The Glass Wives Read online

  Evie smiled up at him and squeezed his hand. He smiled, but he didn’t squeeze back.

  “This is Scott,” Evie said, releasing the plate onto her lap. She didn’t know what else to say.

  “We met at the funeral,” Beth said. “Nice to see you again. Well, you know what I mean.”

  Laney nodded in agreement.

  “Sure, same here,” said Scott, taking his place on a separate cushion, keeping his physical distance, but watching Evie, never averting his eyes. He looked as if he were in a trance, so that meant he was either riveted or bored. To Evie, everything and everyone was tired-blurry. She blinked hard in lieu of rubbing her eyes, even though she had on no makeup. Evie pointed out her parents and sister. Laney named each Lakewood friend and foe. For Laney there were always foes.

  “Where are your in-laws?” Scott said. “I mean, your ex-in-laws?”

  “Richard’s parents died young,” Beth whispered. She mouthed the word cancer. “He was an only child.”

  “That’s his great-aunt and -uncle over there,” Evie said. “I don’t think I’ve seen them since the wedding.” That wasn’t very nice. They were old. She and Richard should have visited them. Or invited them to Lakewood. Paid for the plane ticket. Yes, they—Richard—should have done all those things and much more.

  “Which ones belong to the widow?” Laney said.

  That was a good question. Where was Nicole’s family? Evie knew almost everyone. Where were the strangers? The other side of Richard’s new family? The new friends that went with the new life? Evie shrugged. “No clue.”

  “They must be here somewhere.” Scott looked around the room without moving his head, his eyes appearing to follow a bouncing ball.

  “I don’t think so.” Evie scanned the crowd in more of a tennis-match movement, quick and side to side. Frantic to find the missing members of Nicole’s family, Evie looked around the room. Had they been there all along, lost in the crowd, unseen because they weren’t being sought? No. There were sitters and standers and leaners. The real helpers, the pretend helpers, and the ones who had no intention of helping. The grazers, the pilers, the pickers. The Christmas sweaters. The Christmas sweaters might be Nicole’s family, but then why weren’t they cuddling Luca or bringing Nicole cups of grief tea? A subtle awareness tugged at Evie as if a memory, or facts, were just out of reach. She pushed aside the thought. She could ask Nicole about her family later, if Evie remembered.

  * * *

  As the shiva crowd thinned, Evie’s parents and sister carried wooden kitchen chairs and placed them near the couch, joining the elite group of leftover mourners. Shirley, Evie’s mother, looked at her watch and then raised her eyebrows. Laney then looked at her watch.

  “When are you going home?” Laney said to Evie.

  “Later.”

  “You’ve done enough, Evelyn,” Shirley said, shaking her head. “You don’t need to be here any longer.”

  “I’ll stay till the kids are tired. They want to be here.”

  “It’s time for you to go home,” Evie’s dad, Bob, said. “This doesn’t make sense, staying here, helping out. Enough is enough.” He remained standing and crossed his arms.

  “We’ll come back with you tomorrow, promise,” Lisa, Evie’s sister, said. She was only eighteen months younger, but Lisa was a divorced, no-kids D.C. attorney with a town house in Georgetown who wore yoga pants only to do yoga and washed her hair even if she wasn’t leaving the house. She scoffed at the well-married, luxury-minivan-driving, stay-at-home soccer moms of Lakewood, but never lumped Evie into the same category.

  “The kids just want to stay longer.” Evie dumped her empty plate into a passing trash bag carried by one of her neighbors. Maybe she should have used a doggie bag, but instead she checked her fingers and lap for rugelach crumbs and popped a few sweet escapees into her mouth. “Please don’t make this harder for me.”

  Evie’s parents and Lisa left for Evie’s house. They’d take care of the dog and stay up late discussing her fate, which they’d undoubtedly share with her in the morning. She couldn’t wait.

