Empire Falls

Janine for her part in its dissolution, anger at himself for his own part, and gratitude that they’d managed to be faithful to a bad idea long enough to have this child. He would’ve liked to know if Janine felt any of this, or whether she’d managed to simplify her emotional life by indulging only the regret. Turning back to Janine, Miles caught her sneaking a scallop off Tick’s plate.
    “Damn,” she said, aware that she’d been witnessed. “Damn , that’s good.”
    “I could order you some, Janine,” Miles offered. “It wouldn’t kill you to eat something.”
    “That’s where you’re mistaken, Miles. That’s exactly what it would do. I’m not going to be fat again, not ever.”
    Charlene happened to be passing by at that moment, so Janine handed her the plate. “Do me a favor and get this away from me, will you?” she said, then turned back to Miles. “There’s a word for people like you,” she continued. “ ‘Enabler.’ ”
    There was a word for people like Janine, too, Miles thought, and her own daughter had already applied it.
    “You’re through feeding me, buddy boy. I’ve assumed control of my own body.”
    “Good,” Miles said. “I’m happy for you.”
    If Janine heard any sarcasm in this, she didn’t react to it. In fact, some of her anger seemed to leak away, and when Tick reappeared with her backpack, Janine said, “Why don’t you go on out to the car for a couple minutes. Since I’m here, I want to talk to your father.”
    Tick leaned into the booth to give Miles a kiss. “See you tomorrow, Daddy. Will you have time to proof a paper?”
    “I’ll make time,” Miles said. “It wasn’t very nice to fool me about eating your dinner, though.”
    “I know,” she said without the slightest indication of remorse. “You’re just so easy.”
    Once she was safely through the door, Miles turned back to Janine. “You sure are tough on her lately.” He knew, as soon as he spoke the words, that they were a mistake. For Miles, one of the great mysteries of marriage was that you had to actually say things before you realized they were wrong. Because he’d been saying the wrong thing to Janine for so many years, he’d grown wary, testing most of his observations in the arena of his imagination before saying them out loud, but even then he was often wrong. Of course, the other possibility was that there was no right thing to say, that the choice wasn’t between right and wrong but between wrong, more wrong, and as wrong as you can get. Wrong, all of it, to one degree or another, by definition, or by virtue of the fact that Miles himself was the one saying it.
    “Well, somebody has to be,” Janine said, her hackles now as fully raised as her nipples. “Since she can do no wrong with either her father or her uncle.”
    Miles opened his mouth to object, but his wife—no surprise—wasn’t finished.
    “Walt’s no better, either. The worse she treats him, the more he fawns over her.”
    “She’s just a kid, Janine.” Ours.
    Janine picked up an unused spoon, held it like a knife at her temple and made as if to drive it home. “Miles. You’re wrong. First, she’s not a kid. You don’t believe me, just look at her. Try using the eyes you look at other people with. Second, so what? I was never a kid and neither were you. From the time I was old enough to manage it, I was changing diapers. Tick’s led a charmed life, and you know it.”
    “Wasn’t that the idea?” Miles said. “I thought that’s what we meant to do.”
    “Not forever, Miles.”
    What Miles was imagining right now was their daughter watching them, their heads bent forward toward the center of the table so they could lower their voices and still yell at each other. No, this last year of their daughter’s life had been anything but charmed. Maybe the others hadn’t been so wonderful either. “Janine,” he said, feeling suddenly exhausted, “could we not fight?”
    “Nope. That’s what the last twenty years have been about, in case you missed it. Also, every time there’s a problem and the damn school calls somebody, they don’t call you, they call me. I’m the one who has to leave work to deal with it, not you.”
    “I’m not sure that’s fair,” Miles said. “I wish they would call me. If you’d let me have primary custody—”
    “Right. And where would she live? Upstairs? Move the pallets of fryolator grease down to the basement to make a little room for her?”
    “You have