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.”

There was a pause. Crap. Frances hadn’t meant to bring that up, it just came out.

Ava looked at her, and shot from the hip. “And did you tell Dad you were talking to Anne’s boyfriend in the street only yesterday?”

Michael looked at Frances, and saw this strange accusation was true. Being who he was, he covered for her and came to her rescue. “Of course she did. However, she has consistently lied to me about the location of her chocolate stash since we were first living together. Humans keep things from each other, and most of the time they’re little things that really don’t matter.”

“And other times,” Ava said scornfully, “they’re things that really do matter and everything gets ruined.” She dropped her second high-top on the floor and Frances knew she’d be hunting for them the next morning.

Michael coughed. “You sound like you’re speaking from experience . . . Did someone tell you something that ruined things? What’s going on, Ava?” His voice was gentle, his eyes as he looked at his daughter so full of affection and so devoid of judgment, that Frances marveled again at the love they shared. She’d carried Ava, used the calcium from her own bones to build the child’s, ached and screamed to give birth to her, but it was her father who knew her best.

Ava gazed back at him and both her parents saw her eyes fill with tears, and saw her struggle to keep them there. She shook her head and stood up. “No, Dad, it’s not all about me, you know. Or so you keep telling me, anyway.”

She pushed her chair roughly back under the table and strode to put her plate in the sink, leaving the room swiftly enough to cause the dogs to stand up and follow her, concerned. Or maybe thinking she was leaving the house and might be up for taking them, too, who knows? Michael turned to Frances and frowned.

“What was she talking about?”

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 can never not be someone’s mom, once you’ve started.” That wasn’t the best way to put it, but it was what she had at that moment. “Once your baby is born you’re its mom, and that’s forever.”

Lally had contrary information. “But what about babies who are adopted? They get new moms.”

Frances sighed inwardly; she should have seen this coming. Fuck Michael, he was putting her off her game. Her knees hurt from kneeling next to the bath, so she shifted to her butt. Much better, although now she could feel soapy water seeping through her pants. “Yes, but the lady who was pregnant with them is still their mother, she just isn’t the person who’s going to be their everyday mom. And the person who adopts them is going to be their mom or dad just as much as if they had been pregnant with them, right?”

Lally wrinkled her nose and looked up from under her horns. “Two moms? Like Wyatt?”

“No,” said Frances, running the sprayer water, making it the right temperature. “Turn around, baby, and tip your head back.” She started rinsing the little head, shielding Lally’s eyes as best she could with her left hand. The sprayer was broken and one clogged hole directed water down her sleeve while another generously watered her left nipple. She ignored them both. “Wyatt has two mommies at the same time. Adopted children have an original mommy, who they often don’t know very well, but sometimes they do,” this was getting confusing, “and another mom or dad, who adopted them and is their everyday mom or dad.”

“Soap! Soap!” Lally jerked her head forward and stuck her hand back for a towel, which Frances handed her. Once she’d dealt with that, Lally tipped her head back again, trustingly.

“So even if someone has two dads, like Molly”—a kid at school—“they still have a mommy somewhere.”

“Exactly.” Frances wondered if she could just leave it there. Had she given enough information to satisfy, and not too much? She felt herself guilty of over-information all the time, explaining too much, going into too much detail. Michael was better at this. When a younger Ava had asked where she came from, and Frances had opened her mouth to start explaining the intricacies of sexual reproduction, Michael had said, “New York,” and Ava had nodded and walked away.

“It was like the joke, right?” Michael had said, reacting to Frances’s laughter. “You know, the kid who asks his parents where he’s from, and they go into all the details about sex and pregnancy, and then he says, ‘Oh . . . Billy’s from Chicago.’” Frances had just shaken her head and leaned over to kiss him. She wished he were in the bathroom to handle this line of questioning, and not downstairs being a self-pitying dick.

As Lally climbed out of the tub, and was wrapped in a hooded towel that made her look like a dinosaur, she said, “But if Kate and Theo’s mom and dad get divorced, then she won’t be their mom anymore, right?” She thought for a second. “Or will their dad not be their dad?” She looked suddenly worried. “Or do they have no mom and dad at all?”

Frances picked her up, which was getting harder, but Frances wasn’t ready to stop. She carried her down the hall, holding her tight, and sat down with her on their big bed.

“OK, here’s how this works.” She paused. “Do you want chocolate milk?” Lally shook her head, not ready for cocoa yet. “Do you need pajamas?” Lally shook her head. “OK, so, you know that Daddy is my husband, right?” A nod. “And I am his wife, right?” Currently, she thought, assuming I don’t stab him in the throat later. Another nod. “OK, so a husband and a wife can get divorced, but if they have kids and are also a mommy and a daddy to someone, that is forever.”

“You can’t divorce a kid?”

“Nope.” Frances looked up and saw Ava leaning in the doorway. “Once you’re someone’s mommy you’re their mommy forever, and you never stop loving them or taking care of them or wanting them to be happy. That’s just the way it is.” She was looking at Ava as she said this, and saw her daughter about to challenge pretty much everything she’d just said, citing child abuse, death, drug addiction, et al., but then Frances frowned slightly, indicating Lally, and Ava just rolled her eyes. There would be time for brutal honesty later. For now Frances was determined to let Lally think the best of the world, and apparently Lally’s older sister was OK with that, too.

“Unless the kid is really bad, right?” There was a pause, and Lally tipped her head back to look at her mom. “What if the kid is really bad, can you divorce them then?” Whether she was planning some terrible crime, or just wondering how bad refusing to eat vegetables was, legally, Frances didn’t know. She kissed her daughter on her clean little forehead, and shook her head.

“No, baby, it doesn’t matter how naughty a kid is, you still love them forever.”

“Even if they poo on the floor?” This was a question based on experience.

“Yes, even then.”

“Or if they steal your hat?”

Frances grinned. “Or even then. There is NOTHING you can do that will stop me loving you. I might not like what you do, but I will always love you.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Frances hugged her littlest child, and looked up at her eldest. Ava was just looking back at her, impossible to read. Then she turned away and headed off to her room.