What is most shocking about this Dad-only situation is that I make all the decisions. There is no mom to debate with over the various and endless choices of fashion, cuisine, afterschool endeavor, or nighttime activity that contravenes already agreed-upon guidelines and limits (or what is loosely known in these parts as "house rules"). When Kathryn's home, we sometimes allow the kids to play us off against each other, and we also use one another to gather as much information as possible and examine every alternative from each of our two vantage points before making any decision. When it's all up to me, I'm a lovable yet not benign dictator. I weigh the range of options, consult with the pertinent child, and decree. The freedom is exhilarating, the responsibility overwhelming, the outcome uncertain except for one amazing element: They accept it. They accept it when I say, No, you can't spend the afternoon with Ellis. No, you can't eat only french fries for dinner. No, you can't get on the Internet after 8 p.m. There is no one to appeal to -- I am judge and jury and appellate judge and appellate jury all at once; there is no other. This "no mom" stuff is freeing to both me and them, as if the debates Kathryn and I have sometimes entered into in front of them only unsettle their ground rather than advance their claim, as well as sap our own energy and weaken our resolve rather than helping us navigate the frighteningly complicated endeavor of parenting.

Of course, it helps that I'm lazy and willing to indulge them. Any days-long absence by Mom requires at least one takeout dinner from their favorite quick-fix restaurant, at least one rented DVD per child, and a one-gift-per-child spree at Walmart or Target or KB Toys, the trick being that the children must -- and I mean must -- agree on a single destination for the emptying of my billfold. When you have three kids across 11 years, even that degree of agreement is uncertain. But since I am the ultimate arbiter, since I can't consult beyond myself, since I refuse to go beyond the rather generous limits I set, they have no choice but to adhere.

It's shocking, really, to be temporarily in charge, to stare at their dubious but obedient expressions and know that they will actually hear what I say. I think that's what makes it so liberating and so successful: All four of us know my reign is temporary. Whatever I screw up can be reversed. Whatever injury is incurred, if I am careful enough, can be healed. And, of course, none of this could really work if Mom didn't come home, if we didn't know that at the end of this well-lighted tunnel is the even brighter light of her arrival, when she'll stride through the door with small gifts and a radiant smile and all that warmth that I couldn't possibly match.

When she does arrive, it is as if my ascendance has never occurred, and I'm instantly and appropriately and -- perhaps -- gladly relegated to a lesser role. As I roam downstairs paying bills and sweeping floors and emptying trash, while upstairs I can hear Kathryn mothering the children, I think I miss it and don't miss it at all. I only wonder which is more true.

Fred Leebron is the author of three novels, including In the Middle of All This and Six Figures.

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