From the look on Amelie’s face, it’s time to intervene. What is Simone’s purpose in coming to this concert? I spent the better part of the performances mulling over her presence. Why now? Why this event?

Just... why?

Covert glances from her during the concert look like flirting. That touch on my wrist. The laugh. The flattery.

She’s not coming on to me.

Impossible.

Sixteen years ago, she decided we were done. And when Simone is done with something, it doesn’t exist for her.

Yet here she is, done to the nines and talking to me as if we’ve been separated all these years by pure happenstance. Circumstance.

Fate.

And not intent.

“Maman!” Elodie comes up from the rear, hooking her arm in Simone’s, interrupting the stream of French coming out of her mother, all of it advice on how Amelie could hold the instrument better. “Where are we going for dinner?”

“We?” Simone’s gaze flits to me. “Oh, chérie, we can have dinner tomorrow en famille, together. I hoped to spend some time alone with your father this evening.”

You would think that Simone had just said she’d found Chloe’s ex’s strap-on in my bedroom closet and was about to use it on Rolf at the Esplanade during a Boston Pops concert.

“What?” All three of our children ask the same question in unison.

And they look at me when they ask.

I frown, turning to Simone in amazement.

“What?” I echo.

She laughs, the sound throaty and sensual. “Oh, Nick. You act as if I’m asking for the moon.”

A slightly different analogy, but let’s go with it.

“A steak and some wine and good conversation to catch up on all these years is what I ask.” She smiles at Amelie, who is dissolving under the surface but putting on a good front. “You understand, chérie. Tomorrow is for you. Tonight is for the adults.”

Jean-Marc’s nostrils flare. He and Elodie exchange a glance without moving a muscle.

“No. Simone, I—”

Amelie interrupts me, blinking hard, chin up and defiant. “It’s fine, Daddy.” She gives a tinny laugh that makes one of the chambers of my heart stop working. “You have your dinner tonight. We’ll get Maman for a whole day instead, tomorrow.”

“Yes,” Simone says, beaming with approval. Amelie is on board, locked and loaded, in place as expected. That’s all that counts for Simone. What might be churning under the surface does not matter. The words Amelie says, the compliance, are enough.

I had forgotten what it felt like to live in a box. Watching my daughter rein in her expectations, right in front of the woman drawing the edges, is too much.

“But—”

An imperceptible head shake from Amelie and wider, blinking eyes are the only signs I get from my daughter, who is simultaneously fighting an inner battle and learning the art of decorum. “Daddy, it’s fine.” The vocal fry at the end of her sentence sears me. These are new dynamics. When did my children become complex, emotionally-nuanced social beings?

It is anything but fine. I open my mouth to argue, but shut it abruptly.

My kids can fight their own battles.

And so can I.

“Fine,” I say, a bit gruff, turning to Simone. I name an Italian place in the North End that she hates.

She wrinkles her nose.

I don’t react. Simone always despised my poker face.

From her reaction, she still does.

Tough shit.

I pull Amelie into a hug and whisper fiercely, “You can tell her no. You can.”

“It’s easier this way,” she whispers back. I can hear the fear in her voice. I know what she’s afraid of.

She’s not afraid of Simone. Not afraid of disappointing her.

Amelie is afraid of letting go of the pretend mother who lives only in her imagination.

The real one in front of her, the one scowling at me for choosing a restaurant I know she hates, has already disappointed her.

She cannot let go of the imaginary one just yet.

And I cannot help her. The realization hits me hard, the wind knocked out of me as I nearly choke on my own understanding.

Elodie’s hugging me, then I get a clap on the back from Jean-Marc, and they’re off, walking toward the T, the girls arm in arm and with huddled heads, Jean-Marc’s head down as he texts someone.

“They’re so mature,” Simone says, in a tone that says homeostasis has been achieved.

“They get it from their father.”

“If you were mature, you would not torture me with inferior Italian food.”

“Let’s not crack open this topic.”

“Fine.” She pouts. “I’ll suffer in silence. For you.”

When the world has only one camera lens and it’s your eyes, any other perspective feels like an invasion. I’ve no doubt she’ll suffer.

But not in silence.

We walk slowly, her heels an impediment, my ability to engage in small talk long gone.

Bzzz.

A text. From Chloe.

Parenting manuals don’t mention the need for a hazmat suit, tongs, and a never-ending ability to sing Mac the Knife until you’re hoarse.

I smile.

“Something funny?” Simone doesn’t look at me, staring straight ahead, blinking.

“Something poignant.”

I become my son as I walk, half-aware of the sidewalk, mostly focused on my glass screen.

Consider a change in tune, I text back.

Suggestions?

Every suggestion that pops into my mind involves sex.

Honesty is the best policy.

I can’t think about lullabies when you’re texting me. All I can think about is you, I reply.

Simone huffs. “Must you text and walk at the same time?”

“Work,” I mutter.

You wouldn’t want to see me. I’m wearing eau de formula and I think I have dried pee on the hem of my shirt, Chloe texts back. From yesterday, she adds.

No power underwear? I answer, smiling.

We turn a corner and the front door to the restaurant appears. I halt.

“You’re not really texting for work, are you?” Simone asks, her voice dripping with suspicion.

“A colleague,” I say. Which is technically true.

Power bustier currently doubling as a diaper-changing pad on sofa, Chloe texts back. Sexy. I know.

She doesn’t know. She really doesn’t know.