The Glass Wives

by Amy Sue Nathan

  It was too late for more than just a scrap of sympathy. Evie rubbed her hands on her thighs to stop herself from reaching out, touching Nicole, offering comfort. Evie had to reserve her energy and her touch for her children. But she could spare kind words. “You can put the pantry back in alphabetical order in the morning.”

  “That’s not it. I’m sorry.” Evie slid a box of Kleenex across the counter, crisscrossing the neat, damp rows. Nicole moved closer to Evie. “I talked to my mom today.”

  Evie plucked a bunch of tissues, handed them to Nicole, and said nothing. She only thought of what waited for her at the top of the stairs. More crying? Or, as on some nights, would the kids sleep until morning, allowing Evie only her own disruptive sleep to contend with?

  “She just doesn’t get it,” Nicole said. “She didn’t get why I left and she doesn’t get why I want to stay. She wants us to move back and live with her.”

  Not until I get a job. Please don’t leave until I get a job. “What did you say?”

  “I said you needed me here. And she freaked.”

  Evie grimaced even though it was true.

  Nicole grabbed Evie’s hands. Nicole’s hands felt small, like a child’s, but her grip was more like a vise. “My mother rehashes everything. She says if I hadn’t had Lucy, none of this would have happened. She wanted me to have an abortion.”

  “You told me.”

  “She makes me feel like I set this whole thing in motion.”

  She had. They all had. If Nicole’s mother hadn’t had Nicole, it wouldn’t have happened either. If Richard had been a barista instead of a grad student, they wouldn’t have met in the library that day. If Lucy and Pete hadn’t died; if the road wasn’t icy; if Nicole had stayed in Iowa; if Richard was faithful; if Evie had not given him one more chance more than once.

  If, if, if.

  “Maybe you should go to therapy. I think it might help for you to have someone to talk to.”

  “I have been going.” Nicole pulled her hair into a ponytail. Evie had seen Laney do the same thing a hundred times. Evie felt a pang but wasn’t sure if the surprise or the familiar instigated it.

  “Really? When?”

  “On Tuesday afternoons. I take Luca with me.”

  When Nicole left to run errands, Evie didn’t ask where she was going, ever. Where else did Nicole go? What else did Nicole do? “Oh, good for you.” Evie stopped herself from giving a thumbs-up with her response that sounded like the perfunctory “Good job” that parents were taught to say no matter what their kids did, as long as they tried. But in this case, it got her off the comment hook. Maybe that’s how all parents used it, as something to pull out of their back pocket when there was nothing else to say. But she wasn’t Nicole’s parent. Evie had two grieving children and did not want a third. And she no longer wanted to watch a movie.

  * * *

  Upstairs, the peaceful-sleep theory was also being challenged. In Evie’s bed, Sophie was asleep with the blanket up to her neck, stuffed animals on her right, peeking out at Evie. Evie turned on the night-light and took her place next to a floppy tiger and threadbare hippo. Sophie opened her eyes.

  “How long are Nicole and Luca going to live with us?”

  All Evie wanted was to go to sleep. “I don’t know yet, Soph. It’s too late to talk about it now. Plus, there’s a lot for me to think about.”

  “Like what?” She closed her eyes. Instant sleep would have served Evie well, but Sophie’s eyelids fluttered. She was awake and waiting. Had Sophie slept at all?

  “Like the fact that everything is new again for our little family.” Not incomplete, not broken, not unfinished. Little. It sounded cute, or it did when Richard was alive and Evie had settled on that label. “Every day we’re figuring out something new about what it’s like for you to not have Daddy around anymore. I just don’t know if I want someone else to be part of that.”

  “Luca is our brother.”

  Why did everyone keep reminding her when all she had to do was look at Luca and see bits of both of her kids in his dimples and curls? “I know he is, sweetie, which is why you’ll always be part of his life. I’m just not sure that has to mean he’s living here forever, that’s all. But I won’t make any decisions without telling you, okay?” Evie cursed Richard for leaving a legacy of strangeness. She kissed Sophie on the lips. “I’m going to check on Sam. Go to sleep.”

