Other People's Houses, page 26
Theo went back to his socks, ignoring Charlie for the thirty more seconds he stood there wondering how to reach his kids, and why he was suddenly the bad guy when Anne was the one who cheated. As if reading his mind Theo suddenly looked up and said, “You know, you could just forgive Mom and let her come back and everything would be just like it was before.”
“No, it wouldn’t. It won’t ever be the same.”
For a moment his son looked at him blankly. Then he pulled on his shoes and stood, pushing past his father and closing his bedroom door behind him, leaving Charlie standing there alone.
* * *
• • •
Lucas wasn’t awake yet when Bill Skyped Julie. He told her about the day before, and she surprised him by laughing out loud. He hadn’t heard it in a while, and it was worth some bruised knuckles.
“You punched him? Really?” She was in bed, of course, the tablet propped up on her arm, and her face was so close it was almost easy to pretend she was in the same bed as Bill. She smiled, her warmth undimmed by weeks of chemotherapy, even as it robbed her of her eyelashes, pubic hair, and immune system. “How very macho and unexpected of you.”
He grinned. “It was unexpected even to me. I didn’t know I was going to do it until I did it, if you know what I mean. I just got pissed off with his fucking whining.”
“Oh, come on. His heart is broken.”
“No,” Bill said firmly. “His ego is broken, and he’s sad as shit that his wife let him down, but he’ll recover.”
“Don’t be a dick, Bill. What about his kids? I’d be fucking devastated if you did that to me. To Lucas.”
“How do you know I’m not doing it right now? I could be sleeping with a wide variety of lovely young women while you’re out of the picture.”
She laughed. “I assume you are, because I know how much free time you have. It’s easy to take care of a small kid and work full time, right?”
“Yeah, it’s a walk in the park.”
She stopped laughing. “See, this is why . . .”
He interrupted her. “Don’t even go there, Jules. I wanted you to stay here for treatment, and I still think you were wrong. I’m your husband. I want to take care of you.”
She was firm. “I need you to take care of Lucas, and I need to take care of myself. This way is easier.”
He sighed. “For you.”
“And for you. And most of all for him.”
Then they just looked at each other until Lucas appeared sleepily behind Bill, his hair sticking up at all angles.
* * *
• • •
Iris was talking on the phone to her brother Archie.
“Mom said you guys are fighting.” Iris could hear Archie’s kids yelling in the background, thousands of miles away. Her brother lived in Ireland, married to a gorgeous woman somewhat like their father had been, charming and dreamy and unambitious and exhausting. He loved her, loved their four kids, loved the green grass of Ireland, and hated the rain. Of all her brothers he was the one she was closest with.
“Did she?” Iris slowly pulled her coffee cup across the table toward herself. “What did she actually say?”
“She said you want another baby and Sara won’t let you have one.”
Iris made a face. “That’s not true.”
“Which part?”
“The not letting me part. Sara is open to having another baby, she just got offered a movie and we’re trying to work out the details.” Her brother waited, hearing the unspoken in her voice. “And yes, I want one and she wants one less.”
“Didn’t you discuss this years ago, when you had Wyatt? Presumably you did.”
“Sure, but like you do when nothing is real or binding. We said we were going to have a dozen kids. We didn’t mean it.”
“But you’d like another.”
“Yes. But not if it costs me my marriage.”
She waited while he settled a dispute over a ball, sipping her coffee and watching birds peck about on her lawn. She wondered if birds thought anything of the people they saw milling about below them. Probably just wondered what was keeping them on the ground, lazy bastards.
“I’m back. Kieran felt strongly that the one who scored the goal should be the one who got to throw it back into play, but Jenny disagreed.”
“She’s in goal?”
“Exactly. She pointed out she didn’t get to really kick the ball at all . . .”
“She has a sound point.”
“Yeah, but she illustrated it by kicking her brother in the ankle, which undermined her position.”
Iris smiled. “Maybe you could just send me one of yours.”
“I’d be thrilled.” He had a drink, too; she could hear him sipping. “So, what’s going on now?”
“Now we’re stepping around each other carefully, both trying not to be the one who starts it up again.”
Archie made a surprised noise. “That isn’t like you two. Normally you guys can’t stop talking.”
