Excerpt from The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Some of our husbands left first. We watched them disappear into train terminals, through the doors of unmarked black sedans, down airport runways, and we were left behind, overwhelmed. We called our friends from the phone booth and they met us at the train station or at our house with a loaf of bread, or a chicken casserole and a flask. We wondered aloud how we would ever survive without our friends to comfort us. We wanted to tell them everything we knew and everything we worried about— how scared we were and how excited. We wanted to ask their advice about what to bring to the Southwest— dresses, shoes, lotions— but we could not.

On our last day we went to see Oklahoma! on Broadway or For Whom the Bell Tolls at the Mayan Theatre and we ate at the Italian restaurant, Luciano's, that we had always wanted to try. We returned our library books, we picked up a copy of the family medical records, we took a long walk alone and asked ourselves why we had not done this sooner. We saw, for what seemed like the first time, the things we liked about the city we were leaving— whispering to the other wives at the community swimming pool, seeing women our mothers' ages leaning in close to one another at the teahouse. And though we never actually went to the teahouse we found ourselves smiling every time we walked by it. We thought we would be joyful saying good-bye to the unfriendly pharmacist, Mr. Williams, but that was not true.

We took the car to the shop to get the oil changed. We dropped off our children's old bike tires, our worn-out bathing cap, and a bucket of nails our husbands left in the garage at the Junior League's Metal and Rubber Drive. We bought a few more war bonds. Some of us had been smart enough to ask about gas and electric, and on our last day we bought an electric toaster, because we were told that where we were going would not have natural gas. We went to the ration office and handed a sealed envelope to the woman at the counter, as our husbands had instructed. She read the letter inside, gave us a curious look, and provided us with enough gas rations to get our car to the other side of the country.

We went to Barbara's and got a manicure; we requested a bright cherry red, even though we knew it would chip by the end of the day. We sewed curtains for rooms we had never seen, hoping the colors would look right and the dimensions would be correct. We packed the linens and not the piano, and we were secretly happy to realize our children would not be able to continue lessons where we were going— we were told there was no piano teacher— which meant we would no longer have to hear them practicing Chopsticks over and over again.

Or we were appalled our children would not have the necessary experience of piano at a young age and though we did not think we made good teachers— we were too soft, or we were too impatient— once we arrived and unpacked our dishes, we volunteered to teach piano in the lodge, which was also the movie theater, the gymnasium, and the community mess hall. Several children would learn to play Bach after dinner.

We lied and told our children we were packing because we would be spending August with their grandparents in Denver or Duluth. Or we said we did not know where we were going, which was the truth, but our children, who did not trust that adults went places without knowing where they were going, thought we were lying. Or we told them it was an adventure and they would find out when we got there.

The movers came and out went our sofa, our books, and our cutlery. As they loaded boxes, our neighbors drove past, slowed down, doubled back, and asked, Where you headed?, and, Why didn't you tell us? We would have thrown you a party, and, You've been great neighbors. You'll be missed. We said, Vacation, or, Change of scenery, or, Jim's work. Our neighbors did not believe us, though they smiled as if they did.

Excerpted from The Wives of Los Alamos by TaraShea Nesbit. Copyright © 2014 by TaraShea Nesbit. Excerpted by permission of Bloomsbury USA. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.