Strong Motion. Jonathan Franzen
to quit teaching?”
“Why should he quit teaching?”
“Don’t tell me you need his salary when you’ve got twenty-two, oops.”
“I would be grateful if you did not try to tell me what I need and don’t need.”
“You’d be grateful if I just walked out of here and never mentioned this again.”
Melanie’s face lit up as if he were a student of hers who’d blurted truth. “Yes, as a matter of fact, that’s exactly right. That is what I would most like from you.”
Louis’s eyes narrowed further. He said: “Twenty-two million dollars, twenty-two million dollars, twenty-two million dollars.” He said it faster and faster, until it twisted his tongue, becoming twollers, twollers. “What a huge amount of money. It means you’re rich, rich, rich rich, rich.”
His mother had turned to face the mantel and covered her ears with her palms, applying such strong isometric pressure to her head that her arms trembled. This was as close to fighting as she and Louis ever got; and it wasn’t really fighting. It was like what a pair of bar magnets do when you try to force the north poles together. It had alwavs been this way. Even when he was a boy of three or four and she had tried to smooth his hair or wipe food off his face, he had twisted his head away on his stout, stubborn neck. If he was sick in bed and she laid a cold hand on his forehead, he had tried to press himself into pillow and mattress with triple gravity, as blindly and determinedly resistant to her touch as the magnet to whose permanent invisible force field the relief of rupture or discharge can never come. Now she raised her head, her white fingers flat on her cheeks, her elbows on the mantel, and looked up at her father. From the rear of the house came the sound of television, amplified rumblings and collisions: bowling.
“I’m paying Mr. Rudman for his time, Louis.”
“Right. What’s a lawyer get, a couple hundred bucks an hour? Let’s say 220 an hour into twenty-two million (oh, I’m sorry, there I go again), ten to the second into ten to the seventh, that’s a hundred thousand hours, and assume ten-hour days, two hundred fifty days a year, my God, you’re right. That’s only forty years. I’ll try to be quick.”
“What is it that you want?”
“Well, let’s see, I’ve got a job and a cheap apartment and a car that’s paid for, I’m not married, I don’t have expensive habits, and in case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t asked you and Dad for a single thing since I was sixteen years old, so it’s probably not money I want, is it, Mom?”
“I appreciate all that.”
“Don’t even mention it.”
“I will mention it. I never get to tell you how proud I am of your independence.”
“I said forget it.”
She turned around to face him. “I have an idea,” she said. “I suggested something like this to Eileen and she seemed to feel it was a good idea. I hope your father will go along with it too. I think we should all just act as if this never happened.”
“This twenty-two million dollars.”
“Please. Please, please, please. I think we should all just go on with our lives as if nothing is different. Now, it may be that as time goes by a few things will change, in small ways and perhaps in large ways too. For example, I’ll probably be able to make it very easy for you to go back to school if you should ever decide to. And I’m not promising anything, but it’s possible that if you or Eileen ever want to make a down payment on a home I could be of some help there too. But all these things are in the future, and I think the best thing for the four of us to do now is just put it out of our minds.”
Louis scratched his neck. “You say Eileen thought this was a good idea?”
“Oh yes.”
“Then what was she crying for on Thursday.”
“Because … “ A faraway look came into his mother’s eyes, and then they began to glisten, tears seeming to form directly on her dark brown irises, the way rock candy grows wet with itself. “Because, Louis, she had come to me to ask for money.”
He laughed. This was the Eileen who let cars roll into lakes. “So? Write her a check. Or don’t write her a check.”
“Oh!” His mother’s hands rose to her face again, her fingers bent hard at the knuckles. “Oh! I won’t have you talk like this!”
“Like what?”
“I’m not going to discuss this a moment longer. We must put this out of our minds. I want you to leave now. Do you understand? I have asked you and asked you not to joke about these things, and you will not listen to me. You are worse than your father, who I know you think is very funny. But it is not the least bit funny, it is simply inconsiderate— And don’t you roll your eyes at me! DON’T YOU ROLL YOUR EYES AT ME! Do you understand? I want you to leave the house this minute.”
“All right, all right.” Louis walked into the front hall. “Just drop us a postcard from Monaco, OK?”
Melanie pursued him. The volume of the television had tactfully been increased. “Take that back!”
“All right. Don’t drop us a postcard from Monaco.”
“You really don’t understand how inconsiderate you’re being. Do you?”
When Louis got mad, as opposed to merely feeling righteous, he stuck his chest out and raised his chin and looked down his nose like a sailor or an ugly asking for a fight. He was completely unaware of doing this; the look on his face was dead serious. And as he faced his mother, who after all wasn’t likely to shove him or take a free swing, he looked so incongruously belligerent that her expression softened. “Are you going to punch me, Louis?”
He lowered his chin, angrier still to see he was only amusing her.
“Give me a hug,” his mother said. She laid a hand on his arm and held it firmly when he tried to pull away. She said, “I’m not selfish. Do you understand?”
“Sure.” His hand was on the doorknob. “You’re just upset.”
“That’s right. And it will be some time before I even see the money.”
“Sure.”
“And when I do, I don’t know how much it’s going to be. The figure you mentioned, which you must have gotten from your father—could change a great deal. It’s a very complicated and unfortunate situation. A very—very unfortunate situation.”
“Sure.”
“But no matter what, we’ll all be able to do some nice things.”
“Sure.”
Her irritation flared. “Stop saying that!”
A bowling ball struck pins. A crowd cheered. “Sure,” Louis said.
She dropped his arm. Without looking at her he walked out the door and closed it quietly behind him. Continuing to stare straight ahead, he marched past his car and down the drive, stifflegged, letting gravity do the work, depressed the way he’d been when he read about the earthquake eight days earlier, depression an isotope of anger: slower and less fierce in its decay, but chemically identical. When his father came into view, at a bend near the bottom of the drive, he hardly noticed him.
“Howdy, Lou.” Bob’s head was aglow in a nest of Gore-Tex and plaid lining. He smelled like burnt marijuana.
“Hello,” Louis said, not breaking stride. Bob smiled as he watched him go and immediately forgot that he’d seen him.
East of the Kernaghan house the land became even more parklike, the yards giving way to estates with hurdles in the pastures and horse trailers in the driveways. A sleek Japanese-made ski boot whooshed past