Searching for Mr. Darcy

Scene Sixty-Eight

The next morning, when Maisie was heading down the stairs, she heard the front door open and Sean walked in.  She took a step back - she could see him, but he couldn't see her.

"Ana," he called out, going deeper into the house.  Maisie heard her sister's footsteps and a few seconds later, her voice.

"You don't know how to know?"

"It's still my house," Sean answered.

"It wasn't the second you packed your bags and left."

"That attitude is exactly why I left."

Maisie backed up further.  Her sister would kill her for eavesdropping, but her curiosity got the better of her before she reached the landing.

"Right," Anabeth said.  "It's all my fault, naturally.  You cheated, but it's my fault."

"That's not what I said," Sean responded, his voice just edging over from frustration to anger.

"I don't have time for this.  We can talk when you get back to the kids tonight.  We need to figure out what we're going to tell them."

After a short pause, Sean spoke again, now with a weird sort of anxiety, "You haven't told them yet?"

"We need to do it together - that's what all the child psychologists say is the the best way to handle it.  We present a united front and we don't talk badly about each other when we're alone with them."

"I can't believe you haven't said anything to them in two weeks."

Anabeth kept her tone even.  "I told them you were on a business trip."

"So, you lied?"

"What did you want me to say, Sean?  I'm sorry, kids, but Daddy's a jackass who's off fucking some twenty-two year old in a hotel that's he's probably paying for with mommy's credit card?"

Testiness back, "You don't have to be bitchy about it."

Maisie couldn't believe how stone-cold calm Anabeth was being.  If it had been her, Sean would be hunched over clutching his freshly-injured genitals.

"I think I have every right to be 'bitchy' about it.  Is that why you haven't called or face-timed your children these past two weeks - because you didn't want to have that conversation with them?  You want me to be the bad guy there, too?  I break the bad news, and then I'm the one they are mad at?  Too bad, you're shit out of luck there.  We made them together, we can break their hearts together."

There was another pause, longer this time.  Maisie could picture her sister staring at Sean, and Sean avoiding eye contact.  At least, that's what she'd do if she'd just received a verbal smackdown that brutal.

"Are they ready?" Sean asked eventually.

"They're in the backyard."

Sean's footsteps walked away and Anabeth's came closer.  Maisie headed down the stairs.  "You okay?" she asked her sister when they met at the foot.

"Did you hear everything?"

Maisie nodded.

"Of course you did."  Anabeth brushed past her and went upstairs, presumably to her room to finish getting ready for brunch.

Maisie made her way to the kitchen, where the windows looked into the backyard.  The twins had their father on the ground, wrestling him with love and affection.  She poured herself a cup of coffee and watched them chase each other around the lawn for a few more minutes until her sister joined her at the window.

"Don't be nosy, Maze.  It's one of Mom's worst qualities and I know how much you'd hate to be like her."

"Thanks for the warning."

Anabeth turned on the faucet and began rinsing the plates from the twins' breakfast.  "They look like they are having fun.   I don't have time to have fun with them."

"You'll have to make time."

Anabeth sighed.  She turned the water off and opened the dishwasher to load it.  "That's incredibly unhelpful - another of our mother's worst qualities."

"That's fine, take out all of your frustrations on me now and see if I let you off the hook when we actually see our mother in an hour.  I'll let the divorce slip first thing, as soon as I sit down.  I'd rather her harp on that than why I didn't bring the douchebag she ordered me to bring."

"You've made your point, just like-"

"If you say 'our mother' I won't even go to brunch.  I'll fake my own death and move overseas."

Anabeth laughed and finished with the dishes.  She glanced out the window one last time, her smiling fading from her face as she watched Sean take the twins by their hands and lead them around the side of the house, probably out front to his car.