Read Online Purity by Jonathan Franzen - Free Book Online Page B

in the home and try to give him voc ed, and then she can pop out three quick babies in her spare time. That’s the plan, right? And what judge is not going to give full custody to the mother with a full-time paying job at a place for people like Ramón? That’s the plan. And you would not believe how righteous she is about every bit of it.”
    â€œI can sort of believe it,” Pip ventured to say.
    â€œAnd I love the righteousness,” Stephen said, his voice trembling. “She is righteous. She really does burn with moral purpose. I just didn’t want to have three babies.”
    Well, thank God for that, Pip thought.
    â€œSo Ramón’s still here?” she said.
    â€œShe and Vincent are coming back for him in the morning. Apparently they’ve had the thing planned for weeks now—they were just waiting for a bed to open up.” Stephen shook his head. “I thought Ramón was going to be what saved us. To have a son we both loved, so it wouldn’t matter if we disagreed about everything else.”
    â€œWell,” Pip said with some hostility, owing to the obvious persistence of Marie’s hold on him, “you’re not the first couple whose relationship having a child didn’t save. I was probably a child like that myself in fact.”
    Stephen turned to her and said, “You’re a good friend.”
    She took his hand and wove her fingers into his and tried to calibrate the pressure of her squeeze. “I am your good friend,” she agreed. But now that his hand was in direct contact with hers, her body was making clear, with thudding heart and shallow breath, that it expected to have his hands all over it in a matter of days, possibly hours. It was like a big dog straining on the leash of her intelligence. She allowed herself to bump his hand once on her thigh, where she most wanted him to place it at this moment, and then released it. “What did you say to Ramón?”
    â€œI can’t face him. I’ve been out here since she left.”
    â€œHe’s just been sitting in there without your saying anything to him?”
    â€œShe only left like half an hour ago. He’s going to be upset if he sees me crying. I thought you could sort of prepare him, and then I could talk to him reasonably.”
    Pip here recalled Annagret’s fateful word weak ; but it didn’t make her want Stephen any less. It made her want to forget about Ramón and stay out here and keep touching, because being weak might mean being unable to resist.
    â€œWill you talk to me, too, later on?” she said. “Just me? I really need to talk to you.”
    â€œOf course. This doesn’t change anything, we’ll still have the house. Dreyfuss is a bulldog. Don’t worry about that.”
    Although it was obvious to Pip’s body that, in fact, everything had changed, her intelligence could forgive Stephen for being unable to see this so soon after being dumped by his wife of fifteen years. Heart still thudding, she stood up and took her bike inside. Dreyfuss was sitting by himself in the living room, dwarfing a scavenged six-legged office chair and mousing at the house computer.
    â€œWhere’s Ramón?” Pip said.
    â€œIn his room.”
    â€œI guess I don’t even have to ask you if you know what’s going on.”
    â€œI don’t meddle in family affairs,” Dreyfuss said coolly. Like a six-legged spider, he rotated his bulk in Pip’s direction. “I have, however, been checking facts. The St. Agnes Home is a fully state-accredited and well-reviewed thirty-six-bed facility, opened in 1984. The director, Vincent Olivieri, is a forty-seven-year-old widower with three sons in their late teens and early twenties; he holds an MSW from San Francisco State. Archbishop Evans has visited the home on at least two occasions. Would you care to see a picture of Evans and Olivieri on the front steps of the