The Glass Wives (24 page)

This was no time for napping, for Nicole to gain composure or for Evie to lose her mojo. Her heart pounded against her chest and she reminded herself no one could hear it or feel it but her.

“This won’t take long. Just sit.” Evie pulled out a chair and pointed, but instead of anger bursting out, she was bereft. She’d been emptied, instead of filled, by an insatiable quest to restart their lives. It was Evie’s choice to let in Nicole that night in December. Evie chose to make over the basement and to accept Nicole’s help. What was she thinking? She’d let a predator into their home, and hearts.
What kind of woman am I? What kind of mother am I?

“I said I’ll be right back.” Nicole’s words were articulated slowly and deliberately. She walked out of the kitchen and down the basement stairs.

She came right back and sat even though Luca was still crying.

Evie scraped her fingers through her hair hard, grabbed her scalp, and rubbed, like acupressure. She moved her hands to her ears to muffle the noise and exhaled more air than she thought she could hold. She grabbed a box of tissues from the counter and dropped it on the table. This wasn’t Luca’s fault. But she still wasn’t letting Nicole leave until she finished.

“You moved in here to get the inside scoop on what was going on. To trick me. To take advantage of my children. To make them—to make us—want you here.”

“Oh my God, I love your kids. You don’t understand!”

“I do understand.” Evie’s voice was quiet and sounded as if it were someone else’s voice. That was probably because although Evie was right there in the kitchen, gripping the chair, feet flat on the floor, she was becoming someone new all over again. “I understand that once again you want what does not belong to you. The difference, though, between Richard and this life insurance? Would you like me to tell you?”

Nicole nodded.

“You’re not getting the life insurance.”

“I don’t want to fight with you, I just want to share.”

“Sharing time is over.”

Nicole pushed back her shoulders. “You’re going to be sorry.”

Evie bristled at the threat. “I’m already sorry. I’m sorry I trusted you. You tricked me—and it’s my fault that I fell for it. But it won’t happen again. And this time you won’t get what you want.”

“I want us to be a family! And I didn’t trick you. I love being here. Luca loves it. And I don’t want all the money.” Nicole’s voice cracked. “Richard wanted all of his children to be taken care of. It’s rightfully ours too.”

Evie grabbed the table edge. “What’s rightfully yours is that big house across town and all the bills that go with it.” She felt an edge to her voice that both stung and soothed her.

“You can’t afford to stay here without me.” Nicole stood and put her hands on her hips. “Are you so selfish you’d make your kids move just so you don’t have to help me? I’ve been helping
you
for three months by living here! Where would you be without me? In your parents’ condo in Florida, that’s where!”

“Wow,” Evie breathed. “And for the record, I’m not leaving this house. Ever. But you are leaving. Today.”

Evie was resolute only on the outside. Inside, she was hollow, as though everything she had to give had been given.

“I love all of you.” Nicole had gathered her shirt over her heart into her fist and tugged. “I loved you enough to help you.”

“Then your idea of love and family sucks. Love is behavior, not just a feeling.” Evie didn’t believe that Nicole felt love. What Nicole felt was entitlement. Evie held up the Midwest Mutual envelope she’d taken from the basement and slapped it on the table. “This isn’t love. This isn’t family. This is betrayal. So, no thanks. I’ve had enough of that for one lifetime.” Conscious of her slow words, mellow heartbeat, and warm skin, Evie wondered if she was going into shock. She also wondered if she was losing her mind, or if it was already long gone.

“You’re going to separate the kids? Nice. How are you going to explain that to Sam and Sophie?” Nicole sputtered, and twisted her mouth. She was nervous, surprised, maybe she was the one in shock.

“Don’t worry about my kids. Go back to your house or go to Iowa and move in with your mother. I don’t care.”

“We have an agreement. And I’ve paid you through the end of March. You can’t make me leave.”

That broke the spell. Evie hated being told what she could and couldn’t do. Which is what got her into trouble when she’d let Nicole move in. She slapped cash on the table and stood.

“You need to leave my house. Now.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“What did you expect?!”

Nicole grunted and stomped around the kitchen. “I expected you to be reasonable.”

“If that means risking my children’s future, well, you were dead wrong.”

“Richard would have wanted us to work this out!”