  As if lights had blinked indicating it was time for everyone to go, neighbors hugged Evie good-bye. Acquaintances touched her shoulder. Strangers nodded in her direction. She was glad to have them all graveside and then back at Nicole’s; the hum of their voices and their buzz of activity kept her thoughts in the present. She knew that for most, a death gathering mirrored a one-night stand—gratifying, brief, and tinged with regret. Evie envied their right to keep moving when her own feet were stuck to the floor. Tomorrow other families might be ice-skating in Millennium Park and then searching the Cloud Gate sculpture—The Bean—for their frozen, bundled reflections. Her family would not.

  Her family. For three years, Evie had defined family as her and Sam and Sophie. And for Evie, that still held true. But the shape and breadth of her children’s family had changed forever. Nothing for them would ever be the same, which meant nothing would be the same for Evie. Again. She inhaled deeply, the air snagging in her lungs, then exhaled to make sure she could.

  The twins walked to the couch and in silence took their designated places on either side of Evie. They leaned their heads on their mother’s shoulders and wrapped their arms around her torso, and each other. When the twins were babies and toddlers, they both climbed into her lap at the same time. Evie knew if they did that now, her lap would still have been the right size, because a mother’s lap is always the right size. She kissed each of them on the head, and simultaneously each child took one of her hands, squeezed tight, and held on, as if they might fall.

  Evie needed to find her footing again and find it fast. Because if she stumbled, they all would come tumbling down.

  A cold wind whipped into the living room. A chill sped down Evie’s spine as if a snowball had struck the back of her neck. She shivered, turned her head, and noticed Scott leaning by the open front door. His camel cashmere overcoat buttoned to his neck, hands in his pockets, his head tilted and resting on the doorjamb in a classic GQ pose. Scott winked at her. Evie smiled and closed her eyes in silent gratitude.

  When she opened them, he was gone.

  Chapter 2

  WHEN SHIVA ENDED, SO DID the catered meals and constant company.

  Evie was a mixed bag of glad and sad when her parents and Lisa had flown home the day before. They’d done the driving, the consoling, and the laundry. For Evie, those were equally important. But without them there was no worrying about Lisa’s part-time vegetarianism or her parents’ bouts with acid reflux. Her family came, they comforted, and they conquered the kitchen by filling the pantry with boxes of cereal and granola bars, stocking the freezer with ice cream cones, and loading the fridge with bags of apples, oranges, and containers of homemade meals. But Evie knew her kids best—so tonight they would forgo Shirley’s pot roast, Bob’s turkey burgers, and Lisa’s veggie chili, to cook hot dogs in the fireplace. Evie’s mantra of the day: Nitrates and carcinogens in moderation never hurt anyone.

  After dinner, showers, and check-in phone calls to her parents and sister, Evie read aloud to Sam and Sophie from their well-loved book Freckle Juice. It didn’t matter that it was the twins’ favorite three years ago. There was safety and familiarity within those pages. And they always laughed. A silent mom-prayer went out to Judy Blume for images of Andrew Marcus drawing freckles on his face with a Magic Marker. Evie would much rather have her kids dreaming of freckle-juice-drinking monsters than of a limousine ride to a cemetery.

  Sam and Sophie snuggled into sleeping bags and listened, or pretended to. Evie read until her tongue felt thick with words she said but didn’t hear; until the twins’ eyes flittered shut and mouths dropped open, their winter complexions lit and warmed by the dwindling fire.

  Sam’s head rested on the padded arm of the sectional, his legs curled against his chest. He was gangly for a ten-year-old. Richard and Evie always remarked on the twins’ long limbs, glad they inherited that trait from Richard’s side of th
e family. One day Sam would reach things on the top shelves, while his mother—all five feet four of her—would still have to hunt for the step stool. Sophie was tall too, and Evie could see the outline of her daughter’s long legs under the blanket as she lay on an air mattress at the other end of the couch. If she stretched, Evie could reach down and twirl her fingers in Sophie’s long, light brown curls that were just like Lisa’s.

  Cuddling up alone in a static-ridden White Sox blanket, Evie reveled in the silence, marred only by the occasional crackle of the disintegrating logs. To entice sleep, she tried replaying her favorite movies and TV show episodes in her head, the chatter from three days of polite conversations filtered through her personal reruns.

