The Corrections

“My God.” Denise laughed. “Mexican A.”

“Never heard of it,” Gary said.

“Club drug. Very young-person.”

“And Bea Meisner is delivering it to Mom at our front door.”

“Does Mom know you took it?”

“Not yet. I don’t even know what this stuff does.”

Denise reached over with her smoky fingers and put a pill near his mouth. “Try one.”

Gary jerked his head away. His sister seemed to be on some drug herself, something stronger than nicotine. She was greatly happy or greatly unhappy or a dangerous combination of the two. She was wearing silver rings on three fingers and a thumb.

“Is this a drug you’ve tried?” he said.

“No, I stick with alcohol.”

She folded up the packet and Gary took control of it again. “I want to make sure you’re with me on this,” he said. “Do you agree that Mom should not be receiving illegal addictive substances from Bea Meisner?”

“No,” Denise said. “I don’t agree. She’s an adult and she can do what she wants. And I don’t think it’s fair to take her pills without telling her. If you don’t tell her, I will.”

“Excuse me, I believe you promised not to,” Gary said.

Denise considered this. Salt-splashed embankments were flying past.

“OK, maybe I promised,” she said. “But why are you trying to run her life?”

“I think you’ll see,” he said, “that the situation is out of hand. I think you’ll see that it’s about time somebody stepped in and ran her life.”

Denise didn’t argue with him. She put on shades and looked at the towers of Hospital City on the brutal south horizon. Gary had hoped to find her more cooperative. He already had one “alternative” sibling and he didn’t need another. It frustrated him that people could so 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 electricity. . . 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 stubby screws 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.