The Glass Wives
Authors: Amy Sue Nathan
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To Zachary
For understanding that books are my baseball
To Chloe
For understanding
Contents
Extended Reading Group Gold Guide
When the glass shatters, who will be there to pick up the pieces?
Chapter 1
E
VIE PICKED UP A SMALL,
silver-framed photo and wiped away invisible dust. The groom towered over the groomsmen, his hair windblown without any wind, his smile slightly askew, big blue eyes staring and pensive. She knew it all too well, but the tug of familiarity was not déjà vu. Evie had been there before, decades earlier, with the same groom. But in this picture she was not the bride.
No one noticed Evie put back the photo or swish her hand on her pant leg, pretending now to wipe off the nonexistent dust. She walked through the crowd toward the floor-to-ceiling window. No one noticed her do that, either. Burgundy velour curtains tied back with thick, black tassels framed a six-foot, imitation pine tree. Hallmark ornaments masquerading as heirlooms dangled from its branches. Gold tinsel fringe and shiny red balls sparkled. It all seemed out of place, yet Evie knew it belonged. Probably more than she did.
Evie shook her head to clear an internal fog. It didn’t work, but certain thoughts were clear no matter how few hours she’d slept, and no matter how her head throbbed a low, steady beat. Her ex-husband had died. Her children had no father. And if she were still married, she would be a widow.
Evie had accepted that she and Richard no longer shared the same happily-ever-after, but she’d assumed that they would move forward with grace and goodwill. So what if the grace was all her doing. She and Richard would share their children’s bar and bat mitzvah, proms, graduations, weddings, and grandchildren. They’d have different partners, of course—different homes. They’d be positioned at opposite ends of the same long holiday tables, but they would continue to share Sam’s and Sophie’s milestones. After their divorce three years ago, it took Evie a full year to find her footing, twelve long months, to believe deep down she had a strong enough foundation to create a new, full life. And then, she created it.
Now the building blocks were scattered again.
She looked across the room at Nicole, who, within four years, had been Richard’s mistress, his wife, and now his widow. It wasn’t hard to imagine how she felt. The blood would have left her extremities. Her stomach would be in her throat. Her heart would ache for touch as her head searched for answers. No doubt she’d be nursing a cocktail of anger, sadness, and shock. Evie knew all this because she had mourned the same loss, but she had done it when Richard was alive.
Nicole sat barefoot on a low, wooden bench customary for sitting shiva. She slumped, arms at her sides, hair in disarray. Her daze extended beyond her personal space and touched everyone else in the room. Nicole was thirty, fifteen years younger than Evie, but the circles under Nicole’s eyes stretched to midcheek. She wore no makeup and her skin was sallow without the benefit of foundation or blush. Every mirror in the house was covered with a white sheet. Shiva was for mourning, and prayer, and, yes, food, but vanity was forbidden. And while Nicole wasn’t Jewish, she was respecting Jewish customs in the home she’d shared with Richard. Evie hated to admit it, but she admired the effort, despite the plastic cranberry-and-popcorn garland hanging above a stack of yarmulkes.
Evie sat on the couch, a black leather casualty of divorce, and stroked the worn cushion with her thumb until it burned. During the young married years, the couch was the only furniture in Evie and Richard’s living room. During the young parenting years, she and Richard sat on the couch, legs intertwined, each holding one of their twins. During the recent turbulent years, Richard sat at one end of the couch, Evie at the other, each leaning toward the farthest wall, two arms’ lengths and vacant miles between them. Why had she let Richard take the couch? The couch was a timeline, a testament, a tribute.
Or maybe it was just a couch.
Evie’s stomach growled. The shiva food remained untouched. Soon the pickles would lose their sheen, slices of lox would curl at the edges, and the tuna salad would sour. So people hovered, waiting for some official signal that it was Time To Eat. Only then would they soothe their psyches with the time-honored Jewish death fare.
“Everyone, please have something to eat,” Nicole said through a sniffle, and the crowd began grazing. She lifted six-month-old Luca from his bouncy seat and drew him to her chest. Nicole’s words and motions were fluid, as if rehearsed.
Sam and Sophie stood shoulder to shoulder, or shoulder to arm. At ten, Sophie was still taller than her twin brother, although Evie suspected that that wouldn’t last the year, since every week Sam’s pants and sleeves were getting shorter. She scooted to the middle of the cushion and the kids sat on either side, their thighs touching hers. The kids hated getting dressed up, yet here they were, in starched and pressed clothes usually reserved for Yom Kippur. Tomorrow Evie would let them wear sweats. After all, when the rabbi explained the ancient custom of
kriah,
tearing of clothing—or a black satin ribbon—and wearing it as a symbol of grief for an immediate family member, he never said they couldn’t wear it on a hoodie. Evie had clenched her jaw and swallowed baseball-size sobs when she’d first heard the satin ribbon rip. Then she held her breath as the pins poked through her babies-who-were-no-longer-babies’ shirts, making holes that would never truly be mended. Richard had once been Evie’s immediate family as well, but the space over her heart remained empty.
As people passed on their way to the buffet, some glanced at Evie. Most never looked at or spoke to Sam or Sophie, but some closed their eyes and nodded as if it made her fatherless children invisible.
