol said. “You were always so cool and self-possessed. Don’t think I didn’t know you when you were a little baby. You never even cried! I never saw anything like it in my whole life. You wouldn’t even cry when you stubbed your toe. Your face would wrinkle up but you wouldn’t make a peep.”

“No, I cried. I definitely remember crying.”

“You used her, you used me, you used Blake. And now you think you can just turn your back on us and walk away? You think that’s how the world works? You think we’re all just here for your personal pleasure?”

“I’ll try to get her to see a doctor for a prescription. But, Carol, you know, this is a really strange conversation we’re having. Not a good kind of conversation.”

“Well, you better get used to it, because we’re going to be having it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day after that, until I hear you’re coming for Thanksgiving.”

“I’m not coming for Thanksgiving.”

“Well, then, you better get used to hearing from me.”

After the library closed, he went out into the chilly night and sat on a bench outside his dorm, caressing his phone and trying to think of somebody to call. In St. Paul he’d made it clear to all his friends that his thing with Connie was off-limits conversationally, and in Virginia he’d kept it a secret. Almost everybody in his dorm communicated with their parents daily, if not hourly, and although this did make him feel unexpectedly grateful to his own parents, who had been far cooler and more respectful of his wishes than he’d been able to appreciate as long as he lived next door to them, it also touched off something like a panic. He’d asked for his freedom, they’d granted it, and he couldn’t go back now. There had been a brief spate of familial phoning after 9/11, but the talk had mostly been impersonal, his mom amusingly ranting about how she couldn’t stop watching CNN even though she was convinced that watching so much CNN was harming her, his dad taking the opportunity to vent his long-standing hostility to organized religion, and Jessica flaunting her knowledge of non-Western cultures and explaining the legitimacy of their beef with U.S. imperialism. Jessica was at the very bottom of the list of people whom Joey would call in distress. Maybe, if she were his last living acquaintance and he’d been arrested in North Korea and were willing to endure a stern lecture: maybe then.

As if to reassure himself that Carol had been wrong about him, he wept a little in the darkness, on his bench. Wept for Connie in her misery, wept for having abandoned her to Carol—for not being the person who could save her. Then he dried his eyes and called his own mother, whose telephone Carol could probably have heard ringing if she’d stood by a window and listened closely.

“Joseph Berglund,” his mother said. “I seem to remember that name from somewhere.”

“Hi, Mom.”

Immediately a silence.

“Sorry I haven’t called in a while,” he said.

“Oh, well,” she said, “there’s really nothing much happening around here except anthrax scares, a very unrealistic realtor trying to sell our house, and your dad flying back and forth to Washington. You know they make everybody flying into Washington stay in their seat for an hour before they land there? It seems like kind of a weird regulation. I mean, what are they thinking? The terrorists are going to cancel their evil plan because the seat-belt sign is on? Dad says they’re barely even airborne when the stewardesses start warning everybody to use the bathroom right away, before it’s too late. And then they start handing out whole cans of drinks.”

She sounded like a nattering older lady, not the vital force he still imagined when he allowed himself to think of her. He had to squeeze his eyes shut to avert renewed weeping. Everything he’d done with regard to her in the last three years had been calculated to foreclose the intensely personal sort of talks they’d had when he was younger: to get her to shut up , to train her to contain herself, to make her stop pestering him with her overfull heart and her uncensored self. And now that the training was complete and she was obediently trivial with him, he felt bereft of her and wanted to undo it.

“Am I allowed to ask if all is well with you?” she said.

“Everything is well with me.”

“Life’s good in the former slave states?”

“Very good. The weather’s been beautiful.”

“Right, that’s the advantage of growing up in Minnesota. Everywhere you go now, the weather will be nicer.”

“Yep.”

“Are you making lots of new friends? Meeting lots of people?”

“Yep.”

“Well, good good good. Good good good. It’s nice of you to call, Joey. I mean, I know you don’t have to, so it’s nice that you did. You have some real fans here back at home.”

A herd of male first-years burst out of the dorm and onto the lawn, their voices amplified by beer. “Jo-eeee, Jo-eeee,” they lowed affectionately. He nodded to them in cool acknowledgment.

“Sounds like you’ve got some fans there, too,” his mother said.

“Yep.”

“My popular boy.”

“Yep.”

Another silence fell as the herd headed off to fresh watering holes. Joey felt a pang of disadvantage, watching them go. He was already nearly a month ahead of his budgeted fall-semester spending. He didn’t want to be the poor kid who drank only one beer while everybody else was having six, but he didn’t want to look like a freeloader, either. He wanted to be dominant and generous; and this required funds.

“How’s Dad liking his new job?” he made an effort to ask his mother.

“I think he’s liking it OK. It’s sort of driving him insane. You know: suddenly having lots of somebody else’s money to spend on fixing all the things he thinks are wrong with the world. He used to be able to complain that nobody was fixing them. Now he actually has to try to fix them himself, which is impossible, of course, since we’re all going to hell in a hand-basket. He sends me e-mails at three in the morning. I don’t think he’s sleeping much.”

“And what about you? How are you?”

“Oh, well, it’s nice of you to ask, but you don’t really want to know.”

“Sure I do.”

“No, trust me, you don’t. And don’t worry, I’m not saying that in a mean way. It’s not a reproach. You’ve got your life and I’ve got mine. It’s all good good good.”

“No, but, like, what do you do all day?”

“Actually, FYI,” his mother said, “that can be a somewhat awkward question to ask a person. It’s sort of like asking a childless couple why they don’t have any children, or an unmarried person why they aren’t married. You have to be careful with certain kinds of questions that may seem perfectly innocuous to you.”

“Hm.”

“I’m sort of in limbo right now,” she said. “It’s hard to make any big changes in my life when I know I’m going to be moving. I did start a little creative-writing project, for my private amusement. I also have to keep the house looking like a bed-and-breakfast in case a realtor stops by with a potential mark. I spend a lot of time making sure the magazines are nicely fanned.”