Empire Falls

one your mother was so instrumental in forming, that accuses you of selfishness, of not thinking of others … like poor, crippled Cindy Whiting. Doesn’t she deserve a little happiness? And this time around, you might just listen to that voice, because it’s the one that feels moral, or would if it didn’t trail those nagging considerations of self-interest—because of course the money that would accompany such a marriage would be nice and you’re tired of straining to make ends meet. Who wouldn’t be? If you started feeling too guilty, you certainly could tell yourself you were doing it for your daughter, who’ll soon be ready to go off to college, and isn’t she the one who really matters? Oh, dear me, it is complicated. No surprise that people are always trying to simplify life. What’s that question our evangelical brethren are always asking? ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ What, indeed?”
    The breeze shifted then, and Miles caught another rancid whiff off the river, whether from the near bank or from the Empire Falls side he couldn’t tell.
    “Something tells me you have some advice for me.”
    She sighed. “I fear not, dear boy. Beyond clarifying your dilemma, I’m afraid I can offer very little indeed. Alas, there’s only one thing I’m quite sure of.”
    “And that is?”
    “My daughter may have suggested to you that her doctors believe her to be well?”
    Miles nodded.
    Mrs. Whiting, eyebrows arched, shook her head.
    I T WAS NEARLY THREE in the afternoon before Miles drove back across the Iron Bridge into Empire Falls. The day had gone gray by the time he pulled in behind the Rectum, the clouds framing the accusing steeple now heavy with rain. Which was not the worst of it. Seated on the porch steps, in apparently pleasant conversation, sat the old priest, Father Tom, and Max Roby, who looked up and grinned when his son switched off the Jetta’s ignition. After a few minutes, Miles having made no move to get out of the car, Max shuffled over and motioned for him to roll down the passenger-side window. Evidently Max felt safer with the entire width of the car between them.
    “What are you doing here, Dad?” Miles said, rubbing his temples with his fingertips.
    “Waiting on you.”
    “What for?”
    “I’ve been waiting on you for two hours.”
    Old Father Tom was still sitting where Max had left him, but he now fixed Miles with his baleful gaze. Though the old man’s lips were moving, he was too far away for Miles to guess whether any of the words they were forming might be “peckerhead.”
    “Let’s go to work,” Max suggested.
    “It’s about to rain,” Miles said, pointing at the sky.
    “Maybe not,” Max said.
    “It’s going to rain,” Miles assured him.
    “You should’ve come earlier,” Max said. “The sun was out.”
    “I know.”
    “You don’t need to pay me for the two hours I was waiting.”
    “I don’t have to pay you for anything.”
    Max considered the unfairness of this, then stared down at the Jetta. “What happened to your car?”
    “None of your business,” Miles told him, preferring not to explain. When he’d walked up to the Jetta in the drive outside the Whiting house, he saw a darting movement and suddenly remembered that he’d left the passenger-side window partway down. The car’s interior was now full of tiny floating particles of foam from the shredded passenger seat.
    “Don’t get mad at me,” Max said. “I didn’t do it.”
    “I know that.”
    “I didn’t make those clouds, either. I didn’t do anything. I’m just an old man.”
    Miles studied his father, whose stubble had a strange orange tint. “Your beard’s full of food. Cheetos?”
    “So what?”
    He had a point, and Mrs. Whiting, Miles sadly reflected, was probably right. People were just themselves, their efforts to be otherwise notwithstanding. Max was just programmed to be Max, to have food in his beard. Looked at from another angle, it probably was admirable that his father never battled his own nature, never expected more of himself than experience had taught him was wise, thereby avoiding disappointment and self-recrimination. It was a fine, sensible way to live, really, much more sensible than Miles’s manner as he went about his business, disappointed by his failure to scramble up ladders, blaming himself for his wife’s infidelity, perversely maneuvering himself into situations that guaranteed aggravation, if not outright distress. Maybe, as the old lady