The Corrections

happily drop out of the world of conventional expectations; it undercut the pleasure he took in his home and job and family; it felt like a unilateral rewriting, to his disadvantage, of the rules of life. He was especially galled that the latest defector to the “alternative” was not some flaky Other from a family of Others or a class of Others but his own stylish and talented sister, who as recently as September had excelled in conventional ways that his friends could read about in the New York Times . Now she’d quit her job and was wearing four rings and a flaming coat and reeking of tobacco …
    Carrying the aluminum stool, he followed her into the house. He compared her reception by Enid to the reception he’d received the day before. He took note of the duration of the hug, the lack of instant criticism, the smiles all around.
    Enid cried: “I thought maybe you’d run into Chip at the airport and all three of you would be coming home!”
    “That scenario is implausible in eight different ways,” Gary said.
    “He told you he’d be here today?” Denise said.
    “This afternoon,” Enid said. “Tomorrow at the latest.”
    “Today, tomorrow, next April,” Gary said. “Whatever.”
    “He said there was some trouble in Lithuania,” Enid said.
    While Denise went to find Alfred, Gary fetched the morning Chronicle from the den. In a box of international news sandwiched between lengthy features (“New ‘Peticures’ Make Dogs ‘Red in Claw”’ and “Are Ophthalmologists Overpaid?—Docs Say No, Optometrists Say Yes”) he located a paragraph about Lithuania: civil unrest following disputed parliamentary elections and attempted assassination of President Vitkunas … three-fourths of the country without electric i ty … rival paramilitary groups clashing on the streets of Vilnius … and the airport —
    “The airport is closed,” Gary read aloud with satisfaction. “Mother? Did you hear me?”
    “He was already at the airport yesterday,” Enid said. “I’m sure he got out.”
    “Then why hasn’t he called?”
    “He was probably running to catch a flight.”
    At a certain point Enid’s capacity for fantasy became physically painful to Gary. He opened his wallet and presented her with the receipt for the shower stool and safety bar.
    “I’ll write you a check later,” she said.
    “How about now, before you forget.”
    Muttering and soughing, Enid complied with his wishes.
    Gary examined the check. “Why is this dated December twenty-six?”
    “Because that’s the soonest you could possibly deposit it in Philadelphia.”
    Their skirmishing continued through lunch. Gary slowly drank a beer and slowly drank a second, relishing the distress that he was causing Enid as she told him for a third time and a fourth time that he’d better get started on that shower project. When he finally stood up from the table, it occurred to him that his impulse to run Enid’s life was the logical response to her own insistence on running his.
    The safety shower bar was a fifteen-inch length of beige enamel pipe with flanged elbows at each end. The stubbyscrews included in the package might have sufficed to attach the bar to plywood but were useless with ceramic tile. To secure the bar, he would have to run six-inch bolts through the wall into the little closet behind the shower.
    Down in Alfred’s workshop, he was able to find masonry bits for the electric drill, but the cigar boxes that he remembered as cornucopias of useful hardware seemed mainly to contain corroded, orphaned screws and strike plates and toilet-tank fittings. Certainly no six-inch bolts.
    Departing for the hardware store, wearing his I’m-a-jerk smile, he noticed Enid at the dining-room windows, peering out through a sheer curtain.
    “Mother,” he said. “I think it’s important not to get your hopes up about Chip.”
    “I just thought I heard a car door in the street.”
    Fine, go ahead , Gary thought as he left the house, fixate on whoever isn’t here and oppress whoever is .
    On the front walk he passed Denise, who was returning from the supermarket with groceries. “I hope you’re letting Mom pay for those,” he said.
    His sister laughed in his face. “What difference does it make to you?”
    “She’s always trying to get away with things. It burns me up·”
    “So redouble your vigilance,” Denise said, proceeding toward the house.
    Why, exactly, had he been feeling guilty? He’d never promised to bring Jonah