Excerpt from Among the Ten Thousand Things by Julia Pierpont, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"So call David."

Back in January, what David Currie had told her was to wait. He had been through a divorce himself; they were long and sometimes people changed their minds. "You'd not believe," he'd said, "what people get over." He told her about a woman who'd stayed with her husband after his sex-change operation.

"I keep thinking about how someone might say it's my fault. For not doing anything." And because she did know what it was like to lose sight, behave badly, and she was afraid of bringing in the mud, the ugly, afraid of what might be used against her if she pressed Jack, and if he tried really to defend himself. "I should have, I shouldn't have been—"

"But you did. You were. Honey, no good comes this way. Listen. Look. Lie down. Take a rest. He isn't home yet?"

"I'm out."

"Where are you?"

"Can't you hear I'm outside?"

"What does it matter? No, I couldn't hear."

"I'm not coming over. Relax."

"You could come."

"I know, you'd love that. Look, I'm sorry I woke you."

"I was eating."

"Well, you shouldn't eat so late," Deb said stupidly. "I'll call you tomorrow."

Outside the Seventy-second Street subway station, sprinkles of people were gathered in pairs or posed alone against columns, waiting for other people. A red stroller rolled across the square, a woman with short hair leaned on its handlebars. A comfort to find life in other places, people who didn't know him, who'd read his write-ups maybe, in New York or the Times, but who didn't give a fuck about Jack.

Excerpted from Among the Ten Thousand Things by Julia Pierpont. Copyright © 2015 by Julia Pierpont. Excerpted by permission of Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.