  It might have been after eleven, but Sam was sitting up in bed and the TV was on.

  “Not tired, Sam?”

  “Not really.”

  Evie sat on his quilt. Sam wiggled his legs so she had more space.

  “How long is Luca staying?”

  “Sophie just asked me that. Is this a plan to gang up on me?” Evie squinted in faux dismay and crossed her arms in a make-believe huff. She remembered well the times the twins had concocted schemes to stay up later, eat more dessert, score a new video game. It had been a while; she’d have welcomed being undermined.

  “No, I’m just wondering. I like having them here but…”

  “But what?” Did Evie have a ten-year-old ally in her not-knowing-what-to-do quandary?

  “Why is someone else living in Dad’s house?”

  “Yeah, why?” Sophie stood at the door, curls a mess, nightgown twisted. She climbed onto Sam’s bed and stared at Evie with pining eyes.

  “How do you two know this?”

  “Nicole told us the last time we were there that we wouldn’t be going back,” Sophie said.

  Parenting Evie’s kids without her permission was worse than rearranging the soups and pastas. “Houses cost a lot of money. So that family is paying Nicole to live there, and Nicole is helping out here by giving me some money for living here.” Evie fast-forwarded her thoughts. It seemed like too much information, but she wanted always to be honest with them. Within reason.

  “If someone else is living in Dad’s house, then Nicole and Luca can’t leave. They won’t have anywhere to go,” Sophie said.

  “Don’t worry about it. No one is going anywhere.” Not yet.

  “I hate that someone else is living in Dad’s house,” Sam said.

  “Me too,” Sophie said, wiggling closer to her brother.

  Strangers were sitting in their chairs, sleeping in their beds, doing everything but eating their porridge. Interlopers peppered all their lives.

  “Will we have to move and let other people live here?” Sophie gasped.

  “No! We’re staying right here.” Evie couldn’t undo the divorce or bring Richard back, but she could keep her kids in their home feeling safe and comfortable.

  “How do you know?” Sam challenged her, always.

  “Because I said so, that’s why,” Evie snapped. That old-fashioned answer would have to suffice. The better answer was Because I’m going to get a job and because that insurance money is going to cover some expenses and pay for college. That’s how. The thoughts bounced around in her brain as if they were in a pinball machine, but she still wasn’t convinced.

  That had to change.

  Chapter 12

  JOB, JOB, JOB, JOB, JOB. Evie pushed the power button on the computer, then crossed her fingers. Ever since Alan had told her about the job at County, she was stuck on it—and for once she liked being stuck. It didn’t matter that she imagined herself in a graduation gown with a mortarboard on her head, as if that were Casual Friday attire for a suburban pseudo-academic. She thought of the body and hair flaws it would hide, then shook her head to release the image and got back to the reality of being unemployed in her pajamas.

  The first sip of coffee was always the best, and Evie downed the cup and scanned the list of e-mails that had arrived since the night before. Eden Elementary News, Lakewood Library Newsletter, coupons for pizza, Scott, junk mail from foreign countries, soccer registration.

  Scott?

  Evie had never e-mailed Scott. She’d placed him to the side of her thoughts. It had been almost two months since they were a couple if she counted
the first night of shiva as their last date. Evie could just delete the e-mail without reading it. That would simplify things—but that was rude. Evie closed one eye, which for some reason always made reading something unpleasant a little less so. She read the first line: I miss you. Then she opened her other eye.

  * * *

  “Laney is better at this than me,” Beth said, shaking her head as if disapproving of the rift between her friends, not the outfit of choice. “Here, try this.” Beth unclasped her everyday pearls, held them up to Evie’s neck, then put them back on herself. “If I dress you, you’ll look like me,” she said. “Laney has a knack.”