“I stopped caring what Richard would have wanted a long time ago.”

Nicole’s eyes grew so wide Evie thought they might fall out of their sockets. “You’re so mean!”

Nicole had no idea how mean Evie could be. She considered her options and then flung her words. “You do know you weren’t the first?”

Nicole collapsed back into her chair. “I
know
you were his first wife, Evie,” she snapped. “You really don’t have to keep reminding me.”

“That’s not what I mean, Nicole,” Evie said with a bite. “You weren’t
the first
.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You weren’t his first dalliance, his first affair, his first girlfriend on the side. I dealt with that crap for years.”

Nicole face turned red. “That’s not true,” she bellowed, and the words pierced Evie. The gash of finding out hurt like hell and Evie knew it.

“I don’t care if you believe it. I found out that Richard broke his promise again—to not let it happen, again—and I kicked him out. Which is the night he moved in with you. Want me to tell you the date?”

Nicole stood again, fists clenched. Her face reddened and tightened and looked sunburned. “You’re lying to hurt me.”

“No. You’re wrong. I’m telling the
truth
to hurt you.”

Chapter 17

E
VIE HAD ALWAYS BEEN THE
one to deliver bad news.
No dessert tonight. We’re not getting a rabbit. Your game’s rained out. We’re getting divorced. Your dad died
. And now
this.
There was no right way to explain
this
to the kids, simply because it was so difficult to even describe what
this
was. But there was no getting around it. Just before their dinner—the conciliatory blue box of macaroni and cheese—Evie announced the change in living arrangements.

“They need their own space,” she had said, trying to sound oh-so-matter-of-fact. “It was too cramped down there anyway. And musty.” Neither of which was true. “And our basement doesn’t have any windows.” That was true. “But I printed out your basketball and soccer schedules so they can come to the games.” True again.

“What if Nicole doesn’t know where the fields are?” Sam asked.

“She knows where the fields are,” Evie said, trying not to sound dismissive.

Sophie batted her eyes, holding back tears. “What if she forgets? Who will remind her?”

“She won’t forget.”

“But—”

“No buts, she won’t forget.”

“Where did they go?” Sam asked.

Damn. Evie hadn’t a clue. “To a friend’s.”

“Which one?”

“Sam! I don’t know. I do know they’re fine. Nicole is an adult and she can take care of herself and Luca. She can remember your games and she can find the fields, okay?”

“What if—”

“Stop! It’s enough already.” Evie thought her remarks might fluster the kids, but the mandate seemed to settle them.

“I’m hungry,” Sam said.

“I’m not,” Sophie said.

“Fine. Macaroni for you. No macaroni for you.” Evie filled one bowl and gave it to Sam with a snack-pack of peaches. The meal was at least three food groups if the orange powder she’d whisked into sauce counted as cheese. And today, it did.

Sam ate in silence. Sophie sat in silence. Even now, that wasn’t the norm. And since it was Evie’s job to emit a normal vibe, she’d bake cookies. It would be a distraction as well as a form of simple bribery, and no, she wasn’t above it. Without a word, Evie rose from her chair. The kids watched as she gathered the mixer, bowls, flour, and sugar and set them on the counter.

Sam started eating heaping spoonfuls. Apparently the “finish your dinner before you get dessert” mantra had penetrated. Evie hoped Sophie would help her bake as she always had before.

“What should we make, Soph? Chocolate chunk? Peanut-butter kisses? Sugar cookies? You decide.”

But instead of deciding, she ran out of the room.

“Sam, finish your dinner, put the bowls in the sink, and then go out back with Rex.”

“What about the cookies?”

“Sam!”

“Okay, okay. But I have to finish my homework.” Evie knew he just wanted to find out what was going on with Sophie. So did Evie.

“Sam, please don’t argue with me and we’ll make the cookies later. Or we’ll go out for ice cream.” Or fly to the moon—which now seemed more likely than baking any cookies.

When Evie found Sophie, she was sprawled facedown on her bedroom floor. Evie stared at her daughter, not even an official tween for another few months, but already taking after her aunt Lisa in the teenage-drama-queen department. Evie eased herself down on the floor and flung her arm over her daughter.

“You can’t make me bake with you!”

