Thirty-five.
After dropping all the kids at school Frances had a high school committee thing to go to. She found herself wondering about the future. Next year Lally would be in kindergarten. Maybe it was time to get a job outside the family. It would be nice to bring in extra money, but she knew—because she wasn’t an idiot—that she would just be adding to all the shit she had to do, because everyone knows the division of labor between couples isn’t equal. She daydreamed a meeting between herself and Michael where they shared out the domestic duties, carefully writing them all on a whiteboard.
“Pet care?” she said in her daydream, holding a green marker.
“What’s involved with that?” Michael asked, looking up from his increasingly long list. His pencil wavered; he liked pets, this might be one for him.
“Feeding, walking, pee/poo/vomit clean up, minor first aid, flea medication and deworming, vet visit scheduling and attending, and anything else that comes up.”
He was shaking his head. “Nah, that sounds more like a you kind of thing. What else you got?”
“Laundry?”
“What goes with that?”
“Well, you pick up all the clothes on the floor and sniff them to see if they’re clean. Then you wash them, dry them, fold them, and either leave them in a giant pile somewhere to be rummaged through, or you carefully put Lally’s away and deliver Milo’s and Ava’s to their rooms, telling them to put them away themselves, only to discover them lying on the floor the next day, unworn. And you spend time pairing socks, time that could easily be spent doing pretty much anything else. Plus, every so often, you have to field the desperately delivered comment that ‘nothing is clean in this house’ or hunt through the dirty laundry for some particular piece of clothing a child wants.” She remembered something else. “Of course, soccer uniforms are bundled in there, too. I like to do that at nine o’clock on Friday evening in a panic, but you can do it on a Sunday morning and feel smug if you like.”
And then, when the meeting was over, she’d drop a folder the size of Poughkeepsie on the desk in front of him. “What’s this,” he would ask and she would reply, “It’s the contents of my head from the last fourteen years of taking care of everything.”
She found a parking space and sat there smiling for a moment. Then she sighed, rolled some “calming” essential oils on her wrists, ineffectively, and headed into the café.
Like childbirth, volunteering to organize a school event was way more painful than you expected it to be, but the minute the event was over you forgot how awful it was. It’s the only possible explanation for why those lovely but exhausted women do it every year. This year Frances had decided to join the Parents Spring Fling Committee at Ava’s school. The Spring Fling was the school’s major fund-raiser. It had a theme, a silent auction, a raffle, and a tendency to produce the kind of drunken behavior that kept the school gate gossips warm for the rest of the year. Three minutes into the meeting Frances was already kicking herself, and it hadn’t even officially begun.
Sitting in a coffee shop, around the large central table, were a half dozen women who mostly wished they were somewhere else. Frances knew only one of them, and had already forgotten the names of the others.
One of them was clearly new to this game because she was talking about her daughter. Rule number one when meeting school parents you don’t know? Never talk about your child. Think about Fight Club, and double down. Whatever you say will get back to the other kids and be spread around school in no time. One time Frances had mentioned Ava was getting braces and by the time Ava got home that same day everyone in her class had asked her what color bands she was going to put on.
“Why do they even care?” Frances had asked, bemused.
“I don’t know! But why did you tell them?!” Ava had been deeply annoyed and went on and on about feeling violated until Frances had had to drift off into her mental happy place just to survive. In her happy place there was a gentle hum of bees and birdsong, and no one Ever Said Anything. But anyway.
“So,” this mother said, innocently enough, “Flora-Grace just got shortlisted for the art museum’s painting contest, isn’t that fun?”
A tall blond mom turned to another and said, “Didn’t Butterfly Absinthe win that last year?”
“Yes,” her crony replied, “I think she did. It was before the drug thing, of course.” She turned to the innocent mom. “Does your daughter know Anglepoise Whateverthefuck? In eigth grade?” The innocent one, slowly realizing she had transgressed in some way she didn’t really understand, shook her head. “Well,” continued the other mom, “I think she got shortlisted, too, and she’s super, super talented. We should introduce the two of them.”
“We should!” said the tall blonde. “I’m sure they’d have a lot to talk about!” Having taken ownership of this topic, she then turned to Frances. “So, how’s Ava enjoying eighth grade? I hear she’s doing much better.”
Fortunately for Frances, this was not her first rodeo, so she merely smiled and nodded. The best defense against aggressively competitive parents is a simple one: silence. Followed by a definitive changing of the subject. To whit:
“So, the Fling . . . What’s the theme this year?”
