Frances sighed, and got up to go hide her face in the dirty dishes. “Yesterday Anne’s boyfriend showed up just as I arrived with the kids. Two seconds later Charlie showed up, too. It was a clusterfuck.”
Michael frowned. “But why did they wait to fight until this morning? I’m confused.”
Frances turned on the faucet to rinse the dishes she was putting in. It bought her a little time, but once she’d turned it off she replied, “Charlie didn’t find out about it then. I sort of covered for her.” She turned and looked at her husband. “Like you just covered for me, with Ava.”
“How did you manage that, exactly?”
“I pretended I knew him, and that he was heading toward Anne’s house by accident.” She watched Michael’s face, but it was difficult to read. She frowned. “I think it was stupid, but I couldn’t help it at the time. She’s my friend, and the kids were there, and I didn’t want it to all . . .”
“Blow up?”
She nodded. “Not that it helped.”
“Nope. And now you’ve involved yourself in someone else’s marriage. Or rather, the end of it.”
Frances finished with the dishwasher and shut the door. She waited until the reassuring swishing sound began. “Maybe it won’t ever come up.”
“It’s a bad habit, Frank.”
“How do you mean?” She was about to head back to the table, grab herself another glass of wine, but there was a coolness in his expression that made her stop halfway and lean against the kitchen island instead.
“I mean your obsession with getting involved. You always want to be part of what’s going on. You offer to help other people not just to help them, but because it satisfies some weird childhood desire to add to the list of people who need you.”
She looked at him and thought about what he was saying. Suddenly she was annoyed. “I think you’re full of it. I’m not forcing anyone to do anything. I have my own kids to take care of, plus the neighbors’ kids, plus the occasional kid from school. It’s not an international network of children requiring constant care and feeding.”
Michael was filling up his wineglass again, for the fourth time. This was usually the point at which things went downhill. He was generally a genial drunk, but after three glasses he could be critical, like now, and four or more usually brought out his inner dickhead. Frances got ready to concede and withdraw; she had too much shit to do to argue with Michael, who would be hungover and contrite in the morning.
Sadly, Michael wasn’t at that point. “Occasional? How many people have you as their emergency contact, Frances?”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re right, I’m too nosy.” She turned to leave the room, but he repeated his question.
“No, really, Frank. How many?”
She shrugged. “Several. Why does it matter? It’s not like anyone’s ever called me in an emergency.” She started angrily tidying, which was one of the more effective methods of countertop clearing.
“Last year you were the backup emergency contact for seven other families, not counting the ones in your carpool. And here’s the thing: You love it. You love feeling needed, you love being involved. You sign up for this thing and that thing, you know everyone.” There was a hint of disdain in his voice, a mockery Frances felt very sharply.
The dogs had wandered back in, having discovered Ava was only heading to her room to sulk. They could sense tension in the kitchen, and they both started slowly wagging their tails in a “Let’s all calm down” kind of way. Frances reached down to pet them, but her anger was growing rather than fading. “Why is that bad? I don’t have a job-type job. This is what I do. I’m a mom, a parent. I take care of my own kids, and I help other parents take care of theirs. I have time. They don’t. When I don’t have time, one of them will. It’s a fucking village, right?” She thought, but not for long enough: “It’s not like you’re helping all that much, is it?”
“I help.”
“When? When was the last time you did a load of laundry?”
“The other day, before my trip to San Francisco.”
Frances snorted. “Yeah, you went through and picked out a basket of your own clothes and washed them. You didn’t do anyone else’s, you just took care of your own shit.”
The fourth glass was nearly gone. The dogs were backing out of the room. Other men might have raised their voices, but Frances’s husband lowered his. “At least I take care of my own shit. You put everyone else first so you don’t have to look at your own life. You’re way too busy to go to the gym, or get a part-time job, or even get a fucking haircut. We haven’t had sex for nearly six months, we haven’t gone out to dinner, we haven’t had a conversation that wasn’t about the kids, we haven’t done anything that wasn’t to do with the mundane quotidian details of existence. It’s so fucking boring, Frank, it’s all so fucking boring.” He tipped the bottle but it was empty. “At least Anne Porter generated a little heat and light while she burned her fucking house to the ground.”
Frances turned and walked out before she said something she would regret, and her husband almost certainly wouldn’t remember.
• • •
Despite her deep irritation with Michael, Frances still had things to do. She pushed the argument to the back of her mind, where it wedged itself in a mental closet full of such things, and went to give Lally a bath. Ava was sulking in the bedroom to her right, Michael was sulking in the kitchen downstairs, and she was going to hide in the bathroom and form her daughter’s hair into soapy devil horns. Fuck them.
Lally, who was completely unaware that anything was going on with her mother at all, said, “So, will Anne still be Kate and Theo’s mom?”
Frances nodded. “Yes, you
