The Corrections. Jonathan Franzen
had registered for gifts) and (2) ordering, without Denise’s permission, two hundred engraved announcements, not only to make the wedding appear more conventional but also to shake the gift tree a little in hopes of receiving compensation for the dozens and dozens of teakwood salad sets that she and Alfred had given in the last twenty years: during this long week, Enid was so continually aware of Alfred’s strange new tremor that when, by and by, he agreed to see his doctor and was referred to Dr. Hedgpeth and diagnosed with Parkinson’s, an underground branch of her intelligence persisted in connecting his disease with Denise’s announcement and so in blaming her daughter for the subsequent plummeting of her own quality of life, even though Dr. Hedgpeth had stressed that Parkinson’s was somatic in origin and gradual in its onset. By the time the holidays rolled around, and Dr. Hedgpeth had provided her and Alfred with pamphlets and booklets whose drab doctor’s-office color schemes, dismal line drawings, and frightening medical photos presaged a drab and dismal and frightening future, Enid was pretty well convinced that Denise and Emile had ruined her life. She was under strict orders from Alfred, however, to make Emile feel welcome in the family. So at the open house for the newlyweds she painted a smile on her face and accepted, over and over, the sincere congratulations of old family friends who loved Denise and thought she was darling (because Enid in raising her had emphasized the importance of being kind to her elders) (although what was her marriage if not an instance of excessive kindness to an elder?) where she would have much preferred condolences. The effort she made to be a good sport and cheerleader, to obey Alfred and receive her middle-aged son-in-law cordially and not say one single word about his religion, only added to the shame and anger she felt five years later when Denise and Emile were divorced and Enid had to give this news, too, to all her friends. Having attached so much meaning to the marriage, having struggled so hard to accept it, she felt that the least Denise could have done was stay married.
“Do you ever hear from Emile anymore?” Enid asked.
Denise was drying dishes in Chip’s kitchen. “Occasionally.”
Enid had parked herself at the dining table to clip coupons from magazines she’d taken from her Nordic Pleasurelines shoulder bag. Rain was coming down erratically in gusts that slapped and fogged the windows. Alfred was sitting on Chip’s chaise with his eyes closed.
“I was just thinking,” Enid said, “that even if things had worked out, and you’d stayed married, you know, Denise, Emile’s going to be an old man in not too many years. And that’s so much work. You can’t imagine what a huge responsibility.”
“In twenty-five years he’ll be younger than Dad is now,” Denise said.
“I don’t know if I ever told you,” Enid said, “about my high-school friend Norma Greene.”
“You tell me about Norma Greene literally every time I see you.”
“Well, you know the story, then. Norma met this man, Floyd Voinovich, who was a perfect gentleman, quite a number of years older, with a high-paying job, and he swept her off her feet! He was always taking her to Morelli’s, and the Steamer, and the Bazelon Room, and the only problem—”
“Mother.”
“The only problem,” Enid insisted, “was that he was married. But Norma wasn’t supposed to worry about that. Floyd said the whole arrangement was temporary. He said he’d made a bad mistake, he had a terrible marriage, he’d never loved his wife—”
“Mother.”
“And he was going to divorce her.” Enid let her eyes fall shut in raconteurial pleasure. She was aware that Denise didn’t like this story, but there were plenty of things about Denise’s life that were disagreeable to Enid, too, so. “Well, this went on for years. Floyd was very smooth and charming, and he could afford to do things for Norma that a man closer to her own age couldn’t have. Norma developed a real taste for luxuries, and then, too, she’d met Floyd at an age when a girl falls head over heels in love, and Floyd had sworn up and down that he was going to divorce his wife and marry Norma. Well, by then Dad and I were married and had Gary. I remember Norma came over once when Gary was a baby, and she just wanted to hold him and hold him. She loved little children, oh, she just loved holding Gary, and I felt terrible for her, because by then she’d been seeing Floyd for years, and he was still not divorced. I said, Norma, you can’t wait forever. She said she’d tried to stop seeing Floyd. She’d gone on dates with other men, but they were younger and they didn’t seem matoor to her—Floyd was fifteen years older and very matoor, and I do understand how an older man has a matoority that can make him attractive to a younger woman—”
“Mother.”
“And, of course, these younger men couldn’t always afford to be taking Norma to fancy places or buying her flowers and gifts like Floyd did (because, see, he could really turn on the charm when she got impatient with him), and then, too, a lot of those younger men were interested in starting families, and Norma—”
“Wasn’t so young anymore,” Denise said. “I brought some dessert. Are you ready for dessert?”
“Well, you know what happened.”
“Yes.”
“It’s a heartbreaking story, because Norma—”
“Yes. I know the story.”
“Norma found herself—”
“Mother: I know the story. You seem to think it has some bearing on my own situation.”
“Denise, I don’t. You’ve never even told me what your ‘situation’ is.” “Then why do you keep telling me the story of Norma Greene?”
“I don’t see why it upsets you if it has nothing to do with your own situation.”
“What upsets me is that you seem to think it does. Are you under the impression that I’m involved with a married man?”
Enid was not only under this impression but was suddenly so angry about it, so clotted with disapproval, that she had difficulty breathing.
“Finally, finally, going to get rid of some of these magazines,” she said, snapping the glossy pages.
“Mother?”
“It’s better not to talk about this. Just like the Navy, don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Denise stood in the kitchen doorway with her arms crossed and a dish towel balled up in her hand. “Where did you get the idea that I’m involved with a married man?”
Enid snapped another page.
“Did Gary say something to give you that idea?”
Enid struggled to shake her head. Denise would be furious if she found out that Gary had betrayed a confidence, and though Enid spent much of her own life furious with Gary about one thing or another, she prided herself on keeping secrets, and she didn’t want to get him in trouble. It was true that she’d been brooding about Denise’s situation for many months and had accumulated large stores of anger. She’d ironed at the ironing board and raked the ivy beds and lain awake at night rehearsing the judgments—That is the kind of grossly selfish behavior that I will never understand and never forgive and I’m ashamed to be the parent of a person who would live like that and In a situation like this, Denise, my sympathies are one thousand percent with the wife, one thousand percent—that she yearned to pronounce on Denise’s immoral lifestyle. And now she had an opportunity to pronounce these judgments. And yet, if Denise denied the charges, then all of Enid’s anger, all of her refining and rehearsal of her judgments, would go wasted. And if, on the other hand, Denise admitted everything, it might still be wiser for Enid to swallow her pent-up judgments than to risk a fight. Enid needed Denise as an ally on the Christmas front, and she didn’t want to set off on a luxury cruise with one son having vanished inexplicably, another son blaming her for betraying his trust, and her daughter perhaps confirming her worst fears.
With great humbling effort she therefore shook her head. “No, no, no. Gary never said a thing.”
Denise narrowed