The Glass Wives by Amy Sue Nathan Read Free Book Online Page A

her, of course.” Nicole’s lips pressed together as if blotting lipstick.
    “Of course,” Evie said, knowing the conversation wasn’t over. “Is she sick?” Every person you’re related to couldn’t make it? To your husband’s funeral and three days of shiva? They’ve all got what? Shiva flu?
    “Well, if you must know, my mother never wanted me to marry Richard, and my brother is stationed in Afghanistan.”
    Evie chose to ignore Nicole’s brother, the hero. She was getting her dander up. The mystery mother didn’t think Evie’s ex was good enough for her daughter? Evie knew that, even eighteen years Nicole’s senior, Richard was the quintessential catch if someone ignored that he was married, which Nicole obviously had. Evie banished the conflicting feelings and watched Nicole fiddle with her fingers and scrape at her clear nail polish, pulling it off in small bits. “Why didn’t your mother want you to marry Richard? Because he was so much older than you?”
    “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