Iris sighed. “I know. It’s weird. I should have just mentioned it like a year ago when I first realized I wanted another kid, but I got nervous for no reason that she was going to flip out, and then I waited a little longer, and a little longer, and then it turned into a Big Thing in my head, even though it wasn’t. And then one of the neighbors had an affair and her marriage blew up and suddenly that seemed like a far worse outcome than just having one kid.”
“You’re losing it. Sara’s always been very laid back, and you pretty much always get your way, right? And she’s not the cheating sort and neither are you, or at least, neither of you used to be.”
“Yeah, but nobody thought this neighbor was, either.” She stood to go empty her cup. “Do you and Carol fight a lot?”
“Of course. Everyone fights. But mostly we talk about the kids, or about moving back to the States, or about what’s for dinner. We’re sort of in a holding pattern right now, I don’t know.”
“Why don’t marriages just wheel along on their own? Once you’ve given them a good push at the beginning they should just keep trundling along.”
She could hear a shrug in her brother’s voice, and got a mental image of his tall frame, his angular face, and missed him. “If the path was always smooth then maybe they would, but, if we can stretch this metaphor too far, it isn’t smooth and all those bumps slow it down and send it off course. I think of it more like one of those old-fashioned hoops you see in Victorian illustrations, you know?”
“The ones with the stick?”
“Yeah. You have to keep it going by poking and prodding, and marriage is like that, maybe. Basically wheeling along, but needing a poke from time to time.”
“You need a poke.”
He laughed. “That’s a true story. OK, I gotta go.” The noise in the background had changed to the dull roar of actual warfare. “Someone’s crying and I’m not sure who.”
“Got it. Talk soon?”
“Yeah. Love to Sara and hug Wyatt, OK? Stop fighting and sort your shit out.”
“You sort your own shit out.”
“OK, babe.”
He hung up. Iris thought about him, about his wedding, about her other brothers, about her father and now her mother, all alone. Then she got up and went to find Sara and sort out her shit.
Thirty-five.
After dropping all the kids at school Frances had a high school committee thing to go to. She found herself wondering about the future. Next year Lally would be in kindergarten. Maybe it was time to get a job outside the family. It would be nice to bring in extra money, but she knew—because she wasn’t an idiot—that she would just be adding to all the shit she had to do, because everyone knows the division of labor between couples isn’t equal. She daydreamed a meeting between herself and Michael where they shared out the domestic duties, carefully writing them all on a whiteboard.
“Pet care?” she said in her daydream, holding a green marker.
“What’s involved with that?” Michael asked, looking up from his increasingly long list. His pencil wavered; he liked pets, this might be one for him.
“Feeding, walking, pee/poo/vomit clean up, minor first aid, flea medication and deworming, vet visit scheduling and attending, and anything else that comes up.”
He was shaking his head. “Nah, that sounds more like a you kind of thing. What else you got?”
“Laundry?”
“What goes with that?”
“Well, you pick up all the clothes on the floor and sniff them to see if they’re clean. Then you wash them, dry them, fold them, and either leave them in a giant pile somewhere to be rummaged through, or you carefully put Lally’s away and deliver Milo’s and Ava’s to their rooms, telling them to put them away themselves, only to discover them lying on the floor the next day, unworn. And you spend time pairing socks, time that could easily be spent doing pretty much anything else. Plus, every so often, you have to field the desperately delivered comment that ‘nothing is clean in this house’ or hunt through the dirty laundry for some particular piece of clothing a child wants.” She remembered something else. “Of course, soccer uniforms are bundled in there, too. I like to do that at nine o’clock on Friday evening in a panic, but you can do it on a Sunday morning and feel smug if you like.”
And then, when the meeting was over, she’d drop a folder the size of Poughkeepsie on the desk in front of him. “What’s this,” he would ask and she would reply, “It’s the contents of my head from the last fourteen years of taking care of everything.”
She found a parking space and sat there smiling for a moment. Then she sighed, rolled some “calming” essential oils on her wrists, ineffectively, and headed into the café.
* * *
• • •
Like childbirth, volunteering to organize a school event was way more painful than you expected it to be, but the minute the event was over you forgot how awful it was. It’s the only possible explanation for why those lovely but exhausted women do it every year. This year Frances had decided to join the Parents Spring Fling Committee at Ava’s school. The Spring Fling was the school’s major fund-raiser. It had a theme, a silent auction, a raffle, and a tendency to produce the kind of drunken behavior that kept the school gate gossips warm for the rest of the year. Three minutes into the meeting Frances was already kicking herself, and it hadn’t even officially begun.
