The Corrections

“I am not clinically depressed,” he told his reflection in the nearly dark bedroom window. With a great, marrow-taxing exertion of will, he stood up from Aaron’s bed and sallied forth to prove himself capable of having an ordinary evening.

Jonah was climbing the dark stairs with Prince Caspian. “I finished the book,” he said.

“Did you like it?”

“I loved it,” Jonah said. “This is outstanding children’s literature. Aslan made a door in the air that people walked through and disappeared. They went out of Narnia and back into the real world.”

Gary dropped into a crouch. “Give me a hug.”

Jonah draped his arms on him. Gary could feel the looseness of his youthful joints, the cublike pliancy, the heat radiating through his scalp and cheeks. He would have slit his own throat if the boy had needed blood; his love was immense in that way; and yet he wondered if it was only love he wanted now or whether he was also coalition-building. Securing a tactical ally for his team.

What this stagnating economy needs, thought Federal Reserve Board Chairman Gary R. Lambert, is a massive infusion of Bombay Sapphire gin.

In the kitchen Caroline and Caleb were slouched at the table drinking Coke and eating potato chips. Caroline had her feet up on another chair and pillows beneath her knees.

“What should we do for dinner?” Gary said.

His wife and middle son traded glances as if this were the stick-in-the-mud sort of question he was famous for. From the density of potato-chip crumbs he could see they were well on their way to spoiled appetites.

“Mixed grill, I guess,” said Caroline.

“Oh, yeah, Dad, do a mixed grill!” Caleb said in a tone mistakable for either irony or enthusiasm.

Gary asked if there was meat.

Caroline stuffed chips into her mouth and shrugged.

Jonah asked permission to build a fire.

Gary, taking ice from the freezer, granted it.

Ordinary evening. Ordinary evening.

“If I put the camera over the table,” Caleb said, “I’ll get part of the dining room, too.”

“You miss the whole nook, though,” Caroline said. “If it’s over the back door, you can sweep both ways.”

Gary shielded himself with the door of the liquor cabinet while he poured four ounces of gin onto ice.

“ ‘Alt. eighty-five’?” Caleb read from his catalogue.

“That means the camera can look almost straight down.”

Still shielded by the cabinet door, Gary took a hefty warmish gulp. Then, closing the cabinet, he held up the glass in case anyone cared to see what a relatively modest drink he’d poured himself.

“Hate to break it to you,” he said, “but surveillance is out. It’s not appropriate as a hobby.”

“Dad, you said it was OK as long as I stayed interested.”

“I said I would think about it.”

Caleb shook his head vehemently. “No! You didn’t! You said I could do it as long as I didn’t get bored.”

“That is exactly what you said,” Caroline confirmed with an unpleasant smile.

“Yes, Caroline, I’m sure you heard every word. But we’re not putting this kitchen under surveillance. Caleb, you do not have my permission to make those purchases.”

“Dad!”

“That’s my decision, it’s final.”

“Caleb, it doesn’t matter, though,” Caroline said. “Gary, it doesn’t matter, because he’s got his own money. He can spend it however he wants. Right, Caleb?”

Out of Gary’s sight, below the level of the table, she gave Caleb some kind of hand signal.

“Right, I’ve got my own savings!” Caleb’s tone again ironic or enthusiastic or, somehow, both.

“You and I will talk about this later, Caro,” Gary said. Warmth and perversion and stupidity, all deriving from the gin, were descending from behind his ears and down his arms and torso.

Jonah came back inside smelling like mesquite.

Caroline had opened a second large bag of potato chips.

“Don’t spoil your appetite, guys,” Gary said in a strained voice, taking food from plastic compartments.

Again mother and son traded glances.

“Yeah, right,” Caleb said. “Gotta save room for mixed grill!”

Gary energetically sliced meats and skewered vegetables. Jonah set the table, spacing the flatware with the precision that he liked. The rain had stopped, but the deck was still slippery when Gary went outside.