Was that the point?
A brave few extended their hands and said or mouthed, “I’m sorry.” Others patted one twin’s head or the other’s. Richard’s Uncle Abe pulled a quarter out from behind Sam’s ear, and then Sophie’s. They were too old to be dazzled, but they smiled and so did Evie.
Sidestepping the hungry mob, Nicole inched her way to Evie. With Luca in one arm, Nicole rustled Sam’s already-messy blond hair, touched Sophie’s chin with her fingers, held the baby’s back, and bounced. Nicole stood six inches from Evie’s knees, abrasive electricity between them.
“Can we go watch TV?” Sam asked. He cocked his head to the side and smiled, wrevealing his overbite, inherited from Richard.
“Please?” Sophie said, wringing her hands as if she wanted to download more songs onto her iPod or have extra minutes on the computer.
“Are you sure?” Evie said. Her instinct was to tighten her grip on their arms.
“Yes,” the twins said, nodding.
“Oh, okay, go!” Evie said. She squeaked in an effort to match their enthusiasm but her voice quavered.
Sam and Sophie stomped down the stairs to the rec room Richard had built for his second family, unlike Evie’s unfinished laundry-room closet and the half-built shed in her backyard. She felt light without them touching her. It was a welcome reprieve, but laced with yearning.
Evie looked up at Nicole and patted the warm, indented cushion. “Do you want to sit?”
Nicole shook her head. “I just wanted to say … I’m glad you and the kids are here. I wish it were different, but we should be together at a time like this.”
Just two more days of shiva and Evie’s
time like this
was over. She ached to escape the sights, sounds, and smells of death by rinsing them away with lavender bath soap in her oversize tub, holding her breath, dipping below the surface, bubbles dissipating around her, each
pop-pop-pop
taking away a little of the day, the weekend, the sadness. The scene wouldn’t play out that way if she were home, but the daydream seemed harmless. Sam and Sophie had sobbed when Evie mentioned going
home
early. Richard’s house may have been their every-other-weekend house, but the beige-brick Georgian held the most recent dad-memories under its vaulted ceilings. They needed to be inside this house and inside this life for a little bit longer—two days longer. Evie needed those days to figure out what was next for all three of them.
“I wanted to thank you for coming,” Nicole said. “And for organizing everything. There’s so much food, and I heard more is coming tomorrow. I hope you’ll take leftovers.”
Evie wouldn’t take anything, but nodded to be polite. Nicole twisted at the waist over and over again, as if stretching to exercise. It made Evie dizzy.
“You don’t have to worry about the food, everyone chipped in,” she said, in case that was causing the twisting. She diverted her eyes to the half-empty lox tray on her limited horizon. A lot of food was left, but Jews fed people.
That’s what we do. It’s written somewhere in an ancient scroll: “Thou shalt not let anyone leave thy house hungry.”
“Everyone chipped in.” Evie knew it was a mitzvah—a commandment—to console the bereaved. And nothing was more consoling than nova.
“That’s so generous.” Nicole stopped swiveling but now shifted from one foot to the other as if she needed to use the bathroom. The fidgeting made Evie want to find Nicole’s off-switch. “This is sort of like a wake in reverse,” Nicole said. “Wakes come before funerals and there’s usually an open casket, you know?” Nicole’s cheeks appeared sucked in and hollow; her eyes drifted to a spot on the wall.
Evie squinted and searched for a smudge, a spot, a spider. Nothing. She had nothing else to say.
Baby Luca popped his head from Nicole’s shoulder. He blinked and turned his face toward Evie with one creased, pink cheek and watery eyes. With the palm of her hand, Nicole traced a zigzag on his back. She kissed his sweaty head. “Can we talk more another time?”
“Okay.” Evie said.
If we must.
In the kitchen, the Shiva Brigade rallied. Evie watched with awe as they took the reins. Her next-door neighbor and best friend, Laney, played traffic cop—arms flying, fingers pointing. Laney turned away from the food and gathered her long, auburn curls into a ponytail. She preferred her hair down around her shoulders because it balanced her hips. Laney with a ponytail meant serious business.
Beth shimmied through the crowd. She lived on the other side of Evie and boasted a short, brown bob and petite frame. Her penchant for Lilly Pulitzer and Miss Manners anchored the best-friend trio in suburban sensibilities, which was annoying
and
endearing. Beth hung winter coats in the closet but arranged the furs by color and length over the oak banister. She primed the non-Jewish guests on shiva, officially the seven-day mourning period, although they’d condensed it to three. A martinet for protocol, Beth put her hands on her knees and whispered in the ears of anyone who sat on the wooden benches, and they moved to softer ground. She had positioned Laney’s teenage daughters inside the front door to ensure that guests, upon approaching the house, washed their hands outside, rinsing away death. The pitcher of warm water had already been refilled twice. While on the move, Beth whisked her smartphone out of her quilted purse and used the voice recorder to note the names of everyone who entered with food, whether homemade or store-bought, and the few names of those who brought nothing, unless their names were included on the list for the lox tray. She did all this while combining cream-cheese containers and arranging a plate of kugel.