Sitting in a coffee shop, around the large central table, were a half dozen women who mostly wished they were somewhere else. Frances knew only one of them, and had already forgotten the names of the others.
One of them was clearly new to this game because she was talking about her daughter. Rule number one when meeting school parents you don’t know? Never talk about your child. Think about Fight Club, and double down. Whatever you say will get back to the other kids and be spread around school in no time. One time Frances had mentioned Ava was getting braces and by the time Ava got home that same day everyone in her class had asked her what color bands she was going to put on.
“Why do they even care?” Frances had asked, bemused.
“I don’t know! But why did you tell them?!” Ava had been deeply annoyed and went on and on about feeling violated until Frances had had to drift off into her mental happy place just to survive. In her happy place there was a gentle hum of bees and birdsong, and no one Ever Said Anything. But anyway.
“So,” this mother said, innocently enough, “Flora-Grace just got shortlisted for the art museum’s painting contest, isn’t that fun?”
A tall blond mom turned to another and said, “Didn’t Butterfly Absinthe win that last year?”
“Yes,” her crony replied, “I think she did. It was before the drug thing, of course.” She turned to the innocent mom. “Does your daughter know Anglepoise Whateverthefuck? In eigth grade?” The innocent one, slowly realizing she had transgressed in some way she didn’t really understand, shook her head. “Well,” continued the other mom, “I think she got shortlisted, too, and she’s super, super talented. We should introduce the two of them.”
“We should!” said the tall blonde. “I’m sure they’d have a lot to talk about!” Having taken ownership of this topic, she then turned to Frances. “So, how’s Ava enjoying eighth grade? I hear she’s doing much better.”
Fortunately for Frances, this was not her first rodeo, so she merely smiled and nodded. The best defense against aggressively competitive parents is a simple one: silence. Followed by a definitive changing of the subject. To whit:
“So, the Fling . . . What’s the theme this year?”
“Well,” said the tall blonde, pulling out a stack of glossy magazines. “I was thinking classic seventies spank rags. Winged hair, split beavers, and a disturbing amount of pubic hair compared to today’s sanitized Internet porn.”
“Great idea!” said the woman next to her. “And we could have an S&M raffle to bring in the Fifty Shades folks! Maybe we can get a ball gag in school colors?”
None of this happened, of course, but imagining it kept Frances sane throughout the rest of the meeting, and she managed to get out without volunteering for anything more onerous than coat check.
After that she had to pick up medication for one of the dogs, who had developed a skin condition only slightly more expensive to treat than the aforementioned braces had been, and go to Staples for printer paper. She came out with the paper, a blank composition book with kittens on the front (Lally), a pack of monster pencil toppers in a variety of colors (Milo), and several “to do” list pads with humorous headlines (Ava). She forgot the ink toner cartridge she also needed, and had to go back, of course. It never failed. She resolved to keep one of the “to do” pads for herself.
Then she went home for an hour, during which she emptied and loaded the dishwasher, moved laundry through the system, scheduled a doctor’s appointment for Milo whose birthday was coming up, rescheduled an orthodontist appointment for Ava, and sat and gazed into space for nearly ten minutes trying to remember what it was she’d forgotten. Then she went to pick up the preschool kids.
* * *
• • •
Lally was in a good mood that day, and Lucas was open to being in a good mood once he’d had some lunch and watched a show. After lunch he surprised Frances by pulling an iPad out of his backpack.
“Look!” he said. “Dad got me a thingy so I could talk to Mom and today he let me bring it to school for show-and-tell.”
“Does it have games?” asked Lally, ever practical.
Lucas frowned. “No, does yours?”
Lally shook her head. “I don’t have one.” There was a pause, and they both looked at Frances.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I don’t have one, either.”
“Do you want to see my mom?” asked Lucas.
Frances frowned. “It’s OK, she might be busy right now.”
He shrugged. “She won’t answer if she’s in a meeting or something, that’s the rule. I only call once.” He’d already hit a shortcut on the screen, and a window had opened up placing a call.