  She’d long ago settled into a coveted place of indifference with Richard—that convenient cubbyhole that had emerged after the hatred had dissolved. But now, bad memories bubbled to the surface. Evie pushed them back. She and Richard hadn’t bickered in years. Their lives were pleasantly linked by the twins—and legally linked by automatic support payments—but not by emotions or broken promises. They tag-teamed for soccer games and cochaperoned field trips.

  Then, she saw Richard’s face. Not just ex-husband Richard’s face, but the face of the twenty-five-year-old she’d fallen in love with. She couldn’t deny Richard’s good looks even postdivorce because Sam looked just like him. Yes, she’d focus on that, as it had been a long time since she’d thought of Richard’s face as sweet or kind.

  Evie flipped from one side to the other, struggling to find a comfortable spot where she didn’t feel a gap in the cushions against her lower back. Her eyes burned but she couldn’t sleep, probably because it was ten o’clock. With the blanket wrapped around her shoulders, Evie tiptoed into the kitchen and by the glow of her cell phone called Scott. Voice mail. He was probably in the shower or reading a book he couldn’t put down until the end of the chapter. She tried his landline. Voice mail again.

  “It’s me,” she said. “I tried your cell too … just wanted to thank you for the other day. For coming to shiva.” You don’t thank people for coming to shiva. Evie didn’t know why, but she knew it was a Jewish faux pas, one of those things Bubbe had mandated. Scott probably knew that rule too. “I mean, I just wanted to touch base since we haven’t talked since shiva. Well, okay, call me when you get this … um … talk to you soon…” She stopped short of adding, “Love ya.”

  What if it had been Scott who died instead of Richard? Evie’s hand smacked her mouth and it stayed there.

  When her cell phone buzzed, Evie’s heart leapt, her face exploding into a broad smile. She held her phone tight with both hands and looked at the screen. Her mood sank when she saw Richard’s number. What did he want now? Then burnt hot dog lurched into her throat, coating it with reality. It couldn’t be Richard. It had to be Nicole. Evie tapped DECLINE.

  Evie tried to fall asleep for another hour. She’d have to go upstairs to get any rest with the twins’ resonant snoring. The sound was in direct contrast to the way they looked when they slept—peaceful, cherubic faces, fluttering, long eyelashes, and twitching, drooling smiles. Such sleep belied her tweens’ fondness for video games, anime, basketball, and soccer. Mothering was easier when they loved Dora the Explorer and zwieback toast. Goopy, slimy zwieback toast. When a baby wipe cleaned every mess, kisses healed every hurt, and when a pinkie-swear sealed every promise.

  * * *

  Light trickled in the window and poked Evie in the eye. She was on top of her comforter and propped up on three pillows. Her eyes focused on Sam and Sophie, back-to-back at the foot of the bed, playing handheld video games on silent. Evie hadn’t even felt them climb on.

  She cleared her throat, and the twins wiggled over to her. They fell into a family hug. “You’ll be okay,” she whispered, reassuring herself and, by default, Sam and Sophie. “I promise with all my heart.” She alternated her words with light kisses on their ears.

  She had said the same thing more than three years before, on a day Evie prepared for with military precision. With the word divorce, the twins’ shrieks of terror had ripped through her. Yet they had made it through okay—not great or amazing, but okay. But with no warning, no court dates, no list of pros and cons, there had been no way for Evie to prepare herself—or Sam and Sophie—for Richard’s death. It had been a dark, snowy December night in northern Lake County when his car slid on black ice during a sharp turn and smashed into a guardrail.

  “He couldn’t have seen it,” the police officer said.

  “On impact,” the doctor added.

  Impact, indeed.

  * * *

  A week’s worth of mail stuck out of the basket hanging on the kitchen wall. Evie reached, then pulled back her hand. The mail could wait. She wasn’t going to ruin her coffee refuge by opening bills. With the kids still tucked in her bed and glued to their games, she just wanted a little peace and quiet and coffee. She’d sort through the mess later with a fully caffeinated tank on board. In the meantime, Evie pulled out a few catalogs and tossed them into the recycle bin. It was less daunting without the bulk.

