The Corrections

to get pleasure out of anything.”
    “You’re changing the subject,” he said. “My mother called because she had a reasonable request regarding Christmas.”
    “Reasonable?” Now Caroline laughed. “Gary, she is bonkers on the topic of Christmas. She is a lunatic .”
    “Oh, Caroline. Really.”
    “I mean it!”
    “Really. Caroline. They’re going to be selling that house soon, they want us all to visit one more time before they die , Caroline, before my parents die —”
    “We’ve always agreed about this. We agreed that five people with busy lives should not have to fly at the peak holiday season so that two people with nothing in their lives wouldn’t have to come here. And I’ve been more than happy to have them—”
    “The hell you have.”
    “Until suddenly the rules change!”
    “You have not been happy to have them here. Caroline. They’re at the point where they won’t even stay for more than forty-eight hours.”
    “And this is my fault?” She was directing her gestures and facial expressions, somewhat eerily, at the ceiling. “What you don’t understand, Gary, is that this is an emotionally healthy family. I am a loving and deeply involved mother. I have three intelligent, creative, and emotionally healthy children. If you think there’s a problem in this house, you better take a look at yourself.”
    “I’m making a reasonable proposal,” Gary said. “And you’re calling me ‘depressed.’”
    “So it’s never occurred to you?”
    “The minute I bring up Christmas, I’m ‘depressed.’”
    “Seriously, are you telling me it’s never occurred to you, in the last six months, that you might have a clinical problem?”
    “It is extremely hostile, Caroline, to call another person crazy.”
    “Not if the person potentially has a clinical problem.”
    “I’m proposing that we go to St. Jude,” he said. “If you won’t talk about it like an adult, I’ll make my own decision.”
    “Oh, yeah?” Caroline made a contemptuous noise. “I guess Jonah might go with you. But see if you can get Aaron and Caleb on the plane with you. Just ask them where they’d rather be for Christmas.”
    Just ask them whose team they’re on .
    “I was under the impression that we’re a family,” Gary said, “and that we do things together.”
    “You’re the one deciding unilaterally.”
    “Tell me this is not a marriage-ending problem.”
    “You’re the one who’s changed.”
    “Because, no, Caroline, that is, no, that is ridiculous. There are good reasons to make a one-time exception this year.”
    “You’re depressed,” she said, “and I want you back. I’m tired of living with a depressed old man.”
    Gary for his part wanted back the Caroline who just a few nights ago had clutched him in bed when there was heavy thunder. The Caroline who came skipping toward him when he walked into a room. The semi-orphaned girl whose most fervent wish was to be on his team.
    But he’d also always loved how tough she was, how unlike a Lambert, how fundamentally unsympathetic to his family. Over the years he’d collected certain remarks of hers into a kind of personal Decalogue, an All-Time Caroline Ten to which he privately referred for strength and sustenance:
You’re nothing at all like your father.
You don’t have to apologize for buying the BMW.
Your dad emotionally abuses your mom.
I love the taste of your come.
Work was the drug that ruined your father’s life.
Let’s buy both!
Your family has a diseased relationship with food.
You’re an incredibly good-looking man.
Denise is jealous of what you have.
There’s absolutely nothing useful about suffering.
    He’d subscribed to this credo for years and years—had felt deeply indebted to Caroline for each remark—and now he wondered how much of it was true. Maybe none of it.
    “I’m calling the travel agent tomorrow morning,” he said.
    “And I’m telling you,” Caroline replied immediately, “call Dr. Pierce instead. You need to talk to somebody.”
    “I need somebody who tells the truth.”
    “You want the truth? You want me to tell you why I’m not going?” Caroline sat up and leaned forward at the funny angle that her backache dictated. “You really want to know?”
    Gary’s eyes fell shut. The crickets outside sounded like water running interminably in pipes. From the distance came a rhythmic canine barking like the downthrusts of a handsaw.
    “The truth,” Caroline said, “is that forty-eight hours