Suddenly Julie’s smiling face appeared. Frances hadn’t seen her in several months, and she was shocked by how pale she was. Clearly Lucas didn’t notice, in that callous but useful way children have of seeing adults without really seeing them.
“Hey, Mom!” he said, grinning and waving the iPad. “Frances is here, look!” He turned it around and handed it to Frances. Then he and Lally turned and ran off to play, presumably. Or to cook meth in the upstairs bathroom, who knows?
There was an awkward moment. “Hi, Julie,” said Frances. “He took the iPad in for show-and-tell, and he was just . . .”
“Showing and telling?” asked Julie, smiling. “Hey, Frances, how the heck are you?”
“I’m good, how are you?” Frances held the tablet awkwardly, not sure if she was supposed to stand still. She needed coffee, so she began walking very slowly toward the coffee maker.
“I’ve been better, but I’ve also been worse.” She paused. “Why are you walking like the queen?”
Frances laughed and stopped. “I’m trying not to wobble you.”
“You realize you’re not really carrying a tiny me in your hands, right?”
“I need coffee,” Frances replied. “I’m having my early afternoon brain cramps.” She propped the tablet on the counter and made coffee.
Julie asked, “Is Lucas still there?”
“Uh, no. He just handed me the thing and ran off.”
Julie sighed. “Can he hear us?”
Frances shook her head.
“Do you have time to chat? I’m bored out of my mind right now.”
“Sure.” Frances took her coffee outside onto the deck and sat down, propping the iPad on her lap.
“So, I hear my husband is punching the neighbors.” Julie didn’t seem shocked, more amused than anything.
“Yup. He’s turned into a total liability since you left. The neighborhood watch association had a meeting recently and it was all about his roustabout behavior.”
“I’ll bet. So, I guess you also heard I got cancer.”
“Yeah, that came up just before the punching. I’m so sorry. That sucks.”
“Yeah. I’m bald all over.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. It’s not as sexy as you would think.” There was a pause. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It was . . . weird. I found out, then I came here for treatment really fast, and the whole thing just . . . happened. I didn’t want to make a big thing out of it, and have people being super helpful or anything.”
Frances suddenly laughed. “Yeah, that could be really annoying.”
Julie said, “We let you be helpful, though. We couldn’t have done it without you, literally. Bill is only able to keep working, which means keeping our insurance, because you help with Lucas. You have no idea how much we appreciate it.”
“No, it wouldn’t. It won’t ever be the same.”
For a moment his son looked at him blankly. Then he pulled on his shoes and stood, pushing past his father and closing his bedroom door behind him, leaving Charlie standing there alone.
* * *
• • •
Lucas wasn’t awake yet when Bill Skyped Julie. He told her about the day before, and she surprised him by laughing out loud. He hadn’t heard it in a while, and it was worth some bruised knuckles.
“You punched him? Really?” She was in bed, of course, the tablet propped up on her arm, and her face was so close it was almost easy to pretend she was in the same bed as Bill. She smiled, her warmth undimmed by weeks of chemotherapy, even as it robbed her of her eyelashes, pubic hair, and immune system. “How very macho and unexpected of you.”
He grinned. “It was unexpected even to me. I didn’t know I was going to do it until I did it, if you know what I mean. I just got pissed off with his fucking whining.”
“Oh, come on. His heart is broken.”
“No,” Bill said firmly. “His ego is broken, and he’s sad as shit that his wife let him down, but he’ll recover.”
“Don’t be a dick, Bill. What about his kids? I’d be fucking devastated if you did that to me. To Lucas.”
“How do you know I’m not doing it right now? I could be sleeping with a wide variety of lovely young women while you’re out of the picture.”
She laughed. “I assume you are, because I know how much free time you have. It’s easy to take care of a small kid and work full time, right?”
“Yeah, it’s a walk in the park.”
She stopped laughing. “See, this is why . . .”
He interrupted her. “Don’t even go there, Jules. I wanted you to stay here for treatment, and I still think you were wrong. I’m your husband. I want to take care of you.”
She was firm. “I need you to take care of Lucas, and I need to take care of myself. This way is easier.”
He sighed. “For you.”
“And for you. And most of all for him.”
Then they just looked at each other until Lucas appeared sleepily behind Bill, his hair sticking up at all angles.
* * *
• • •
Iris was talking on the phone to her brother Archie.
