The Corrections

Denise, afraid of getting sick, lay down and pulled a blanket over herself.
    She slept hard, with no dreams, and awoke—where? what time? what day?—to angry voices. Snow had webbed the corners of the windows and frosted the swamp white oak. There was light in the sky but not for long.
    Al, Gary went to ALL that trouble —
    I never asked him to!
    Well, can’t you try it at least once? After all the work he did yesterday?
    I am entitled to a bath if I want to take a bath .
    Dad, it’s only a matter of time before you fall on the stairs and break your neck!
    I am not asking anyone for help .
    You’re damn right you’re not! Because I have forbidden Mom— forbidden her—to go anywhere near that bathtub—
    Al, please, just try the shower —
    Mom, forget it, let him break his neck, we’d all be better off —
    Gary —
    The voices were coming closer as the contretemps moved up the stairs. Denise heard her father’s heavy tread pass her door. She put her glasses on and opened the door just as Enid, slow on her bad hip, reached the top of the stairs. “Denise, what are you doing?”
    “I took a nap.”
    “Go talk to your father. Tell him it’s important that he try the shower that Gary did so much work on. He’ll listen to you .”
    The depth of her sleep and the manner of her awakening had put Denise out of phase with external reality; the scene in the hall and the scene in the hall windows had faint antimatter shadows; sounds were at once too loud and barely audible. “Why—” she said. “Why are we making an issue of this today?”
    “Because Gary’s leaving tomorrow and I want him to see if the shower’s going to work for Dad.”
    “And tell me again what’s wrong with the bath?”
    “He gets stuck. And he’s so bad on the stairs.”
    Denise closed her eyes, but this substantially worsened the phase-sync problem. She opened them.
    “Oh, plus, and Denise,” Enid said, “you haven’t worked with him on his exercises yet like you promised!”
    “Right. I’ll do that.”
    “Do it now, before he gets cleaned up. Here, I’ll get you the sheet from Dr. Hedgpeth.”
    Enid limped back down the stairs, and Denise raised her voice. “Dad?”
    No answer.
    Enid came halfway up the stairs and pushed through the rails of the banister a violet sheet of paper (“mobility is golden”) on which stick figures illustrated seven stretching exercises. “Really teach him,” she said. “He gets impatient with me, but he’ll listen to you. Dr. Hedgpeth keeps asking if Dad’s doing his exercises. It’s very important that he reallylearn these. I had no idea you were sleeping all this time.”
    Denise took the instruction sheet into the master bedroom and found Alfred in the doorway of his closet, naked from the waist down.
    “Whoa, Dad, sorry,” she said, retreating.
    “What is it?”
    “We need to work on your exercises.”
    “I’m already undressed.”
    “Just put some pajamas on. Loose clothing is better anyway.”
    It took her five minutes to calm him down and stretch him out on his back on the bed in his wool shirt and his pajama bottoms; and here at last the truth came pouring out.
    The first exercise required that Alfred take his right knee in his hands and draw it toward his chest, and then do the same with his left knee. Denise guided his wayward hands to his right knee, and although she was dismayed by how rigid he was getting, he was able, with her help, to stretch his hip past ninety degrees.
    “Now do your left knee,” she said.
    Alfred put his hands on his right knee again and pulled it toward his chest.
    “That’s great,” she said. “But now try it with your left.”
    He lay breathing hard and did nothing. He wore the expression of a man suddenly remembering disastrous circumstances.
    “Dad? Try it with your left knee.”
    She touched his left knee, to no avail. In his eyes she saw a desperate wish for clarification and instruction. She moved his hands to his left knee, and the hands immediately fell off. Possibly his rigidity was worse on the left side? She put his hands back on his knee and helped him raise it.
    If anything, he was more flexible on the left.
    “Now you try it,” she said.
    He grinned at her, breathing like someone very scared. “Try what.”
    “Put your hands on your left knee and lift it.”
    “Denise, I’ve had enough of this.”
    “You’ll feel a lot better if you can do a little stretching,” she said. “Just do what you just did. Put your