“I thought you liked baking. But if you don’t like it anymore, we’ll find something else fun to do together. Something special, okay?”

Sophie nodded.

It didn’t make sense. Baking resulted in licking the bowl and the spoon and eating cookies right out of the oven, sometimes before they were fully cooked, which was Richard’s favorite. Richard.

“Soph? Did you have a baking date planned with Daddy?”

She nodded her head, then buried it in her arms.

“But you didn’t get to do it, did you?”

She shook her head.

“So baking makes you sad because it makes you think about your dad.”

Sophie, with her curls matted against her forehead, looked at Evie and nodded. “He went out to his meeting and was going to get more flour on his way home.”
Sophie means the other home she used to have.
“If I didn’t want to bake with him, he wouldn’t have been driving and he wouldn’t have had The Accident.”

“Oh my God, Sophie!” Evie clutched her daughter. “It’s not your fault that your daddy died in that accident. It was because the weather was terrible and icy on that road.”

“But if I didn’t want to bake—”

“Sophie, listen to me.” Evie stayed on the floor, nose to nose, cradling the sides of her daughter’s face in her palms. “Your dad was happy thinking about baking those cookies with you, I’m sure of it. You did not cause the accident. The snow and wind and the ice and the road did. It was not your fault.” Evie’s chest tightened and then expanded as if to bring Sophie inside.

“Promise?”

“With all of my heart,” Evie said with authority, because she felt every piece of it.

*   *   *

“Plucking is not adequate when you have a second interview,” Laney said. She pressed the cotton strip over Evie’s eyebrows and smoothed it.
Rip.
“So you really told her about Richard?”

Evie felt her eyebrows. Dry. No blood. “Yes. Don’t gloat. Just do the other one.”

“I’m not gloating, I just want to hear it again. Slowly.”

“I told her Richard had other girlfriends.” Evie sat straight, cotton stuck to her brow. “I don’t get a thrill out of admitting that I knew my husband was cheating on me for years, Lane. I hated spitting out those words. Makes me look like an idiot.”

“No, it makes you look like someone who loved her husband and believed in her marriage. I know you didn’t like doing it, but you told her for the right reason. To hurt her because she hurt you. And I don’t mean when she was with Richard.”

Revenge was not Evie’s MO. She shrugged. Weren’t right reasons supposed to uplift you and not make you feel as though you were being buried in the sand and couldn’t get out? “It was just a reaction. I didn’t plan it.”

“It’s okay if you had.”

“I didn’t.”

“Do you think if you forgave him
again,
he’d have stopped?”

“No. But it stopped mattering because I stopped loving him. I couldn’t love someone who disregarded me. I did for a long time … but then I just stopped. The same way one day a person looks at another and thinks, ‘God, I love you so much,’ one day I looked at Richard and thought, ‘God, I do not love you at all.’”

“I can’t imagine not loving Herb. That asshole.” Laney put her arms around Evie and patted her back. “You did your best, Ev.”

“Did I?” She pondered this as she pulled away. Should she have just accepted Richard the way he was, allowed his string of indiscretions, and continued to accept his apologies and promises? Could she have tried harder to be compliant and to exist within the frenzy of their lives? She knew the answer was no. “Do my other eyebrow.”

“Lie back and hold still.”

Evie lay on the edge of her bed and Laney stood. She ripped the hot wax off the second eyebrow. It didn’t hurt as much as Evie had expected.

“So, do you think he was cheating on Nicole?”

“Honest?” Evie said, checking her groomed brows in the hand mirror.

“Of course honest.”

“I think he was happy with her.”

“I didn’t ask you if he was happy. I asked you if you thought he was cheating.”

“Well, I don’t know. But he came on to me once.” Evie shifted to her side and leaned on her elbow.

“You had ex-sex!”

“I did not!”

“You did!”

“I did not … We kissed, though,” Evie whispered. “It was no big deal. Actually, it was kind of gross.”

“Shut up!” Laney fell back onto Evie’s bed holding her head with both hands. “When?”

“Well, technically we were still married because it was before our divorce was final.” Evie shuddered at the memory.

“You’ve got that right,” Laney said, bouncing to shake the queen-size bed. “You should’ve slept with him. Just to fuck with him. And
her
.” She kept bouncing.