“Well,” said the tall blonde, pulling out a stack of glossy magazines. “I was thinking classic seventies spank rags. Winged hair, split beavers, and a disturbing amount of pubic hair compared to today’s sanitized Internet porn.”
“Great idea!” said the woman next to her. “And we could have an S&M raffle to bring in the Fifty Shades folks! Maybe we can get a ball gag in school colors?”
None of this happened, of course, but imagining it kept Frances sane throughout the rest of the meeting, and she managed to get out without volunteering for anything more onerous than coat check.
After that she had to pick up medication for one of the dogs, who had developed a skin condition only slightly more expensive to treat than the aforementioned braces had been, and go to Staples for printer paper. She came out with the paper, a blank composition book with kittens on the front (Lally), a pack of monster pencil toppers in a variety of colors (Milo), and several “to do” list pads with humorous headlines (Ava). She forgot the ink toner cartridge she also needed, and had to go back, of course. It never failed. She resolved to keep one of the “to do” pads for herself.
Then she went home for an hour, during which she emptied and loaded the dishwasher, moved laundry through the system, scheduled a doctor’s appointment for Milo whose birthday was coming up, rescheduled an orthodontist appointment for Ava, and sat and gazed into space for nearly ten minutes trying to remember what it was she’d forgotten. Then she went to pick up the preschool kids.
Lally was in a good mood that day, and Lucas was open to being in a good mood once he’d had some lunch and watched a show. After lunch he surprised Frances by pulling an iPad out of his backpack.
“Look!” he said. “Dad got me a thingy so I could talk to Mom and today he let me bring it to school for show-and-tell.”
“Does it have games?” asked Lally, ever practical.
Lucas frowned. “No, does yours?”
Lally shook her head. “I don’t have one.” There was a pause, and they both looked at Frances.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I don’t have one, either.”
“Do you want to see my mom?” asked Lucas.
Frances frowned. “It’s OK, she might be busy right now.”
He shrugged. “She won’t answer if she’s in a meeting or something, that’s the rule. I only call once.” He’d already hit a shortcut on the screen, and a window had opened up placing a call.
Suddenly Julie’s smiling face appeared. Frances hadn’t seen her in several months, and she was shocked by how pale she was. Clearly Lucas didn’t notice, in that callous but useful way children have of seeing adults without really seeing them.
“Hey, Mom!” he said, grinning and waving the iPad. “Frances is here, look!” He turned it around and handed it to Frances. Then he and Lally turned and ran off to play, presumably. Or to cook meth in the upstairs bathroom, who knows?
There was an awkward moment. “Hi, Julie,” said Frances. “He took the iPad in for show-and-tell, and he was just . . .”
“Showing and telling?” asked Julie, smiling. “Hey, Frances, how the heck are you?”
“I’m good, how are you?” Frances held the tablet awkwardly, not sure if she was supposed to stand still. She needed coffee, so she began walking very slowly toward the coffee maker.
“I’ve been better, but I’ve also been worse.” She paused. “Why are you walking like the queen?”
Frances laughed and stopped. “I’m trying not to wobble you.”
“You realize you’re not really carrying a tiny me in your hands, right?”
“I need coffee,” Frances replied. “I’m having my early afternoon brain cramps.” She propped the tablet on the counter and made coffee.
Julie asked, “Is Lucas still there?”
“Uh, no. He just handed me the thing and ran off.”
Julie sighed. “Can he hear us?”
Frances shook her head.
“Do you have time to chat? I’m bored out of my mind right now.”
“Sure.” Frances took her coffee outside onto the deck and sat down, propping the iPad on her lap.
“So, I hear my husband is punching the neighbors.” Julie didn’t seem shocked, more amused than anything.
“Yup. He’s turned into a total liability since you left. The neighborhood watch association had a meeting recently and it was all about his roustabout behavior.”
“I’ll bet. So, I guess you also heard I got cancer.”
“Yeah, that came up just before the punching. I’m so sorry. That sucks.”
“Yeah. I’m bald all over.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. It’s not as sexy as you would think.” There was a pause. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It was . . . weird. I found out, then I came here for treatment really fast, and the whole thing just . . . happened. I didn’t want to make a big thing out of it, and have people being super helpful or anything.”
Frances suddenly laughed. “Yeah, that could be really annoying.”
Julie said, “We let you be helpful, though. We couldn’t have done it without you, literally. Bill is only able to keep working, which means keeping our insurance, because you help with Lucas. You have no idea how much we appreciate it.”
