The Glass Wives (6 page)

“No. She didn’t care about his age.” Nicole rubbed her arms as if warming from a chill.

“Why then?” Prying was now essential, and Beth was not there to stop Evie. She knew Richard’s faults inside out and sideways, but that was after years together and years apart. What could someone who’d never met him have against Dr. Richard Glass, the Jewish college math professor? His title alone had mothers lining up to give him their daughters’ numbers, even when she and Richard
were
married. Plus, criticizing Richard was Evie’s turf. She never bad-mouthed him in front of the twins, would never undermine him as their dad. She tolerated it and even reveled in it when Lisa and Laney slammed him. But when a stranger disparaged the father of her children it defied the convoluted, unspoken Evie Glass Code of Good Divorce.

Nicole looked at the floor and drew lines in the carpet with her bare left foot. Evie couldn’t help but think of her as a scared teenager who’d just gotten caught slipping in after curfew. “She thought I married him for the wrong reasons, that’s all,” Nicole said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. She punctuated
reasons
with an audible sniff. “She didn’t like that he was Jewish either. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh.” There wasn’t a lot of anti-Semitism around Evie, or not any that was thrust in her face. But Nicole wasn’t from a suburb like Lakewood or a city like Chicago. “But it didn’t bother you. The Jewish part.” Evie didn’t know, or care to know, about the wrong-reasons part.

Nicole wrung her hands and shook her head.

“How about your father?” Evie said, still organizing the couch.

“He left when I was three.”

Evie stepped away and motioned for Nicole to sit. “What do you mean, ‘he left’?” Evie wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

“He moved out. I don’t know the details. I never asked because I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.”

“You never saw him again?” Evie said it before she could stop herself.

Nicole sighed and shook her head. “Do you mind if we drop it?”

Evie resisted the urge to push Nicole’s hair off her forehead, to tell her she’d be okay. Nicole had no father. Like mother like son. Nicole had no father. Like Sam and like Sophie.

Evie wished this unforeseen bond wasn’t there, for so many reasons. It was the time for loosening ties, not strengthening them—although Evie seemed to be doing that despite herself.

“Where in Iowa are you from?” Evie asked, as if she knew one Iowa town or city from another. “Do you think you’ll go back?”

“I’m from Green Ferry, but my mom lives in Iowa City now.” Nicole shoved her hands into the pockets of her robe. “And no, I’m not moving back to either place. I can’t.”

A trailer park sitting off the edge of a lonely highway flashed in Evie’s mind, then was replaced by a subdivision full of postwar tract houses. She preferred the trailer-park vision and switched back. “You don’t have any family here. Wouldn’t it make sense to go back?” Evie wiggled herself straighter, but kept her gaze transfixed on Nicole.

Nicole’s eyes opened wide and she stood, removing her hands from her pockets. “We have
Sam and Sophie,
” she said, her voice rising until Evie put a hushing finger to her own lips. Nicole unfurled the blankets and bunched them up at her feet. She untied her robe to reveal fleece pajamas, a step above Evie’s sweats, for sure. No holes. Cotton-candy pink.

“You’re our family too,” Nicole said.

Evie pretended she hadn’t heard that last part. “Let’s go to sleep. I’m sure Luca wakes up early.”

“Yes, he does. Babies always wake up early, don’t they? Good night,” Nicole said, a touch of hesitancy to her voice, as if she had something else to say but thought better of it.

“See you in the morning.” Evie almost reached to smooth the blanket, tuck it in tight. She clasped her hands behind her back and walked toward the stairs.

“Evie?”

“Yes?” She stopped and turned toward Nicole.

“Thank you.”

“No problem.” But Evie had a feeling it would be.

Chapter 4

E
VIE’S BEDROOM WAS DARK AND
her eyes were closed, but she felt Sophie’s gaze from the doorway as if her daughter had lassoed her.

BD (Before Death), Evie had turned off her sixth, seventh, and eighth senses every other weekend. Now they were on autopilot.
Always.
During her marriage, Evie had known the kids were crying before Richard ever heard a sound. She knew when they were sneaking a cookie, watching TV on mute, or if they’d fed Rex their veggies under the table. Evie relied on her maternal instincts, the switch that flipped when the twins were born. But at some point her
marital
intuition went haywire. Perhaps it was easier knowing her kids were climbing on the kitchen counter than to accept the unstable nature of her marriage.

