The Wife Between Us

by Greer Hendricks

  * * *

  When we arrive at Emma’s place, she lays her wedding gown across the back of her sofa.

  “Can I get you anything to drink?”

  I barely touched my champagne; I want my thoughts to remain clear so I can figure out how Emma can safely extract herself from Richard. “I’d love some water.”

  Emma bustles about her galley kitchen, anxiously chattering again. “Do you take ice? I know my place is a little messy. I was going to do laundry and then all of a sudden I just felt like I had to check on the Visa charge. He added me to that account after we got engaged, so all I had to do was call the number on the back of my card. I’ve got some grapes and almonds if you want a snack.… Usually I reviewed his AmEx statements before submitting them to Accounting for reimbursement, but a couple of times, he told me he’d handle it himself. That’s why I never saw the refund.” Emma shakes her head.

  I absently listen to her as I look around. I know she is grasping for ways to blunt the impact of what she has learned about Richard. The champagne she quickly drank, the frantic energy—I recognize the symptoms too well.

  As Emma cracks ice cubes into our glasses, I study her small living room. The couch, the end table, the roses that are now slightly wilted. Nothing else is on the end table, and I suddenly realize what I’m looking for.

  “Do you have a landline?”

  “What?” She shakes her head and hands me my glass of water. “No, why?”

  I am relieved. But all I say is “Just figuring out the best way for us to communicate.”

  I am not going to tell Emma everything yet. If she learns how much worse the reality could be, she may shut down.

  There’s no need to explain that I am certain Richard was somehow eavesdropping on calls I made from our house phone during our marriage.

  I finally made the connection after I saw the pattern emerge on the pages of my notebook.

  When our burglar alarm erupted in the Westchester house and I fled to cower in my closet, I was initially reassured that the video cameras posted by our front and back doors showed no evidence of an intruder. Then I realized Richard had checked the cameras. No one else had verified what they might reveal.

  And immediately before the siren had blared, I was on the phone with Sam. I’d made a joke about bringing guys home after a night of barhopping. I now believe Richard had set off the alarm. It was my punishment.

  He feasted on my fear; it nurtured his sense of strength. I think of the mysterious cell phone hang-ups that began shortly after our engagement, how he’d booked a scuba dive for his claustrophobic new bride, how he always reminded me to set the burglar alarm. How he’d enjoyed comforting me, whispering that he alone would keep me safe.

  I take a long drink of water. “What time is Richard coming back tomorrow?”

  “Late afternoon.” Emma looks at her gown. “I should hang this up.”

  I walk with Emma into her bedroom and watch as she hooks the gown on the back of her closet door. It appears to be floating. I can’t pull my gaze away from it.

  The bride who was supposed to wear this exquisite dress no longer exists. The gown will remain vacant on her wedding day.

  Emma straightens the hanger slightly, her hand lingering on the dress before she slowly pulls it away.

  “He seemed so wonderful.” Her voice is filled with surprise. “How can a man like that be so brutal?”

  I think of my own wedding dress, nestled in a special acid-free box in my old closet in Westchester, preserved for the daughter I never had.

  I swallow hard before I can speak. “Parts of Richard were wonderful. That’s why we stayed married for so long.”

  “Why didn’t you ever leave him?”

  “I thought about it. There are so many reasons why I should have. And so many reasons why I couldn’t.”

  Emma nods.

  “I needed Richard to leave me.”

  “But how did you know he ever would?”

  I look into her eyes. I have to confess. Emma has already been devastated today. But she deserves to be told the truth. Without it, she will be trapped in a false reality, and I know exactly how destructive that can be.

  “There’s one more thing.” I walk back to the living room and she follows me. I gesture to the couch. “Can we sit down?”

  She perches rigidly on the edge of a cushion, as if steeling herself for what is to come.

  I reveal everything: The office holiday party when I first spotted her. The gathering at our house when I pretended to be drunk. The night I faked illness and suggested Richard take her to the Philharmonic. The business trip when I encouraged them to stay overnight.

