The Corrections

ceased to bring up Christmas at the dinner table, and then when Caleb with his trademark semi-irony asked if he was looking forward to Christmasland , Jonah replied, in an effortfully wicked voice, “It’s probably really stupid .”
    “Lots of fat people in big cars driving around in the dark,” Aaron said.
    “Telling each other how wunnerful it is,” Caroline said.
    “Wunnerful, wunnerful,” Caleb said.
    “You shouldn’t make fun of your grandmother,” Gary said.
    “They’re not making fun of her ,” Caroline said.
    “Right, we’re not,” Caleb said. “It’s just that people are funny in St. Jude. Aren’t they, Jonah?”
    “People certainly are very large there,” Jonah said.
    On Saturday night, three days ago, Jonah had thrown up after dinner and gone to bed with a mild fever. By Sunday evening, his color and appetite were back to normal, and Caroline played her final trump. For Aaron’s birthday, earlier in the month, she’d bought an expensive computer game, God Project II , in which players designed and operated organisms to compete in a working ecosystem. She hadn’t allowedAaron and Caleb to start the game until classes ended, and now, when they finally did start, she insisted that they let Jonah be Microbes, because Microbes, in any ecosystem, had the most fun and never lost.
    By bedtime on Sunday, Jonah was entranced with his team of killer bacteria and looked forward to sending them into battle the next day. When Gary woke him on Monday morning and asked if he was coming to St. Jude, Jonah said he’d rather stay home.
    “It’s your choice,” Gary said. “But it would mean a lot to your grandma if you came.”
    “What if it’s not fun, though?”
    “There’s never a guarantee that something’s going to be fun,” Gary said. “But you’ll make Grandma happy. That’s one thing I can guarantee.”
    Jonah’s face clouded. “Can I think about it for an hour?”
    “OK, one hour. But then we have to pack and go.”
    The end of the hour found Jonah deeply immersed in God Project II . One strain of his bacteria had blinded eighty percent of Aaron’s small hoofed mammals.
    “It’s OK not to go,” Caroline assured Jonah. “Your personal choice is what matters here. This is your vacation.”
    Nobody will be forced to go .
    “I’ll say it one more time,” Gary said. “Your grandma is really looking forward to seeing you.”
    To Caroline’s face there came a desolation, a deep tearful stare, reminiscent of the troubles in September. She rose without a word and left the entertainment room.
    Jonah’s answer came in a voice not much louder than a whisper: “I think I’m going to stay here.”
    If it had still been September, Gary might have seen in Jonah’s decision a parable of the crisis of moral duty in a culture of consumer choice. He might have become depressed. But he’d been down that road now and he knew there was nothing for him at the end of it.
    He packed his bag and kissed Caroline. “I’ll be happy when you’re back,” she said.
    In a strict moral sense Gary knew he hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d never promised Enid that Jonah was coming. It was simply to spare himself an argument that he’d lied about Jonah’s fever.
    Similarly, to spare Enid’s feelings, he hadn’t mentioned that in the six business days since the IPO, his five thousand shares of Axon Corporation stock, for which he’d paid $60,000, had risen in value to $118,000. Here again, he’d done nothing wrong, but given the pitiful size of Alfred’s patent-licensing fee from Axon, concealment seemed the wisest policy.
    The same also went for the little package Gary had zipped into the inside pocket of his jacket.
    Jets were dropping from the bright sky, happy in their metal skins, while he jockeyed through the crush of senior traffic converging at the airport. The days before Christmas were the St. Jude airport’s finest hour—its raison d’être, almost. Every garage was full and every walkway thronged.
    Denise was right on time, however. Even the airlines conspired to protect her from the embarrassment of a late arrival or an inconvenienced brother. She was standing, per family custom, at a little-used gate on the departure level. Her overcoat was a crazy garnet woolen thing with pink velvet trim, and something about her head seemed different to Gary—more makeup than usual, maybe. More lipstick. Each time he’d seen Denise in the last year (most recently at Thanksgiving),