“Mom said you guys are fighting.” Iris could hear Archie’s kids yelling in the background, thousands of miles away. Her brother lived in Ireland, married to a gorgeous woman somewhat like their father had been, charming and dreamy and unambitious and exhausting. He loved her, loved their four kids, loved the green grass of Ireland, and hated the rain. Of all her brothers he was the one she was closest with.
“Did she?” Iris slowly pulled her coffee cup across the table toward herself. “What did she actually say?”
“She said you want another baby and Sara won’t let you have one.”
Iris made a face. “That’s not true.”
“Which part?”
“The not letting me part. Sara is open to having another baby, she just got offered a movie and we’re trying to work out the details.” Her brother waited, hearing the unspoken in her voice. “And yes, I want one and she wants one less.”
“Didn’t you discuss this years ago, when you had Wyatt? Presumably you did.”
“Sure, but like you do when nothing is real or binding. We said we were going to have a dozen kids. We didn’t mean it.”
“But you’d like another.”
“Yes. But not if it costs me my marriage.”
She waited while he settled a dispute over a ball, sipping her coffee and watching birds peck about on her lawn. She wondered if birds thought anything of the people they saw milling about below them. Probably just wondered what was keeping them on the ground, lazy bastards.
“I’m back. Kieran felt strongly that the one who scored the goal should be the one who got to throw it back into play, but Jenny disagreed.”
“She’s in goal?”
“Exactly. She pointed out she didn’t get to really kick the ball at all . . .”
“She has a sound point.”
“Yeah, but she illustrated it by kicking her brother in the ankle, which undermined her position.”
Iris smiled. “Maybe you could just send me one of yours.”
“I’d be thrilled.” He had a drink, too; she could hear him sipping. “So, what’s going on now?”
“Now we’re stepping around each other carefully, both trying not to be the one who starts it up again.”
Archie made a surprised noise. “That isn’t like you two. Normally you guys can’t stop talking.”
Iris sighed. “I know. It’s weird. I should have just mentioned it like a year ago when I first realized I wanted another kid, but I got nervous for no reason that she was going to flip out, and then I waited a little longer, and a little longer, and then it turned into a Big Thing in my head, even though it wasn’t. And then one of the neighbors had an affair and her marriage blew up and suddenly that seemed like a far worse outcome than just having one kid.”
“You’re losing it. Sara’s always been very laid back, and you pretty much always get your way, right? And she’s not the cheating sort and neither are you, or at least, neither of you used to be.”
“Yeah, but nobody thought this neighbor was, either.” She stood to go empty her cup. “Do you and Carol fight a lot?”
“Of course. Everyone fights. But mostly we talk about the kids, or about moving back to the States, or about what’s for dinner. We’re sort of in a holding pattern right now, I don’t know.”
“Why don’t marriages just wheel along on their own? Once you’ve given them a good push at the beginning they should just keep trundling along.”
She could hear a shrug in her brother’s voice, and got a mental image of his tall frame, his angular face, and missed him. “If the path was always smooth then maybe they would, but, if we can stretch this metaphor too far, it isn’t smooth and all those bumps slow it down and send it off course. I think of it more like one of those old-fashioned hoops you see in Victorian illustrations, you know?”
“The ones with the stick?”
“Yeah. You have to keep it going by poking and prodding, and marriage is like that, maybe. Basically wheeling along, but needing a poke from time to time.”
“You need a poke.”
He laughed. “That’s a true story. OK, I gotta go.” The noise in the background had changed to the dull roar of actual warfare. “Someone’s crying and I’m not sure who.”
“Got it. Talk soon?”
“Yeah. Love to Sara and hug Wyatt, OK? Stop fighting and sort your shit out.”
“You sort your own shit out.”
“OK, babe.”
He hung up. Iris thought about him, about his wedding, about her other brothers, about her father and now her mother, all alone. Then she got up and went to find Sara and sort out her shit.
Thirty-five.
After dropping all the kids at school Frances had a high school committee thing to go to. She found herself wondering about the future. Next year Lally would be in kindergarten. Maybe it was time to get a job outside the family. It would be nice to bring in extra money, but she knew—because she wasn’t an idiot—that she would just be adding to all the shit she had to do, because everyone knows the division of labor between couples isn’t equal. She daydreamed a meeting between herself and Michael where they shared out the domestic duties, carefully writing them all on a whiteboard.
