Other People's Houses(43)

Mrs. Garcia shrugged. “I’m afraid you don’t have that option. Or at least, you do, but if you’ll take my advice and put your children’s needs uppermost, even at this truly difficult time for you and your wife, you’ll put your pain aside and make things calm and friendly for your kids.”

Charlie felt his chest constrict, and the tears came hot and fast, curling him over in his chair, stealing all sense of time and place from him. Mrs. Garcia sighed and hit a button on the phone. “Hold my calls, Jillian.”

Then she got up, circled the desk, and put her arm around Charlie Porter, comforting him just as she had the little boy who’d sat in that chair not ten minutes earlier. Of course, a splinter was easier to deal with than a stake to the chest. Mrs. Garcia sat there for a while, patting Charlie as he cried, wishing she had a caramel.



* * *



? ? ?

Frances got a text from Charlie just as she was leaving for pickup.

I’m picking up Theo and Kate, thanks.

OK. I heard what happened.

Here if you need me.



Keeping it real. Practical. No judgment here, no comment, just a reminder she was here to help.

OK.

Frances stood in the street looking at her phone, thinking about what she needed to say to her own kids that evening. She wanted them to be aware of what Kate and Theo were going through, wanted them to look out for their friends, to make sure they weren’t floundering. They would be floundering, of course, everything just went to shit. She looked at her watch and thought of Kate and Theo finishing class. Going to get their backpacks, a drink of water, their jackets. Both completely certain they were going to walk outside, clamber into Frances’s car like every day, go home, have dinner, go to bed with a story and a cuddle. They’d step outside and see their father and some very basic instinct would tell them something was wrong. Frances’s mouth tightened in sympathy and relief that she didn’t have to face what Charlie had to.





Twenty.


Ava was uncompromising, which was typical. Her younger siblings had been sympathetic, immediately worried their own parents were divorcing, and generally over it in two minutes. Ava on the other hand was sitting at the dinner table holding forth on the perfidy of adults.

“Honestly, grown-ups are forever talking about how important it is to be honest, and not to lie, and to think about others, and all that crap, but they’re always lying and cheating.” She was spinning her knife, the little noise apparently pleasing her.

Frances was emptying the dishwasher in order to fill it again with the dinner dishes, and she looked over at Michael. He and Ava were still at the table, the younger kids having bolted as soon as possible, and he was on his third glass of wine. He was looking at Ava sadly.

“We try not to, just the same as you try not to. But grown-ups are just as fallible as kids, Ava.”

She looked scornfully at him. “Then why do you make such distinctions between kids and adults? ‘You’re too young to do this, too young to do that, you’ll understand when you’re older, you can do this when you’re older’ . . . Meanwhile, you’re behaving worse than children.”

“I’m sure Anne didn’t intend to wreck her marriage. She just made a bad decision.”

Frances was torn between continuing to clatter dishes, or going over and joining the conversation. There would always be a dishwasher to empty, so she joined Michael and Ava at the table.

Ava was glowingly self-righteous. It was always about her; her smooth prefrontal cortex wouldn’t allow her to think otherwise. “Well, when I make a bad decision you remind me that I should have thought it through, right? Consider the consequences of failure, you always say, think about both outcomes, make a plan for both. You’re apparently expecting more of me than you do of grown-ups.”

Frances shook her head, helping herself to a glass of wine. “No, we expected that of Anne, too, but it’s not our place to tell her that we’re disappointed in her, right? We’re not raising her.”

“Why not? Why is it OK to tell a kid you’re unhappy with their behavior, but you guys give each other a pass all the time.” She looked genuinely annoyed. As she stood up to get herself another glass of water, Frances looked over at Michael and made the face that meant Should we change the subject, talk about something more neutral, but she could see he was interested in what his daughter had to say. She sighed inside. She felt danger, Will Robinson, land mines ahead.

Michael tried another tack. “Maybe Anne and Charlie were unhappy. You never know what someone else’s marriage or family is really like. We don’t always get on, right? Your mom and I argue and you and I argue. Maybe they just argued more.”

Ava shook her head. “No. Charlie is nice. I think Anne was just selfish and narcissistic and a bitch.” She watched her dad’s face to see if he was going to protest the use of the B word, but he didn’t flicker. “I never liked her.” She turned to Frances. “Didn’t I just say that? The other day?” She sat back down with her water, and started unlacing her sneakers. It was getting dark outside, time to relax into the evening.

Frances took a sip of wine and nodded. “You did. But I think what your dad is trying to say is that it’s not a good idea to judge people when you don’t know all the facts and maybe not even then. You know the whole glass houses thing, right? None of us is perfect. You lied to me the other day for example.”