  She is holding her head in her hands by the time I finish.

  “How could you do this to me?” she cries. She leaps to her feet and glares at me. “I knew it all along. There really is something wrong with you!”

  “I am so sorry.”

  “Do you know how many nights I lay awake wondering if I’d contributed to the demise of your marriage?”

  She didn’t say she felt guilt, but it’s natural that she would have; I am certain their physical relationship began while Richard and I were still married. Now all of Emma’s memories with Richard are doubly tainted. She must feel like a pawn in my dysfunctional marriage. Maybe she even thinks we deserved each other.

  “I never thought it would go this far.… I didn’t think he would propose. I thought it would just be an affair.”

  “Just an affair?” Emma shouts. Her cheeks flush with anger; the passion in her voice surprises me. “Like it’s some innocuous little thing? Affairs destroy people. Did you ever consider how much I would suffer?”

  I feel battered by her words, but then something ignites in me and I find myself pushing back at her.

  “I know affairs destroy people!” I shout, thinking of how I’d curled up in bed for weeks after learning about Daniel’s deception, after seeing his tired-looking wife. It happened almost fifteen years ago, but I can still visualize that little yellow tricycle and pink jump rope behind the oak tree in his yard. I still remember how my pen had trembled across the page when I signed in at the Planned Parenthood clinic.

  “I was deceived once by a married man in college,” I say, more softly now. This is the first time I’ve ever revealed this particular piece of my story to anyone. The rush of pain that hits me is so fresh, it’s as if I’m that heartbroken twenty-one-year-old all over again. “I thought he loved me. He never told me about his wife. Sometimes I think my life could have been so different if I’d only known.”

  Emma strides across the room. She yanks open her door.

  “Get out.” But the venom is gone from her tone. Her lips are trembling and her eyes shine with tears.

  “Just let me say one final thing,” I plead. “Call Richard tonight and tell him you can’t go through with the wedding. Tell him I came over again and it was the last straw.”

  She doesn’t react, so I continue quickly as I begin to walk toward the door. “Ask him to announce to everyone that the engagement is off; that part is really important,” I stress. “He won’t punish you if he gets to control the message. If he comes out with his dignity.”

  I pause in front of her so she cannot miss my words. “Just say you can’t deal with his psycho ex-wife. Promise me you’ll do that. Then you’ll be safe.”

  Emma is silent. But at least she is looking at me, even though it is with a cold, appraising stare. Her eyes rake across my face and down my body, then back up again.

  “How am I supposed to believe anything you say?”

  “You don’t need to. Please go stay with a friend. Leave your cell phone here so he can’t find you. Richard’s anger always passes quickly. Just protect yourself.”

  I step over the threshold and hear the door close sharply behind me.

  I hover in the hallway, staring down at the dark blue carpet beneath my feet. Emma must be reevaluating everything I’ve told her. She probably doesn’t have any idea
who to trust.

  If Emma doesn’t follow the script I’ve given her, Richard may unleash his rage on her, especially if he can’t find me. Or worse, he may convince her to change her mind and go through with the wedding.

  Maybe I should not have told her of my role in this. Her security should have trumped my need to unburden my guilt, to be scrupulously honest. Her faulty perception would have left her less vulnerable than this dangerous truth.

  What will be Richard’s next step?

  I have twenty-four hours until he returns. And I have no idea what to do.

  I slowly walk down the hallway. I am so reluctant to leave her. I am about to step into the elevator when I hear a door open. I glance up and see Emma standing in her threshold.

  “You want me to tell Richard I’m calling off the wedding because of you.”

  I nod quickly. “Yes. Blame it all on me.”

  Her brow furrows. She tilts her head to one side and looks me up and down again.

  “It’s the safest solution,” I say.

  “It might be for me. But it isn’t safe for you.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  “I’VE MISSED YOU so much, sweetheart,” Richard says.

  At the love and tenderness filling his voice, something in my chest twists.

