From Here to There by Rain Trueax

Helene retorted, sipping her coffee, "and if you'd found a way and gone into labor in Boston, Emile would never have forgiven either of us. You know he's planning on this baby being a born and bred Montanan."
     Nancy grinned, her good natured face not particularly pretty but infinitely appealing in an elfish sort of way. Short red hair and blue eyes gave her a gamine look, something Nancy's puckish sense of humor reinforced. "He sure is acting like a mother hen with one chick--babying me like I've got a disease instead of a bun in the oven." She shook her head.  "If it wasn't for Mom having six of us with nary a slip, he'd be worrying even me."
     "Encouraging genetic data for a rancher."
     Nancy wrinkled her nose. "You'd think so, but you know how men are."
     "I only wish."
     "You must know at least one of them pretty well."
     "Uhmm... That's the thing I wanted to see you for, to explain in person. The marriage didn't work out."
     Nancy's eyes widened as she turned to stare at Helene. "How could it not work out that fast?"
     "I am getting an annulment."
     Nancy sat down, plopping heavily into a chair. "I wondered why you were out here but never imagined... Isn't there a waiting period or something for a divorce?"
     "No need for a divorce under the circumstances."
     Nancy frowned. "Well, for heaven's sake, why? Does he prefer guys? Did he beat you? Is there a mistress he refuses to give up? Come on, tell girlfriend what happened?"
     Helene told her the gist of it finding Nancy as shocked as anybody else had been. There wasn’t any good way to make sense of it when she didn’t understand it still herself. She knew it didn’t show her in a good light, but she deserved that.
     "Lordy. I can't believe any of this. What did your mom and pop say?"
     "We’re a modern family,” she said with a cynical smile. They are busy getting their own divorce."
     "You are kidding."
     Helene sighed. “You know everybody isn’t like your folks or you and Emile. I think my father only waited to assure himself my mother didn't fall apart at the wedding. Actually it shouldn't have been a surprise to mother or me, except the way she carried on; I guess it was to her."
     "Why are they divorcing or is that nosy?"
     Helene shrugged. "Father has a new friend. Sharron, I think her name is. Maybe that's why, maybe not. My parents haven't loved each other for years."
     "This is unbelievable."
     "Seriously, don’t you pay attention to what’s going on out there? This is all the American way. Marry. Divorce and remarry. I just rushed the process with my own situation." With her fingertip, she traced a design on the table. "In just the two weeks I've been out here, I've received three phone calls from Mother and two from Father, trying to get me to talk to the other one."
     "About not getting a divorce?"
     Helene laughed humorlessly. "About who gets what in the property settlement. Their biggest problem is in dividing the spoils. It would be funny if they had to stay together because they couldn't decide who got the house."
     "Oh Lordy."
     "I shouldn’t have hit you with all this. It is kind of depressing when so much is going well with you.”
    “It’s not like nobody gets divorces in my family—just not many.”
    “My mother should have done it twenty years ago. She’s not been happy for at least that long."
     Nancy shook her head. "Well then, you'd think she'd be glad you escaped the same fate."
     "It's like the African women I read about recently who were circumcised by their mothers when they were five years old--just as their mothers had been circumcised by their mothers. It was all done so the women couldn't enjoy sex and wouldn't disgrace their families."
     "Ugh." Nancy wrinkled her nose with disgust as she digested that. "Where on earth do you read stuff like that?"
     Helene smiled. "Editorial page, I think."
     "My goodness. Good thing we stopped taking a paper. Not that I think our local would run that kind