“You could have told me, it wouldn’t have made me more helpful, I promise.”
Julie nodded. “I know. I just wanted to tell you in person, and then the moment never happened. I’m sorry.”
“Yes, please apologize to me for getting cancer. That’s entirely reasonable. Are you doing OK?”
“Not really, but I seem to be responding to treatment, so that’s good.” She shrugged. “It’s too soon to tell.”
“Can I ask you about it?”
“Sure, if Lucas isn’t there.”
“Hold, please,” said Frances, getting up to check on the kids. She soon came back. “They’re upstairs playing a version of My Little Pony that somehow involves storming a castle.”
Julie nodded. “OK, ask away.”
“What kind of cancer?”
“Boob.”
“What stage?”
“Stage three. Pretty bad.”
“Did you cut your boob off?”
“Both of them, in an overabundance of caution and a desire to be able to wear thin spaghetti-strap tops for the first time since puberty.” Julie had been pretty busty, one of those women who were slender but curvy, irritating but hardly blameworthy. “I kind of yearned for a smaller, French-style breast, you know, tiny pink or brown nipples, able to go topless on the beach, able to wear sundresses without a bra, you know. I’d had big tits since I was fifteen. It was time for a change.”
“So, cancer was a lucky break?”
“Fashion wise, yeah.”
“OK, so, how did you find out? Did you find a lump?”
Julie nodded. “Yeah, it was pretty classic. I knew as soon as I felt it that it was cancer. It was just . . . wrong. I went to my OB/GYN that day, got scans, a biopsy, and was in front of an oncologist the same week. Thank God for excellent insurance.”
“Wow.” Frances took a sip of coffee. “What did Bill say?”
“He said, ‘Oh shit.’ Then he cried. Then he stopped crying, and said, ‘OK, what’s the plan?’ I wanted to come here for treatment, he wanted me to stay there, so we fought about it solidly for a week. It sucked.”
Frances was confused. “I’m sorry, which part were you fighting about?”
Julie sighed. “Like I said, he wanted me to get treatment in Los Angeles, so I could stay home and he could take care of me. I wanted to come to Minnesota so Lucas didn’t have to see me so sick, and Bill could focus on him. I felt like it was as if I were in the army, do you know what I mean?”
“Not really, continue.”
Julie sighed. “Well, I was going away to fight and either I was going to come back in one piece or I wasn’t. Bill said he’d married me in sickness and in health, and that it was his job to take care of me. It got really quite heated, but then I pulled the ‘I’m the one dying of cancer’ card, and he gave up. He’s still pissed, though.”
“And how is it?”
“A fucking nightmare. The treatment makes everything taste bad, like metal. I can’t eat hardly anything because the mouth sores are just the worst, and what I can eat tastes like WD-40 smells. I miss Bill and Lucas all the time, but I would hate it if they were here because then I’d need to worry about them, too. Do you know what I mean?”
“What does Lucas think is going on?”
Julie shrugged. “He thinks I’m working on a film. He was used to one or the other of us going away for work, so we just told him I was on a work trip, and I’d Skype every day if I could, and it’s been fine.” Julie was a script supervisor.
“Did the surgery hurt? Do you have small boobs now?” Julie was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, so it was hard to tell.
“It hurt so fucking much, honestly, but after those mouth sores I could handle anything. And yes, small boobs, but they’re still pretty messed up.” Someone had clearly come in the room because she smiled at them, and then looked back at Frances. “I have to go. But I’m really glad I got to talk to you.”
“Me, too. Try and come back soon. We miss you, and your husband is clearly going to the dogs.”
“Not to mention that I turn my back for five minutes and Anne is porking some random guy. What the actual fuck is going on with that?”
“Call me another time, I’ll fill you in,” said Frances. “Go do something relaxing. You should get one of those coloring books for grown-ups.”
Julie made a hacking noise. “Oh my God, you have no idea how many people have sent me those. They’re very kind, but honestly, if I see another fucking mandala I’m going to scream. On the positive side, I have enough sets of colored pencils to keep my kid stocked until college.” She sighed. “Let’s hope I see him get there.”
“Positive attitude, Julie.”
“Sure, OK.” Julie rolled her eyes. “Talk to you soon.” She hung up.
Frances took the iPad and tucked it back into Lucas’s backpack. Inside she found a drawing of him and his dad. Julie was in it, too, talking to them through a window. All of them were smiling.