Evie peeked with one eye. Nope, she hadn’t lost her touch, a relief as much as a burden. Sophie stood straight, eyes pried wide against the lure of sleep, her arms clutching a medley of stuffed bears, kittens, and dogs. Evie patted her bed and folded down the blanket: Sophie’s cue. Up she climbed and over she scooted, right next to her mom. Evie welcomed Sophie’s warm body with a leg hug and drew her daughter close and inhaled the light scent of baby shampoo.
Are the twins too old for baby shampoo?
Sophie draped her arm across Evie’s shoulder, and the duo Eskimo-kissed and giggled. Nothing was funny, but it was familiar and comfortable when so much was neither.

“I heard a baby crying,” Sophie said.

“Yes, you did. Luca is teething. It’s nothing to worry about.” Evie said it as if she believed it.

“A sleepover?!”

Okay, they could call it a sleepover.
“Yes, just one night, and you will see them in the morning. Did you have a good day?” Evie asked out of habit and to change the subject, even though she knew exactly how Sophie’s day had been.

“Uh-huh.”

Evie pressed her lips to Sophie’s cheek and led the elephant in the corner into full view. “It’s pretty sad without Daddy, huh?”

“Yeah.” Sophie looked for direction, permission to continue. Her small body stiffened.

Evie kissed Sophie’s nose and she squirmed, relaxed, and melted in. “It’s going to be sad for a long time.” Evie didn’t say
forever
. Forever was too long for a ten-year-old. Forever was too long for a forty-five-year-old. “How about tomorrow we find some pictures of Daddy you can put on your desk?”

“You mean here? In this house?”

“Yes, here, honey. This is
your
house.” Evie pulled back and looked at her daughter. “You can even put pictures of Daddy in the living room. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

Nice? It would be strange. The day Richard moved out, Evie had packed away the wedding photos and replaced them with images of the twins and herself. The past belonged in the past. Until now, of course, when all the parts of Evie’s life were mixing together like cookie dough in a bowl.

Sophie nestled her head onto Evie’s shoulder and fell asleep. That arrangement worked until Evie heard loud sniffs—a mother’s alarm clock, no sixth sense needed. She wanted the sound to be coming from a TV, from Nicole or Luca, from anywhere else but Sam’s room. She just wanted to sleep. Evie slid out of Sophie’s sweaty embrace and tucked pillows around her daughter. Evie had only been asleep for an hour but sat at attention. Her brain was awake. Her body, not so much. She arched her back and it cracked. She rubbed her hands together to get the blood circulating. Maybe the sounds would stop, maybe it was her imagination, maybe Sam would sleep all night. It was not her imagination that she ached for sleep. When the twins were little, all it took was a drive around the block in the car and they were zonked out. Now Evie waited, hopeful that he’d fallen asleep. They both needed the break. But there it was, another sniff. Off she went to intervene in Sam’s nightmare.

Sam looked at her with red, wet eyes. Evie rubbed his head until he turned into the wet pillow and let out a muffled yet bloodcurdling scream that sounded as if it came from the bottom of his soul. She didn’t know such force existed in his eighty pounds. Her hand on the mattress, she felt the vibration. Sam lifted his head, lurched forward, and Evie leaned back, but not far enough. Sam threw up all over Evie, and all over the bed.

Off came the sheets in one fell swoop while Sam went into the bathroom. Evie made up the bed again as quickly as she could, removing her clothing, soaked through with regurgitated pot roast. And ice cream. Maybe part of a hot-dog-with-corn-chips lunch. When she heard the water running in the hall bathroom, she knew she had time to change clothes and wash up. In the master bathroom, with the door closed to safeguard Sophie’s sleep, Evie scrubbed the ends of her hair and cursed Richard for leaving a legacy of barf.
And squatters.

Sam walked back into his room and fell into his bed, broken, ashen, withdrawn. Evie wrapped her arms around him. For the next two hours he lay on her lap, his clean tears soaking through her nightgown, spreading as if she’d dumped a glass of water on herself. But she sat still. He was a little boy, not even yet a young man. And now he was half-empty instead of half-full. He was depleted and overcome and Evie had no control over any of it. She hated having no control. At least when Richard was alive, they could argue.
Too much soccer, too much basketball, not enough violin. Hair too long, up too late, too young for a cell phone.
Familiar arguments would have been a blessing.

Sam was a volcano of raw emotion, his grief flowing like lava. For the moment he was at rest, but no telling when he’d blow again. It was all becoming real. Richard wasn’t coming back, and alone in the night there was no place for the feelings to go. Evie knew it would take time. She rubbed Sam’s back and wiped his forehead in a sequence of patterns and motions employed to focus her attention away from the clock. The minutes ticked by in place of hours.

