Other People's Houses(59)
Anne saw all this on his face, even as she noticed he was wearing the boxer shorts she’d given him for Christmas many years before. Reindeer on skis. She couldn’t see from here, but she knew the flannel under his balls was wearing thin, had thought a few months earlier that new holiday boxer shorts should be under the tree this year. Her stomach twisted at the thought of Christmas. Oh my God, his parents.
“She said she’s sorry!” Kate was losing it, her voice clogged with tears and her un-blown nose. “You have to accept her apology, you have to! You’re the one being mean now, you’re the one who’s doing the bad thing! You have to say sorry! You both have to say sorry!!” She fell, sobbing, to the floor, literally pulling on her own hair, her tiny fingers so furious at herself for not being able to make this right, not being a big enough girl to fix this, until her brother pushed past his parents and joined her on the ground, pulling her onto his lap and rocking her, smoothing her hair and holding her fingers, letting her pinch him so hard, letting her punch and smack at his face—the only person in her life left to safely get angry at. He looked at his father, his eyes cold and unblinking. Ten years old. Battlefield promotion to adult, first grade.
Anne turned and walked downstairs, unable to handle their pain. Coward. As she turned at the bottom of the stairs and stumbled out she could hear her husband closing the bathroom door above her. She walked away from the house blindly, the door left open behind her, her children sitting alone on the bedroom floor where they’d opened birthday presents and run for hugs and crossed for bad dreams in the middle of the night, totally alone. She was every bit the bad mother she’d always known she was, and had a car driven along the street at that very moment she would have thrown herself in front of it with relief.
Twenty-six.
When Frances had come boiling back from soccer, full of ire at Shelly and a certain amount of pride at being able to fart on cue, Michael had been surprisingly unsupportive. He had simply made a face at her and kept watching the football game on his computer.
Frances frowned at him. “You don’t think I was right to get annoyed at her?”
Her husband shrugged, still keeping his eye on the ball. “I think you were judging her as much as she was judging Anne, to be honest. The farting I support completely.”
Frances sat on the bed and looked at him. “But Shelly doesn’t even know Anne.”
“You don’t know her all that well yourself. It’s not like you and Iris. You and Anne were always, you know, different from each other. I would call you politely warm acquaintances.”
“Aren’t you friends with Charlie?”
“Not really. I’d go get a beer with him. I’d definitely do a playdate or something with Theo and Milo, but would I confide my concerns about erectile dysfunction? Nope.”
“Do you have concerns about erectile dysfunction?”
“Nope.”
“Well then.”
“Not the point. I’m clarifying degrees of friendship.” He sat back from the computer, and regarded his wife thoughtfully. “There are those friends we’re friends with because our kids are at school together. We are happy to see them at school events, birthday parties, etc. We hang out preferentially with them at stuff like that, because we like them better and have more in common with them than other parents. Right? But you’d never invite them to dinner because you have about forty-five minutes of conversation and that’s about it.”
Frances frowned. “Like who?”
“Tracy and Arthur? Andrew and John? Dahlia’s mom and dad, whatever their names are?” Michael was clearly master of this material. Frances thought about it. He was right. People she liked, but had no real desire to know any better than she did already.
“But Anne and Charlie are different than that.”
“Because they’re neighbors, and because that means Theo and Milo could potentially be friends outside of school, ergo, not a time-limited friendship. Plus, carpool, therefore a relationship of dependence.” He was about to steeple his fingers like a professor, but chose to scratch his armpit instead. Keeping it classy.
“Since when did you get a degree in anthropology?” Frances pulled off her sneakers, wondering if that was mud or dog shit. She threw the shoe under the bed, either way. A doctor friend of hers had once told her the entire world was covered in a fine patina of shit particles, so why worry?
Her husband answered easily, “Since I spend so much time in traffic and my mind wanders in circles.” He looked back at the game. “Anyway, then you have real, actual friends, like Sam and Cory, or Mark and Dana, who we became friends with when the kids were at preschool, and are still friends with. Not friends we see all the time, but friends we hug and love and are always pleased to see. And, more importantly, friends we would call in an emergency, friends where we could show up in the middle of the night with our asses on fire and they’d run and get a bucket of water without asking questions. Friends where you could pull up in front of their house, dump the kids, and know they’d mind them no problem until you got back from evading the authorities, or whatever.” He smiled lazily at her, sure of himself. “You wouldn’t necessarily leave the kids with Anne, she’s just too damn coordinated.” He corrected himself. “At least until now. Now she’s just a hot mess.” He giggled suddenly.