  As if on cue, Beth tapped on the back door. Still locked—which was unusual. Evie let her in. Beth patted the tops of Tupperware containers and foil-wrapped plates as if she were playing bongos, which would have been a sight in her North Face jacket and leather gloves. Evie smiled so wide her cheeks stretched.

  “People dropped off more food at my house for you,” Beth said, stacking them on the kitchen counter.

  Death was horrifying enough, but death and hunger would be a shanda, a disgrace. The amount of food delivered was directly proportional to the level of fear engulfing each Lakewood family. The more they cooked, baked, and delivered, the less likely this would happen to someone else they knew. At this rate, Lakewood residents would live forever.

  “Let’s sit,” Evie said, as if it were a novel idea.

  Laney emerged from the front hall. Thank goodness for a friend with her own key. Any other day she’d have come through the back door, and any other day she’d have been stunning. But this day Laney wore mismatched sweats with a clip holding a clump of her curls.

  Dead ex-husband and frumpy, front-door Laney—Evie’s personal apocalypse.

  “Where are the kids?” Laney asked.

  “Upstairs, why?”

  “We need to rehash shiva.”

  “No, we do not,” Beth said.

  “Being there was enough rehashing for me,” Evie said.

  “Nothing bad, just, well, a lot of people showed up every day. It was nice. As nice as a shiva can be, I mean.”

  Beth opened a box with more force than was needed. “Why are you surprised? I know you had a problem with Richard, but not everyone did. And, anyway, people do what’s right in a situation like this. You did.”

  “I did it for Evie and the kids.”

  “So did I.” Beth was annoyed, put her hands on Evie’s shoulders, and shifted her away from Laney.

  Laney drummed the side of a box. “You need to get out of here.”

  “Out of where?” Evie turned, opening her eyes wider than was comfortable.

  “This house.”

  “Right now? I don’t really feel like going anywhere.…”

  “No, I mean, in general. You need a new place.”

  “You want me to move?”

  “No, I don’t want you to move, but maybe that’s the best thing. A change of scenery always helps put things into perspective.”

  Who the hell needs perspective? I see everything clearly. “This is my home. This is what I need.”

  “A smaller place would be easier to manage,” Beth said.

  “I’ve been managing this house on my own for over three years, in case you’ve forgotten. It’s not like Richard moved out yesterday.” Evie cringed at Beth’s and Laney’s suggestion that this house wasn’t her forever home. She held her hair off her face with one hand and fanned herself with the other. Her eyes shifted left as she counted. “I’ve lived
here for more than a dozen years. I’m not moving. Ever.”

  “Take a deep breath,” Laney said. Evie did. “Are you finished? It was just a suggestion,” Laney said in a timid, un-Laney-like voice. “Your parents just thought—”

  “You’re in cahoots with my parents?”

  “And your sister,” Beth confessed without making eye contact.

  “This is where I want to be,” Evie said. This is where I need to be.

  “Of course we don’t want you to move. But can you afford to stay?”

  “How can I afford not to stay?” Evie threw her arms up into the air. Her friends were being ridiculous. She and the kids needed stability. Even moving across town would be disruptive. And they’d had enough disruptions.

  “We mean afford,” Beth said.

  Evie froze. She’d been so busy experiencing the emotional reverie of Richard’s death that she hadn’t considered the financial consequences. Without his support check adding to her commissions from her part-time job at Third Coast Gifts, how the hell was she going to pay all the bills this month? Or next month? Or ever? The mortgage was due in two weeks. No, sixteen days. Considering Richard was alive one minute and dead the next, and that in the past week they’d had a funeral, shiva, visitors, and a cookout in the living room—sixteen days seemed like a long time. But it wasn’t. Maybe she had to move.

  “We should go,” Laney said. “But just think about calling your parents and sister to talk about it. There are nice, new town houses on the other side of Lakeview.”

  “Don’t go,” Evie said. “I can’t move. That is one thing I’m sure of.” Evie didn’t know how she was sure of anything without a real meal or a normal night’s sleep since when? And it was what day? It was Wednesday. Maybe. “The kids would have to change schools. They’d have to make all new friends, they’d have new teachers. I can’t ask them to do that. I won’t.”