  “Laney has a knack all right,” Evie said, ignoring Beth’s nudge and draping a scarf around her shoulders, which she then fashioned into a stylish noose. “I could do worse than to look like you.” Evie untwisted the scarf and stuffed it back into the drawer. Evie checked her fading roots in the mirror, grateful for poor lighting. Nicole had done a good job on the touch-up, but the cheap stuff from the box just didn’t last as long as the expensive stuff from the salon. “I’m wasting my time.”

  “It’s not a waste of time to look nice tonight.” Beth rummaged through Evie’s closet, pulled out a cardigan, and put it back. “Are you sure I can’t call Laney? You can’t stay mad at each other forever.”

  “She has to stop telling me what to do.”

  “Nobody’s perfect.”

  “You’re pretty close.”

  Beth placed her hands on Evie’s shoulders and squeezed with gentle, Beth-like pressure, then let go and backed away. “Nobody’s perfect, Ev. Not Laney, not you, and certainly not me. Let me call her.”

  “No.” Evie had missed Laney since she’d slammed the door in her face. She’d driven past Laney at least once a day and given a perfunctory nod. Other times she’d noticed Laney outside, so Evie stayed inside. She had not ignored someone since eleventh grade when Hannah Brooks betrayed her by joining the cheerleading squad instead of the pom-poms as they’d planned, but that exercise in silence and snubbing only lasted from lunch until seventh period. Evie hadn’t spoken to Laney in six days. She had almost called her countless times. But almost didn’t count.

  “I’ll probably have to turn around when I’m halfway there because the kids are upset.”

  “You’re underestimating Sam and Sophie—and Nicole. And me for that matter.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your kids need to see you going out and coming back. It’s the normal stuff that’s going to ground them. Besides, Nicole adores them and they adore her.”

  “Don’t remind me.” Evie traded her gray blouse for a black knit tee and then back again. “What does that have to do with you?”

  “I told Nicole I’d hang out here, keep her and the kids company.”

  “You have a playdate with Nicole?” These shifting allegiances were making Evie dizzy.

  “I’m helping out.”

  “By spending the evening with Nicole.”

  “Yes. You want us to be nice to her, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I’m being nice.”

  Too nice, Evie thought.

  Downstairs, with Beth as her escort, Evie spun around, wishing her long, black skirt were wide enough to twirl.

  “Why are you all dressed up?” Sam said.

  “I have a meeting.”

  Sam stared at her.

  “A dinner meeting with some businesspeople and…”

  That was TMBI—too much boring information—for a ten-year-old. Sam went back to his video game, head near the screen, knees tucked to his chest.

  “What do you think, Soph?”

  Sophie shrugged and rolled the ball with Luca.

  “Well, you look great,” Nicole said.

  “It’s amazing what a little makeup and a flat iron can do.”

  “Important meeting, huh? Just a meeting? Are you sure?” Nicole smiled without showing her teeth, an all-knowing smile, and Beth winked at her.

  As soon as Evie was out of her driveway, the cell phone rang. Please let it not be Sam or Sophie or Nicole or even Midwest Mutual.

  “Where are you going?” Laney said.

  “That’s what you say after a week?” This was obviously how the friend fence-mending was going to happen. On the phone. While driving. On Laney’s terms. As always.

  “Chill. I just happened to see you pull away, and I noticed there were no kids in your car. And you look—well—you look dressed. I’m not mad at you anymore for slamming the door in my face.”

  “Then I’m not mad at you anymore for being a pain in the ass.” That part was the truth, and it surprised Evie, but the reconnection soothed her.

  “So Nicole is watching the kids?”

  “Very good, Lane, you used her name. Yes, Nicole is watching the kids. She does live with us, remember? And Beth is there.”

  “Beth is with Nicole?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Does that bother you?”

  “Should it?” Evie turned up the volume on her earpiece. This conversation might get her most of the way downtown.

  “Well, I don’t want to spend time with her.”

  “You don’t like her. Beth does.”

  “And that concerns me.”

  It concerned Evie too, but she didn’t concede that to Laney. She was willing to share her house, but not her best friends. “She’s doing it for me, not for Nicole.”