“Pet care?” she said in her daydream, holding a green marker.
“What’s involved with that?” Michael asked, looking up from his increasingly long list. His pencil wavered; he liked pets, this might be one for him.
“Feeding, walking, pee/poo/vomit clean up, minor first aid, flea medication and deworming, vet visit scheduling and attending, and anything else that comes up.”
He was shaking his head. “Nah, that sounds more like a you kind of thing. What else you got?”
“Laundry?”
“What goes with that?”
“Well, you pick up all the clothes on the floor and sniff them to see if they’re clean. Then you wash them, dry them, fold them, and either leave them in a giant pile somewhere to be rummaged through, or you carefully put Lally’s away and deliver Milo’s and Ava’s to their rooms, telling them to put them away themselves, only to discover them lying on the floor the next day, unworn. And you spend time pairing socks, time that could easily be spent doing pretty much anything else. Plus, every so often, you have to field the desperately delivered comment that ‘nothing is clean in this house’ or hunt through the dirty laundry for some particular piece of clothing a child wants.” She remembered something else. “Of course, soccer uniforms are bundled in there, too. I like to do that at nine o’clock on Friday evening in a panic, but you can do it on a Sunday morning and feel smug if you like.”
And then, when the meeting was over, she’d drop a folder the size of Poughkeepsie on the desk in front of him. “What’s this,” he would ask and she would reply, “It’s the contents of my head from the last fourteen years of taking care of everything.”
She found a parking space and sat there smiling for a moment. Then she sighed, rolled some “calming” essential oils on her wrists, ineffectively, and headed into the café.
* * *
• • •
Like childbirth, volunteering to organize a school event was way more painful than you expected it to be, but the minute the event was over you forgot how awful it was. It’s the only possible explanation for why those lovely but exhausted women do it every year. This year Frances had decided to join the Parents Spring Fling Committee at Ava’s school. The Spring Fling was the school’s major fund-raiser. It had a theme, a silent auction, a raffle, and a tendency to produce the kind of drunken behavior that kept the school gate gossips warm for the rest of the year. Three minutes into the meeting Frances was already kicking herself, and it hadn’t even officially begun.
Sitting in a coffee shop, around the large central table, were a half dozen women who mostly wished they were somewhere else. Frances knew only one of them, and had already forgotten the names of the others.
One of them was clearly new to this game because she was talking about her daughter. Rule number one when meeting school parents you don’t know? Never talk about your child. Think about Fight Club, and double down. Whatever you say will get back to the other kids and be spread around school in no time. One time Frances had mentioned Ava was getting braces and by the time Ava got home that same day everyone in her class had asked her what color bands she was going to put on.
“Why do they even care?” Frances had asked, bemused.
“I don’t know! But why did you tell them?!” Ava had been deeply annoyed and went on and on about feeling violated until Frances had had to drift off into her mental happy place just to survive. In her happy place there was a gentle hum of bees and birdsong, and no one Ever Said Anything. But anyway.
“So,” this mother said, innocently enough, “Flora-Grace just got shortlisted for the art museum’s painting contest, isn’t that fun?”
A tall blond mom turned to another and said, “Didn’t Butterfly Absinthe win that last year?”
“Yes,” her crony replied, “I think she did. It was before the drug thing, of course.” She turned to the innocent mom. “Does your daughter know Anglepoise Whateverthefuck? In eigth grade?” The innocent one, slowly realizing she had transgressed in some way she didn’t really understand, shook her head. “Well,” continued the other mom, “I think she got shortlisted, too, and she’s super, super talented. We should introduce the two of them.”
“We should!” said the tall blonde. “I’m sure they’d have a lot to talk about!” Having taken ownership of this topic, she then turned to Frances. “So, how’s Ava enjoying eighth grade? I hear she’s doing much better.”
Fortunately for Frances, this was not her first rodeo, so she merely smiled and nodded. The best defense against aggressively competitive parents is a simple one: silence. Followed by a definitive changing of the subject. To whit:
“So, the Fling . . . What’s the theme this year?”
“Well,” said the tall blonde, pulling out a stack of glossy magazines. “I was thinking classic seventies spank rags. Winged hair, split beavers, and a disturbing amount of pubic hair compared to today’s sanitized Internet porn.”
