Wendy’s shoulders drooped. “No one is being sent away, okay, guys?”
“That’s not what Mrs. Minniver said.”
“Mrs. Minniver was lying.”
“When’s Daddy coming home?”
Two-year-old Chloe came running into the room screaming, followed by Mrs. Minniver.
And then the next part was just like in the movies, because Wendy got Mrs. Minniver’s coat from the closet and told her that she would no longer be needing her services. The good feeling lasted about two minutes, until she looked at her three frightened children and wondered what the hell she was going to do.
“Mommy, are you going to fire us?” Tyler asked.
She called Shane. She had no choice. That’s what ex-husbands are for, she thought bitterly.
She had been afraid Shane wouldn’t answer. For weeks he’d been asserting his independence by not answering his phone, and then calling her back at his convenience.
“Yeah?” he said.
“Guess what?” she said brightly, trying to make a joke of it. “I fired Mrs. Minniver.”
“At eight in the morning?” Shane said, yawning sleepily. She pictured him in bed, wondering if he was with another woman, and wishing she could trade places with him. “Smart move,” he said.
“She wanted to send the kids to boarding school!” Wendy said, outraged.
Shane arrived at the apartment thirty minutes later, letting himself
in with his key and strolling in as casually as if he’d never left and was just returning from getting the papers. That night, when she came home at seven, order was restored in the household. For once, the children were bathed and fed; Magda and Tyler were even doing homework. While Shane had been gone, she would come home and her children were like baby birds left in the nest, full of desperate neediness. The calm unnerved her slightly. She’d thought it was her they wanted, but it was really Shane. She wasn’t going to complain, however. She’d heard about mothers who freaked out when their children asked for “daddy” instead of “mommy” (indeed, this was a staple screenplay “moment” in which the woman was supposed to realize that her children were more important than her career), but she’d always considered those feelings egotistical and immature, and in her case, also extremely stupid. What difference did it make as long as the children were happy?
But how long would they be happy? How could she get Shane to stay?
She went into the bathroom and saw that Shane had restored his toothbrush to its usual place in a small puddle of water next to the faucet on the edge of the sink. She picked up the toothbrush and carried it out to the living room. “Are you staying?” she asked.
“Yup,” he said, looking up from the DVD he was watching. It was a big-budget action film, not yet released.
“Oh.” She hesitated, not wanting to jeopardize his decision. “Why’d you leave, then?”
“I needed a break. To think.”
“Really?” she said. She did not point out that walking out on your family because you needed to think was not an option for women. “And what did you decide?”
“That I’m going to take care of the kids. Someone’s got to raise them.” This was a bit startling, and, Wendy guessed, a dig at her ability to handle her job and her children. But she wasn’t going to complain. In fact, she felt an uneasy guilt that it had all been resolved with very little trouble to her.
And Shane was good on his word. He hired a new nanny, Gwyneth, an Irish girl in her late twenties, who only worked from twelve until five, Shane’s contention being that he didn’t want their children raised by nannies. Wendy suspected that he’d been talking to some of the stay-at-home wives in the entertainment business, who were always discussing the latest trends in child care. This was also, she guessed, where he’d gotten the name and number for Dr. Shirlee Vincent, the marriage counselor. Dr. Vincent charged $500 a session (“I know it sounds like a lot,” she said, her enhanced lips quacking like a duck’s bill, “but it’s what you’d pay for a good haircut. If you can pay that much for your hair, you should be willing to pay at least as much for your relationship. Hair grows back, relationships don’t!”), and had declared their marriage on “high alert—orange,” recommending two or three sessions a week at first.
“Shane came back,” Wendy told her mother. “He’s decided to become an FTD.”
“He’s working for a florist?” her mother exclaimed, not understanding.
“Full Time Dad,” Wendy said.
“With all that help?” her mother asked.
“Shane’s doing most of it now.”
“So he isn’t working at all?”
“Taking care of the children is work, Mom. It’s a job, remember?”