The Glass Wives by Amy Sue Nathan Page B

wasn’t in school. It mattered to Evie’s sanity. It had only been three weeks since Richard died, and she hadn’t even looked at a newspaper or a magazine or a book and barely been online. She knew the kids needed time to grieve, time to adapt. Lots of time. But to give Sam and Sophie the time they needed, Evie needed time of her own. She didn’t know if that was reasonable or selfish.
    She shivered at the thought of ignoring the kids’ needs. That wasn’t what she wanted. She just wanted a little bit of Evie time—even if she was just making insurance phone calls or filling out online job applications. She pushed away thoughts of how Nicole could help.
    Out of the car and into the house, Evie developed a plan. Sam out of bed, into clothes, and helping with a few chores. A little sweeping and vacuuming never hurt anyone. Maybe he’d realize school was better than staying home if he spent more time with a broom in his hand than a remote. Then, after that, they’d review some old worksheets. Anything that would focus his attention away from himself and onto something else—anything else—would be a good thing.
    Someone else had had the same idea.
    “Hey,” Evie said as she walked into the kitchen. She poured a cup of coffee, added the requisite stream of half-and-half.
    Nicole smiled and raised her eyebrows. “Sam is reading to Luca.” She pointed at the boys.
    Sam held a chubby board book on Luca’s high-chair tray and was turning the pages, reading the words and pointing to pictures. He didn’t look at Evie, but he did smile.
    “I figured that was better than more TV,” Nicole whispered.
    In twenty minutes Nicole had gotten Sam to do what Evie hadn’t been able to get him to do in a week. Engage. Do something for someone else. Why hadn’t she realized that someone else could be Luca? Why hadn’t she realized that Nicole was good for more than a check?
    Nicole followed Evie into the living room, leaving the boys in the kitchen. “Thanks,” Evie said. “What did you do?”
    “I just yelled up the stairs that Luca missed him and asked him to come down. He’s not going to say no to me. I’m not his mom.”
    This was true, just the way the kids would eat broccoli at Laney’s and drink orange juice at Beth’s, but do neither in their own home. When Evie and Lisa were growing up, they always ate tomato soup with oyster crackers at Bubbe’s, but when their mother made it—right from the can, with milk, just like Bubbe—they said it didn’t taste the same because it didn’t.
    “So are you comfortable downstairs?” Evie didn’t know what else to say.
    “It’s sort of lonely. But it’s fine.”
    Evie would have loved a little lonely time right about now.
    “Well, I never expected to raise Luca alone.”
    Silence dug a gorge in the living-room floor. Nicole looked far away and small, not size-two small, but Thumbelina small. Evie’s nose itched but she stayed still. Did Evie need to remind Nicole that her life hadn’t turned out as planned, not once but twice?
    “I’m sorry,” Nicole said. She picked up Luca’s primary-color plastic doughnuts from the floor. She took her finger out of the hole in the dam. “I don’t know what Richard told you about me, I don’t. But I loved him, I truly loved him.”
    Evie was not buying a ticket to Nicole’s Richard-fest. “What do you want me to say?”
    Nicole shrugged.
    “I appreciate that you’re living here and helping out, I do. But I can’t thank you twenty-four/seven, and I can’t listen to you blabber about Richard. That’s not my job. My job is to take care of my kids.”
    “I know.” Nicole picked at her cuticles. “I just want you to understand.”
    Evie understood. Richard had a Ph.D. in math and was on the tenure track at Pinehurst College. Nicole worked in the campus salon cutting coeds’ and professors’ hair. Without an equation or theorem, Evie knew that Nicole’s barber chair was Richard’s pedestal. Evie understood