  “If you say so. As long as Beth doesn’t think the widow is hanging out with us when we have coffee.”

  “It’s no big deal, Lane. It’s just a few hours.”

  “Whatever. Where did you say you were going?”

  “I didn’t, but I’m going to meet with—with—with my lawyer.”

  “On a Friday night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right. Well, it doesn’t matter why you’re out, I’m just glad you’re out of the house with lipstick on.”

  “Thanks.” Evie laughed. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay? Come for coffee. I’ll hold the door wide-open.”

  “Sounds perfect,” Laney said with a chuckle. “Just one more thing.”

  Evie merged into Friday traffic where the express lanes were clogged but the local lanes flowed. “Fine. One more thing.”

  “Tell Scott I said hello.”

  * * *

  Evie parked the minivan and checked her hair and lip gloss in the rearview mirror. Only then did she dare look at her watch. Twenty minutes early. Out of the car, she slid her debit card into a parking meter and picked the maximum amount of time—three hours.

  She walked up Taylor Street toward Café Rosa. Streetlamps, trash cans, and newspaper boxes lined the curb in Little Italy, which was not so trendy when she used to go there with Richard. Evie strode slowly, with purpose. Her intention was not to be too early and to look as though she belonged. Only a few months back, driving into the city to have dinner with Scott was commonplace yet exciting. She’d have spent the evening, then the night, then the weekend, at his Lincoln Park condo. They’d have brunch at Nookies, meander through the zoo, or walk along North Avenue Beach. They’d often concoct a late-day feast from findings at Green City Market. Evie shivered, and the memories fell away. Navigating Chicago for six months had earned Evie her grown-up city stripes—but in the past two months she’d been demoted to full-time suburbanite. Now every step reminded her that heels hurt, she sweated when she was nervous, and the city was colder than Lakewood. The aromas taunted her. The drama of strangers’ conversations baited her. And the hum of the motors and the pop and slam of car doors, the whistle of buses and swish of their brakes, all begged to replace her current life in Lakewood.

  Disappointments overwhelmed her lately, and there had been enough of them to last a lifetime. She focused on Café Rosa, two corners ahead. One step at a time would get her there; even with baby steps she’d arrive on cue. The temperature was still cold enough to keep the snow atop the awnings looking fresh and her
breath like puffs of white smoke, but not so cold that she would arrive at the restaurant with teary eyes. She was grateful for the small things, or tried to be.

  The windows showed her reflection. The transparent image revealed grown-out layers: full hair where she wished it were flat, and flat hair where she wished it were full. Her trench coat was no longer fully double-breasted. The mirror at home was much more forgiving. Or maybe she was ambivalent when she looked into that mirror. When she was there, it didn’t matter who looked back.

  People scurried along the street, toward buses and idling cars. Some people sauntered and window-shopped. They were seeking the perfect apology bouquet, the right dessert for their weekend dinner party, or the latest edition of the newspaper. Evie searched through the glass for her newest identity.

  Café Rosa had a wooden façade with an oversize revolving door that turned automatically. With her first step Evie knew, had she just kept going, she could have left the restaurant the same moment she entered it. Instead, she landed at the foot of the wine bar.

  She positioned herself on one of the black leather barstools and folded her coat over its back. She crossed her ankles.

  “What can I get you tonight?” the bartender asked.

  “Shiraz,” she said with assurance.

  The wine was in front of her in an instant. Evie slid a few bills across the bar, sipped, examined her claret lipstick stain on the wineglass, and looked around for an inconspicuous way to detect Scott’s entrance behind her, perhaps in a reflection from a wine bottle or a wall mirror. She counted the decorative bottles lining the wall to her left and lost count at eighty bottles. Using her thumb, she twirled her delicate divorce-ring around her finger. Someone touched Evie’s shoulder.

  She spun around, disarmed, for just a moment.

  “Scott!”

  They eased into a hello hug. He kissed her cheek and grabbed both of her hands.