The Corrections

see if that helps.”
    Enid might have been reading bad prognoses in the fire. “Will you stay for a week and help me take him to the hospital?”
    Chip’s hand went to the rivet in his earlobe as to a talisman. He felt like a child out of Grimm, lured into the enchanted house by the warmth and the food; and now the witch was going to lock him in a cage, fatten him up, and eat him.
    He repeated the charm he’d invoked at the front door. “I can only stay three days,” he said. “I’ve got to start working right away. I owe Denise some money that I need to pay her back.”
    “Just a week ,” the witch said. “Just a week, until we see how things go in the hospital.”
    “I don’t think so, Mom. I’ve got to go back.”
    Enid’s bleakness deepened, but she didn’t seem surprised by his refusal. “I guess this is my responsibility, then,” she said. “I guess I always knew it would be.”
    She retired to the den, and Chip put more logs on the fire. Cold drafts were finding ways through the windows, faintly stirring the open curtains. The furnace was running almost constantly. The world was colder and emptier than Chip had realized, the adults had gone away.
    Toward eleven, Denise came inside reeking of cigarettes and looking two-thirds frozen. She waved to Chip and tried to go straight upstairs, but he insisted that she sit by the fire. She knelt and bowed her head, sniffling steadily, and put her hands out toward the embers. She kept her eyes on the fire as if to ensure that she not look at him. She blew her nose on a wet shred of Kleenex.
    “Where’d you go?” he said.
    “Just on a walk.”
    “Long walk.”
    “Yuh.”
    “You sent me some e-mails that I deleted before I really read them.”
    “Oh.”
    “So what’s going on?” he said.
    She shook her head. “Just everything.”
    “I had almost thirty thousand dollars in cash on Monday. I was going to give you twenty-four thousand of it. But then we got robbed by uniformed men in ski masks. Implausible as that may sound.”
    “I want to forgive that debt,” Denise said.
    Chip’s hand went to the rivet again. “I’m going to start paying you a minimum of four hundred a month until the principal and interest are paid off. It’s my top priority. Absolute highest priority.”
    His sister turned and raised her face to him. Her eyes were bloodshot, her forehead as red as a newborn’s. “I said I forgive the debt. You owe me nothing.”
    “Appreciate it,” he said quickly, looking away. “But I’m going to pay you anyway.”
    “No,” she said. “I’m not going to take your money. I forgive the debt. Do you know what ‘forgive’ means?”
    In her peculiar mood, with her unexpected words, she was making Chip anxious. He pulled on the rivet and said, “Denise, come on. Please. At least show me the respect of letting me pay you back. I realize I’ve been a shit. But I don’t want to be a shit all my life.”
    “I want to forgive that debt,” she said.
    “Really. Come on.” Chip smiled desperately. “You’ve got to let me pay you.”
    “Can you stand to be forgiven?”
    “No,” he said. “Basically, no. I can’t. It’s better all around if I pay you.”
    Still kneeling, Denise bent over and tucked in her arms and made herself into an olive, an egg, an onion. From within this balled form came a low voice. “Do you understand what a huge favor you’d be doing me if you would let me forgive the debt? Do you understand that it’s hard for me to ask this favor? Do you understand that coming here for Christmas is the only other favor I’ve ever asked you? Doyou understand that I’m not trying to insult you? Do you understand that I never doubted that you wanted to pay me back, and I know I’m asking you to do something very hard? Do you understand that I wouldn’t ask you to do something so hard if I didn’t really, really, really need it?”
    Chip looked at the trembling balled human form at his feet. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
    “I’m having trouble on numerous fronts,” she said.
    “This is a bad time to talk about the money, then. Let’s forget it for a while. I want to hear what’s bothering you.”
    Still balled up, Denise shook her head emphatically, once. “I need you to say yes here, now. Say ‘Yes, thank you.’”
    Chip made a gesture of utter bafflement. It was near midnight and his father had begun to thump around upstairs and his sister was curled up like an egg and begging him to accept