  My ex-husband stands not nine feet from me. He returned from Chicago a few hours ago and stopped by his place to change into jeans and a polo shirt before arriving here, at Emma’s apartment.

  I am crouched down, staring through an old-fashioned keyhole in her bedroom closet. It is the only place that gives me both cover and a vantage point into the room.

  Emma sits on the edge of her bed in sweatpants and a T-shirt. A package of Sudafed, a box of tissues, and a cup of tea rest on her nightstand. I thought of those touches.

  “I brought you chicken soup and fresh-squeezed orange juice from Eli’s. And some zinc. My trainer swears by it to kick summer colds.”

  “Thank you.” Emma’s voice is feeble and soft. She is convincing.

  “Can I get you a sweater?”

  My insides clench as Richard’s form fills my vision, blotting out the rest of the room. He is approaching my hiding place.

  “Actually, I’m too warm. Could you bring me a cool washcloth for my forehead?”

  We didn’t practice those lines; Emma improvises well.

  I don’t exhale until I hear his footsteps reverse themselves as he heads to the bathroom.

  I shift slightly; I’ve been kneeling for several minutes and my legs are aching.

  Emma hasn’t looked my way even once. She is still reeling from my revelation; she doesn’t seem to completely trust me. I don’t blame her.

  “You don’t get to orchestrate my life any longer,” she’d said to me yesterday as I stood in her hallway, by the elevator. “I’m not going to end things with Richard on the phone just because you told me to do it. I’ll decide when to call my wedding off.”

  But at least she is allowing me to remain close by tonight with my cell phone in hand. Watching him. Protecting her.

  We both predicted Richard would insist on visiting when Emma told him she was sick. Faking illness solves a multitude of problems. If Richard is tracking Emma’s movements, it would explain why she skipped her yoga class. Why she wants to sleep at her own place. And why she can’t even kiss him, let alone have sex with him. I wanted to spare her that.

  “Here you go, baby,” Richard says, coming back into the room.

  I glimpse him bending over the bed, then his back blocks me from seeing his movements. Still, I imagine him holding the damp washcloth to Emma’s forehead and smoothing back her hair. Looking at her with so much love.

  My kneecaps feel as if they are grinding against the hardwood floor. My thighs are burning; I am desperate to stand up and shake out my legs. But Richard might hear.

  “I hate for you to see me like this. I’m a wreck.”

  If I didn’t know the truth, I would be certain she was innocent of any ulterior motives.

  “Even when you’re sick, you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”

  I still know Richard so well. He genuinely means every word. If Emma expressed a craving for a strawberry sorbet or cozy cashmere socks, he’d scour Manhattan to get her the best. He’d sleep on the floor next to her if she said it would make her feel better. This is the part of my ex-husband’s nature that is the most difficult to expunge from my heart. At this moment, just like his profile through the keyhole, it is all I can see.

  I squeeze my eyes shut.

  Then I immediately force them open. I’ve learned the danger of failing to observe the things I don’t want to behold.

  If Emma didn’t live up to Richard’s expectations—and it was inevitable that she would fail to—there would be consequences. If she wasn’t the wife of his fantasies, he would hurt her, then give her jewelry to smooth it over. If she didn’t provide the family or create the kind of home he desired, he would systematically assault her reality and twist it until it became unrecognizable even to her. And worst of all, he would take away whatever or whomever she loved the most.

  “I’ll tell Maureen you need to cancel tomorrow,” Richard says to Emma.

  Perfect, I think. This delay could buy us some more time to figure out how to best extract Emma.

  But instead of agreeing, Emma says, “No, I’m sure I’ll be better if I just get some rest.”

  “Anything you want, my love, but the most important thing is you.”

  Even through the closet door I can feel the magnetic pull of his charisma.

  I was holding on to the hope that Emma would begin to create distance between her and Richard tonight. But after only a few minutes in his presence, she seems to be wavering.