“Great idea!” said the woman next to her. “And we could have an S&M raffle to bring in the Fifty Shades folks! Maybe we can get a ball gag in school colors?”
None of this happened, of course, but imagining it kept Frances sane throughout the rest of the meeting, and she managed to get out without volunteering for anything more onerous than coat check.
After that she had to pick up medication for one of the dogs, who had developed a skin condition only slightly more expensive to treat than the aforementioned braces had been, and go to Staples for printer paper. She came out with the paper, a blank composition book with kittens on the front (Lally), a pack of monster pencil toppers in a variety of colors (Milo), and several “to do” list pads with humorous headlines (Ava). She forgot the ink toner cartridge she also needed, and had to go back, of course. It never failed. She resolved to keep one of the “to do” pads for herself.
Then she went home for an hour, during which she emptied and loaded the dishwasher, moved laundry through the system, scheduled a doctor’s appointment for Milo whose birthday was coming up, rescheduled an orthodontist appointment for Ava, and sat and gazed into space for nearly ten minutes trying to remember what it was she’d forgotten. Then she went to pick up the preschool kids.
* * *
• • •
Lally was in a good mood that day, and Lucas was open to being in a good mood once he’d had some lunch and watched a show. After lunch he surprised Frances by pulling an iPad out of his backpack.
“Look!” he said. “Dad got me a thingy so I could talk to Mom and today he let me bring it to school for show-and-tell.”
“Does it have games?” asked Lally, ever practical.
Lucas frowned. “No, does yours?”
Lally shook her head. “I don’t have one.” There was a pause, and they both looked at Frances.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I don’t have one, either.”
“Do you want to see my mom?” asked Lucas.
Frances frowned. “It’s OK, she might be busy right now.”
He shrugged. “She won’t answer if she’s in a meeting or something, that’s the rule. I only call once.” He’d already hit a shortcut on the screen, and a window had opened up placing a call.
Suddenly Julie’s smiling face appeared. Frances hadn’t seen her in several months, and she was shocked by how pale she was. Clearly Lucas didn’t notice, in that callous but useful way children have of seeing adults without really seeing them.
“Hey, Mom!” he said, grinning and waving the iPad. “Frances is here, look!” He turned it around and handed it to Frances. Then he and Lally turned and ran off to play, presumably. Or to cook meth in the upstairs bathroom, who knows?
There was an awkward moment. “Hi, Julie,” said Frances. “He took the iPad in for show-and-tell, and he was just . . .”
“Showing and telling?” asked Julie, smiling. “Hey, Frances, how the heck are you?”
“I’m good, how are you?” Frances held the tablet awkwardly, not sure if she was supposed to stand still. She needed coffee, so she began walking very slowly toward the coffee maker.
“I’ve been better, but I’ve also been worse.” She paused. “Why are you walking like the queen?”
Frances laughed and stopped. “I’m trying not to wobble you.”
“You realize you’re not really carrying a tiny me in your hands, right?”
“I need coffee,” Frances replied. “I’m having my early afternoon brain cramps.” She propped the tablet on the counter and made coffee.
Julie asked, “Is Lucas still there?”
“Uh, no. He just handed me the thing and ran off.”
Julie sighed. “Can he hear us?”
Frances shook her head.
“Do you have time to chat? I’m bored out of my mind right now.”
“Sure.” Frances took her coffee outside onto the deck and sat down, propping the iPad on her lap.
“So, I hear my husband is punching the neighbors.” Julie didn’t seem shocked, more amused than anything.
“Yup. He’s turned into a total liability since you left. The neighborhood watch association had a meeting recently and it was all about his roustabout behavior.”
“I’ll bet. So, I guess you also heard I got cancer.”
“Yeah, that came up just before the punching. I’m so sorry. That sucks.”
“Yeah. I’m bald all over.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. It’s not as sexy as you would think.” There was a pause. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It was . . . weird. I found out, then I came here for treatment really fast, and the whole thing just . . . happened. I didn’t want to make a big thing out of it, and have people being super helpful or anything.”
Frances suddenly laughed. “Yeah, that could be really annoying.”
Julie said, “We let you be helpful, though. We couldn’t have done it without you, literally. Bill is only able to keep working, which means keeping our insurance, because you help with Lucas. You have no idea how much we appreciate it.”
