The Names

by Florence Knapp

Tower. Gordon drops back and walks with the women, and Cora can tell they’re enjoying him seeking out their company and asking questions about their lives. He is only adding to their already-high opinion of him. A few years earlier, in barely hushed voices, gathered around an end-of-the-evening table, the other women had declared him to be the ideal husband: attentive, accomplished, impeccably dressed, athletic, a good father. Someone who has a way of making whoever he speaks to feel special. The sort of face you instinctively trust. Kind eyes, an open smile, good-looking, but not dangerously so. Cora had listened, blinking. Because, yes, all that is true. “Basically, we’re all in love with your husband, Cora,” Dorie had said. Another laughed, “And our husbands are probably all in love with you.” But Cora knows that is just a kindness; she is a blank, a void. The