  Through the keyhole, I can see their clasped hands. His thumb is gently stroking her wrist.

  I want to leap out of the closet and wrench them apart; he is swaying her. Luring her back to him.

  “Besides, Maureen has to come over so I can show her my wedding dress.” That dress is now hanging six inches to my left; Emma tucked it in here so Richard wouldn’t see it. “Plus we have those fun wedding errands. You don’t think I’m going to let you do the cake tasting alone, do you?” she continues in a playful voice.

  This is the opposite of what should be happening. The Emma of right now is a completely different woman from the one of twenty-four hours ago who asked me, as we stood in this same room, how Richard could be so wonderful yet so brutal.

  I cannot hold my position any longer. I slowly lift my right knee off the floor and plant my foot gently down. I repeat the motion with my left leg. Inch by agonizing inch, I rise. Dresses and shirts engulf me, silky fabrics sliding across my face.

  A hanger clinks against the metal rod, the sound as delicate and precise as a wind chime striking a single note.

  “What was that?” Richard asks.

  I cannot see anything.

  His citrus scent surrounds me, or am I imagining it? I suck in a shallow inhalation. My heart pounds violently. I am terrified I will pass out, my body thumping against the closet door.

  “Just my creaky old bed.” I hear Emma shift, and miraculously, the bed squeaks. “I can’t wait until I only sleep in yours.”

  Again, I am stunned by her lightning-quick subterfuge.

  Then Emma says, “But there is one thing I need to tell you.”

  “What’s that, sweetheart?”

  She hesitates.

  I sink back down to peer through the keyhole again. I wonder why she’s drawing out their conversation. She knows how clever Richard is; doesn’t she want him out of the apartment before he figures out she isn’t really sick?

  “Vanessa called me today.”

  My eyes widen and I barely suppress a gasp. I can’t believe she has set me up again.

  Richard barks an expletive and violently kicks the wall next to Emma’s dresser. I feel the vibrations through the floorboards. I see his fists cl
ench and unclench.

  He stands facing the wall for a few moments, then he turns around to look at Emma.

  “I’m sorry, baby.” His voice is strained. “What bullshit did she tell you this time?”

  Emma has chosen to believe Richard. The act she has been putting on was to trick me. I can call 911, but what will the police think if Emma and Richard tell them I broke in here?

  Emma’s clothes are suffocating me. There’s no air in this small closet. I’m trapped. I feel the grip of claustrophobia descend as my throat tightens.

  “No, Richard, it wasn’t like that. Vanessa apologized. She said she’s going to leave me alone.”

  My head is swimming. Emma is so far off any script I could have anticipated that I can’t even guess at her intentions.

  “She’s said that before.” I can hear Richard breathing heavily. “But she keeps calling and coming to my office and writing letters. She won’t stop. She’s insane—”

  “Honey, it’s okay. I really believe her. She sounded different.”

  My legs feel as if they’ve turned to liquid. I have no idea why Emma created this pretense.

  Richard exhales. “Let’s not talk about her. I hope we never have to again. Can I get you anything else?”

  “All I want to do is sleep. And I don’t want you to get sick. You should go. I love you.”

  “I’ll pick you and Maureen up at two tomorrow. I love you, too.”

  I stay in the closet until Emma opens the door a few minutes later. “He’s gone.”

  I bend and unbend my legs and wince. I want to ask her about the unexpected turn in her conversation, but her face is so expressionless that I know she only wants me out.

  “Can I wait a few minutes before I leave?”

  She hesitates, then nods. “Let’s go into the living room.” I catch her sneaking appraising looks at me. She’s wary.

  “What are we going to do next?”

  She frowns. I can tell my use of the word we chafes her. “I’ll figure it out.” She shrugs.

  Emma doesn’t get it. She doesn’t seem to feel any urgency to call off the wedding. If Richard can be this compelling in a brief visit, what will happen when he feeds her bites of cakes, his arm wrapped around her waist, and whispers promises of how happy he’ll make her?