Other People's Houses(56)

“Excellent.” Frances looked relieved.

“He’s coming,” Anne said and suddenly sat up, the blood restored, the nausea subsided, the inner anxiety reduced just by seeing her husband, even though he hated her now. She tried a smile. He’d always loved her smile.

Charlie didn’t smile back. Instead he spoke to Frances. “Nice to know whose side you’re on, Frances.”

Frances sat back on her heels and looked up at him. He was barely holding it together. “Don’t be silly, Charlie. She looked like she was about to pass out, and rather than give the local witches something even juicier to talk about, I helped. I hope you would do the same for me.”

He shook his head. “Not if you’d cheated on your husband and ruined the happiness of your children. You’d be just as big a bitch as she is.” He looked at his wife with disgust. “I’d have let her fall, personally.”

Frances stood up. “I’m glad to see you’re handling this so well. I’m going back to my kids now, before I say something we both have to live with for years.” She turned back to Anne and smiled. “Sorry, Anne. I hope you feel better.”

Apparently soccer was over because behind them they heard Kate and Theo happily calling to their mother, and thundering in their direction. Frances walked away, and the kids passed her going top speed. Her own kids were waiting for her, watching her come with trusting expressions. There were juice boxes in their future, and possibly ice cream.

“Is Anne OK?” Shelly had stepped into her path, looking concerned in a way that suddenly pissed Frances off. Shelly barely knew Anne, she just wanted to be the One Who Knew the Scoop.

“Sure,” replied Frances, not slowing down very much.

“Can you believe she cheated on Charlie? He’s so nice. Those poor kids. So selfish, right?” Shelly made a little clicking sound with her tongue. Frances still didn’t slow down, but she looked at Shelly and raised her eyebrows.

“You know absolutely nothing about it, Shelly, and you should keep your ill-formed and unwelcome judgments to yourself. Maybe your life is a well-orchestrated series of elegant vignettes, with perfect photo opportunities every ten minutes, but if you’re anything like the rest of us then you’re lurching from one near-disaster to the next, crossing your legs every time you cough so you don’t pee your pants after having had four children.”

Shelly just stared at her, her mouth open.

“That’s what I thought,” said Frances, walking by and farting silently as she went. She was opposed to chemical warfare on principle, but sometimes you just had to go with what you had at hand.





Twenty-five.


Theo and Kate were beyond excited to see their mom, which wasn’t surprising, thought Charlie. He had felt the usual warm feeling, too, for a nanosecond. Habituated neurons firing as they always had. It takes a while for the head to catch up with the heart, it would seem. He was so incredibly angry with Anne it took all he had not to scream at her or slap her, something he had never, ever even been remotely tempted to do to her, or to anyone. But he didn’t, because his kids were beaming and hanging on her and she was smiling down at them as if she hadn’t just thrown away their happiness for a fuck.

Two days earlier, after he had spoken to the school principal, he had forced himself to call his wife.

“It’s me.”

“I’m so sorry, so sorry, Charlie, I really never . . .” She had started crying as soon as she saw his name on her phone, “ICE Charlie Porter.” Would he even come in an emergency now? She’d have to change that along with every other single aspect of her life.

He couldn’t have been further from tears. “Save it. We need to tell the children together. I just met with the principal. She persuaded me that it’s better for them.”

There was a pause. “What are we going to tell them?”

“We’re going to tell them that we’re not being very good friends right now, and that you’re going to move out for a while so we can stay friends. That we love them just as much, that we are still their mom and dad, and that it has nothing to do with them.”

“You’re not going to tell them about what I did?”

“Not today. Today we’re going to just tell them what’s going to happen. Are you able to do that? Mrs. Garcia said it’s better if we both do it, but if you’re going to fall apart I’ll do it alone.”

For a split second Anne remembered how cold he had been on the phone, as she hugged her children on this hot Saturday afternoon, and looked up at him. He looked like he could punch her any minute, and although she had never been afraid of him before, not even fleetingly, now she dropped her gaze.

“Where do you want to go, my loves?” Focus on the kids, Anne.

Kate shouted out for ice cream, but Theo looked confused. “Aren’t we just going home?”

His dad’s voice came from behind him. “Mommy isn’t living there right now, remember?”

Theo frowned, and turned to face his father. “But she can still visit, right? She’s still our mom.” He turned back to Anne and tugged on her hand. “You can come to my room, Mom.”

“And mine!” Kate said, jealously. “We can play Littlest Pet Shop.”

Theo was scornful. “She doesn’t want to play that.”