Charles dreaded turning to Bianca and Nicole's school that morning. Every other mom and nanny was huddled together talking, and they stopped when they spotted him.

Great, Charles thought. They know.

He had long stopped caring what the moms at his daughters' school thought of him. Pauline's friends. Their children were mostly mean, with only a few actually good to his girls.

It was one of the things he hated most about this world - his world, even if he had always hated it. He hated it but it comforted him at the same time. Maybe he should have moved out of the Upper East Side, out of his parents' house, out of his father's company, away from everything.

"Will you pick us up after school?," Bianca asked, jolting him from his brain working on overdrive.

"Your babysitter will grab you two," he said. "But I'll be home tonight after work. Do you want spaghetti again?"

Nicole had been quiet on the walk, and she looked upset.

"That sound good to you, Nicole?" Charles playfully nudged his oldest daughter as he bent down to kiss her on the head.

"What's going to happen with you and mom?"

Why did he bring it up now? With every mom within earshot?

"Honey...we can talk about it - "

" - When will we see her? On weekends like Jaime's dad?"

"Where will she live?," Bianca asked. "Are we going to move?"

The three of them stood there outside their school, 10 minutes before homeroom.

"Girls, we can talk about all of this later," he said. He hated that he whispered it; he didn't want to talk about it here, on the sidewalk, and they needed to get to school. But they had the right to know, and it was clearly weighing on them.

Both were quiet for a few moments. The girls looked as uncomfortable there as he felt. He looked over to the mom circle and caught a few looking over towards them. He sighed.

"You want to skip school today?"

He didn't look back as he pivoted away from the huddle of moms and nannies. Within an hour he was making them pancakes - they'd rushed out of the house so fast that morning they'd only each grabbed an apple. They had put their pajamas back on, and even Charles took off his usual work suit and put on sweatpants.

Since Pauline had come back, he'd let them talk with her about what had happened and what was ahead, but his conversations with them had been brief. It had been a whirlwind since she came back.

Now he sat across from them at the kitchen counter, where they were the most comfortable.

"There's a lot that we're still working out, your mom and I," he said, staring at his daughters happily eating chocolate-chip pancakes in front of him.

"I want you to ask me any questions you have."

They were quiet for a bit. He let them be quiet.

"Can we just hang out for a while and talk later?," Nicole asked. So that's what they did: They ate, they watched two movies, they took a walk in Central Park before lunch, then napped, played Monopoly, and watched another movie. Around dinnertime Bianca asked the question he'd wondered since he got Pauline's text.

"Why did she come back now?"

He didn't know why, exactly. He didn't know why she left in the first place, at least the exact timing. Everything they were doing now could have been done without her disappearing, without ignoring her family. And she came barreling back now, just as -

"Mom said she was in California," Nicole said. "Do you think she'll go back?"

"Your mom is here to stay," he said. When he spoke to Pauline she had promised him that. No more disruptions, for everybody.

"Will she get her own apartment?" Bianca asked. Their mom had, for now, been staying at her sister's and with friends.

"That's the idea," he said. They were quiet again through dinner, as they got ready for bed. Charles taught himself how to braid hair once he was on his own with his daughters, and as he braided Bianca's after her bath Nicole, who declared she was old enough to do her own hair, came into the bathroom.

"Are you and Liza still friends?"

Since Pauline had been back they hadn't hung out with her - everything had been too busy, and Charles had seen her on his own. Of course they miss her.

"Liza and I are still friends, yes," he said. "I know it's been hard, you haven't seen her."

"I miss Liza," Bianca said.

"I know you do," he said. "We talk. She's been helping me, and she's asked about you, but it's just been hard with -"

"- Mom was asking about her," Nicole said. "Did you tell her you were friends?"

Charles kept braiding his daughter's hair even as he became angry. Since coming back, Pauline seemed more interested in finding out about Liza than many other things, and now to know she had been prying infuriated him.

"I told your mom about Liza," he said. He didn't want to grill them now on what Pauline asked. "That's not your worry or hers. Ok?"

He finished Bianca's hair. It was always a little crooked no matter how hard he tried.

"But is it OK?," Nicole asked. She seemed the most uncertain.

"Honey, of course it's ok," he said. "All of it. You, me, your sister. Your mom. Liza. It's fine you told her -"

"- is it ok that you're friends? I mean, now," Nicole said. Months before he told her that everything would be fine. He wasn't sure then just like he wasn't sure now.

"I've talked about this with you before Nicole," he said. "Bianca, you too. I love you. Your mom loves you. But we won't be together. And that's ok, it happens.

"Your mom is back now but things aren't the way they were when she left. She's different. You're older, and different. And yes, I'm different too. There's Liza now. She's in our life, right?"

Charles couldn't tell if he was good at this or bad at this. He didn't know what to say in this divorce talk, but he did know he was being honest with them. That's all he wanted to be.

He hugged them both and they walked out of the bathroom.

"Let me tuck you girls in," he said. "And maybe this weekend we can see Liza?"

He texted Liza after he put them to sleep - it had been their biggest source of communication, which he hated. He wanted to see her, for multiple reasons. But mainly he missed her, and her presence, and everything about him when he saw her. Pauline had continued to fuck everything up. Asking their daughters about his girlfriend, who he never has called his girlfriend to them? They were traumatized from her abandonment.

Charles was now determined to keep the happy things in his life separate from her.

He read halfway through a manuscript and was starting to fall asleep when Liza called.

"Hey," he said, startled a bit but happy..

"Sure, tell me," he said. He sat up in bed. "You ok?"