“I want Daddy.”

“I know.”

“You don’t know anything.” It was accusatory but with no venom behind it. And he was right. She didn’t know. She had never been a ten-year-old boy, let alone one whose father had just died.

Sam crushed himself to her tighter. “Don’t go away. Promise you won’t go away.”

Evie held her son. “I will take care of you until you’re old enough to take care of yourself, okay? I’m not going anywhere, ever.”

She crossed her fingers as she had every night for the past week and a half. She crossed her toes too.

When Sam started snoring, Evie watched him for a few minutes. He deserved a peaceful sleep. She hoped his dreams were sweet, but not of Richard. Then, Evie untangled herself from Sam’s embrace, walked to the hall bathroom, locked the door, flipped on the fan, and sat on the side of the tub.

It was the first time she cried.

*   *   *

Morning arrived long before it should have. Rex breathed into Evie’s face. She rolled Sophie off her, tiptoed through the bedroom, and slipped on her once-periwinkle terry-cloth robe.

She walked down the steps into the dark foyer. Like a film strip from elementary school, a scene played in front of Evie’s eyes: Richard, his face an inch from the grandfather clock in the foyer inspecting it as a possession he’d left behind even though it had belonged to Bubbe. Richard had stepped away when he saw Evie watching him, with his hands up as if under arrest. Evie had made a point of leaning forward from the bottom step and wiping his nose print off with her sleeve.

Evie wished she could clean the glass now and wipe away her reality.

She led Rex by the collar through the living room and out the back door. New house rule: Never wake a sleeping widow. So, instead of snuggling into her spot on the couch, Evie turned on the light over the stove and started a pot of coffee. A piece of rugelach called to her from inside the box. Who was she to argue? The stale rugelach was a clear sign the bakery runs had slowed, like the phone calls and visits. Winter break was over in less than a week, and everyone who wasn’t on vacation before was away now. The people who stayed local were carousing at indoor water parks and piggybacking playdates, not stocking Evie’s pantry.

Evie sat on Beth’s favorite stool and swung her legs, willing the coffee to drip faster, ignoring Nicole’s snores wafting in from the living room. What Evie couldn’t ignore was the pile of mail she had thrown on the desk a day ago. Even with her back to the desk, she could see it—damn those eyes in the back of her head—and she felt the weight of it in her hands and remembered the solid thud when she dropped it.

The bills were always paid on the first of the month, coinciding with her once-a-month deposit from Richard and her own from Third Coast Gifts. Evie couldn’t do math in her head before her first cup of coffee—
drip, drip, drip
—but she knew there wasn’t enough in the checking account to pay the mortgage and the bills and take care of every other expense next month. With extra hours around the holidays last year, her own paychecks had allowed for the extras—the trip to the Wisconsin Dells, Evie’s one-month love affair with knitting, a few trendy outfits, treating Scott to dinner for his birthday, and the requisite, yet yawn-inducing, Moms Night Out. That was the deal she and Richard had struck and then signed. Her checks did not cover gallons of milk or two pairs of gym shoes per child, new cleats, basketball uniforms—or the electric bill. That was all paid for by Richard. Evie had spent her last paycheck on Hanukkah presents. Soon there would be orthodontics for Sam and ice-skating for Sophie and basketball and soccer and, oh, a gallon or two of milk.

Forget losing Nicole and Luca in their lives, the twins couldn’t lose their house, their activities, or any residual sense of normal. They needed security even when Evie wasn’t wrapped around them. Jeez, she needed that coffee. She also needed something sweet, but not a stale memento of family tragedy.

Evie walked past the bills. They’d still be there in forty-five minutes, which was strangely reassuring. She plucked out a manila envelope. Midwest Mutual Life Insurance. Richard’s policy! It was part of the divorce, to make sure the kids could go to college if anything happened to Richard. And anything had. There were papers for Evie to sign marked with arrow-shaped sticky notes and lists of documents to include when she sent it all back. She’d compile and sign and mail as soon as the post office opened. The twins would have money for college, and maybe there’d be a little left over. Then she saw another official-looking paper with tear-off edges. Social Security Administration. She ripped open the envelope without following the directions and then pieced together the letter. She clutched it to her chest like a love note. Her kids would get Social Security until they turned eighteen. That money would replace some of Richard’s child support. How awful, yet how awesome.