Carpool Confidential by Jessica Benson Page B

he’s coming back. Apparently I’d forgotten to tell him that, as he was invariably polite but uninterested in the travails of my new life as a single mom. Yes, he was happy, he said, yes, he was creatively fulfilled for the first time in years, and, yes, the production was coming along very well, thank you, and, no, he did not have either a bouffant hairdo or a prosthetic nose, no they hadn’t yet decided how to incorporate the tragic hip surgery chapter of Barry’s life, no phone number yet and no he didn’t think there would be anything for me to gain by knowing exactly where he was but he’d call again in a day or two. Could I put the kids on?
    The kids. “We have to talk about them,” I told him. I alternated between relief that the boys still inhabited the nice secure world they always had, and panic at how close to toppling that world was. I felt awful for them and their imminent status as children of a failed marriage—that they were about to understand being on the outside looking in—and wanted to hold them close every minute. I read newspaper articles on studies of children of divorce with horrified fascination, like glancing at the scene of a car accident. When they were at school, I missed them with an almost physical ache. But then, the minute they were home, I felt overwhelmed.
    â€œThey sound great,” he replied jovially.
    â€œYes,” I said, “they do. But that, Rick, is because I am lying to them.” Them and everyone else. “I am lying for you, Rick,” I explained, “to protect you and our children. You have turned me into a liar.”
    â€œI haven’t turned you into anything, Cassie. You are what you are.”
    What the fuck did that mean? It made me furious beyond reason and, also, well, struck just the tiniest chord. I could hear Charlotte: Secrecy is to your benefit . No point in going there with him.
    His calls always came up number withheld . “Rick,” I said one afternoon, “you don’t need to block your phone number. I’m not going to be calling night and day like a desperate Manilow groupie.”
    He replied in the endlessly patient tone he’d taken to using with me, as though he understood I wasn’t quite capable of adult conversation, “You not being able to contact me is part of the exercise.”
    â€œI hadn’t realized we were doing an exercise. How fun! It’s almost like a corporate retreat!”
    â€œIt’s about you being forced to give up control,” he explained. “You need to be helped to realize that nothing’s going to happen. Everything will be fine.”
    â€œBut Rick,” I said, “what if something does happen?”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œI don’t know.” I hesitated, closing my eyes against the images. Airplanes in a clear sky. Glittering arcs of glass. Smoke pouring across the river, through the windows I hadn’t thought to close. “Something.”
    â€œIt won’t. Gotta go.” He hung up, pretty much nullifying the patient tone.
    My mother was right—he was all too clearly not pining for either me or his old life, so it didn’t seem fair that I was spending my days immobilized, waiting for it to resume.

9
    When October Goes
    In all honesty, I’m not sure why I was keeping the desertion a secret. Charlotte’s advice combined with embarrassment, denial, cowardice. Whatever went into it, I was pretty invested in maintaining the little deception of everything being fine, Daddy’s just on a long business trip.
    I dried the bedtime missing-Daddy tears with aplomb, fended off the weekend why-can’t-he-come-home? blues by uttering reassurances and redoubling efforts to be both father and mother, and comforted middle-of-the-night-misery by allowing the boys to crawl into bed with me.
    I shivered with the dads at Saturday morning soccer, talking lamely into their uninterested ears of