“You saw him kick the wall,” I say, my voice rising. “Don’t you see what he is?”
This is so much bigger than just Emma. Even if Richard lets Emma go—which I’m not convinced he’ll do—what about all the many ways in which Richard hurt me? And the woman before both of us, the dark-haired ex who couldn’t bear to keep that gift from Tiffany’s? I am now certain he hurt her, too.
My ex-husband is a creature of habit, a man ruled by routines. Whatever stunning piece of jewelry that glossy blue bag contained was his apology; his attempt to literally cover up an ugly episode.
Emma does not know that I intend to save any woman who could become Richard’s future wife.
“You have to end it soon. The longer it goes on, the worse it will be—”
“I said I’ll figure it out.”
She walks to the door and opens it. I reluctantly step past her.
“Good-bye,” she says. I have the distinct feeling she plans to never see me again.
But she’s wrong about that.
Because by now I know I need a plan of my own. The seed of an idea was planted as I watched Richard’s explosive flash of anger at the mention of my name, my fictitious call. It takes shape in my mind as I walk down the blue-carpeted hallway, following the path Richard took only minutes ago.
Emma thinks Maureen is coming over to see the wedding gown tomorrow, then they’ll go cake tasting with Richard.
She has no idea what will really happen.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
THE PAGES OF MY BRAND-NEW life insurance policy unspool from the printer.
I clip them together, then slide them into a manila envelope. I have made sure to select a plan that covers not only my demise from natural causes, but also death and dismemberment from an accident.
I place it on my desk, beside the note I’ve penned to Aunt Charlotte. It is the hardest letter I have ever written. In it I’ve left information about my bank account with my swollen new balance so she can easily access it. She is the sole beneficiary of my life insurance policy as well.
I have three hours left.
I pick up my to-do list and mark off that task. My room is clean, my bed neatly made. All of my belongings are stored in my wardrobe.
Earlier today I also checked off two other items. I telephoned Maggie’s parents. And then I called Jason.
At first he didn’t recognize my name. It took him a few moments to remember. I paced during the pause in which he made the mental connection, wondering if he would acknowledge our past encounters.
Instead, he thanked me profusely for the donations to the animal shelter, then caught me up on his life since college. He told me he’d married the girlfriend he’d met on campus. “She stuck by me,” Jason said, his voice thickening with emotion. “I was so angry at everyone, but mostly at myself for not being there to help my little sister. When I got arrested for drunk driving and went to rehab—well, my girlfriend was my rock. She never gave up on me. We got married the next year.”
Jason’s wife was a middle-school teacher, he said. She’d graduated the same year as me. That was why he went to her ceremony at the Piaget Auditorium and stood in the corner. He was there to support her.
My guilt and anxiety had concocted a lie. It was never even about me.
I couldn’t help but feel sad for the woman who let all that fear shape so many of her life choices.
I am still very afraid, but it is no longer constricting me.
Only a few items remain on my list now.
I open my laptop and clear my browser history, wiping away evidence of my recent investigations. I double-check to make sure my searches into airline tickets and small, non-chain motels are no longer visible to anyone who might access my computer.
Emma does not understand Richard as I do. She cannot grasp what he is truly capable of. It’s impossible to imagine what he becomes in his worst moments.
Richard will simply move on unless I stop him. He’ll be more careful, though. He will find a way to rotate the kaleidoscope and sweep away the current reality, forming a bright, distracting new image.
I lay my outfit on my bed and take a long, hot shower, trying to ease the tightness in my muscles. I wrap myself in my bathrobe and clear the fog from the mirror above the sink.
Two and a half hours left.
First my hair. I brush back the damp strands into a tight bun. I carefully apply makeup and select the diamond stud earrings Richard gave me for our second anniversary. I fasten my Cartier Tank watch around my wrist. It’s essential that I am able to keep track of every second.
The dress I’ve selected is one I wore when Richard and I went to Bermuda. A classic snow-white sheath. It could almost serve as a wedding dress for a simple beachside ceremony. It is one of the outfits he sent back to me a few weeks ago.
I’ve chosen it not only for its history, and for its possibilities, but also because it has pockets.
Two hours remain.
I slip on a pair of flats, then gather the items I will need.
I tear up my list into tiny bits, then flush them down the toilet. I watch as they swirl away, the ink blurring.
A final act I must do remains before I leave. It is the most wrenching item on my list. It will require every bit of strength and all of the acting expertise I have accumulated.
I find Aunt Charlotte in the extra bedroom that serves as her studio. The door is open.
Canvases are stacked three deep throughout the room. Splatters of succulent colors layer the soft wood floor. For a moment, I surrender to the beauty: cerulean skies, clinquant stars, the horizon in the ephemeral moment before dawn. A rhapsody of wildflowers. The weathered grain of an old table. A Parisian bridge spanning the Seine. The curve of a woman’s cheek, her skin milky white and creased by age. I know this face so well; it is my aunt’s self-portrait.
Aunt Charlotte is lost in the landscape she is creating. Her strokes are looser than they have been in the past; her style more forgiving.
I want to capture her like this in my memory.
After a few moments she looks up and blinks. “Oh, I didn’t see you there, honey.”
“I don’t want to disturb you,” I say softly. “I’m heading out for a bit, but I’ve left lunch for you in the kitchen.”
“You look nice. Where are you off to?”
“A job interview. I don’t want to jinx it, but I’ll tell you about it tonight.”
My eyes fall on a canvas across the room: a laundry line hanging outside a building above a Venetian canal, the shirts and pants and skirts billowing in a breeze I can almost feel.
“You have to promise me one thing before I go.”
“Bossy today, aren’t you?” Aunt Charlotte teases.
“Seriously. It’s important. Will you go to Italy before the end of the summer?”
The smile fades from Aunt Charlotte’s lips. “Is something wrong?”
I desperately want to cross the room and hold on to her, but I fear if I do, I might not be able to leave.
This is all in my letter, anyway:
Remember that day when you taught me about how sunlight contains all the colors of the rainbow? You were my sunlight. You taught me how to find rainbows.… Please go to Italy for us. You will always carry me with you.
I shake my head. “Nothing’s wrong. I was planning on taking you as a surprise. But I’m worried if I get this job, we won’t be able to go together. That’s all.”
“Let’s not think about that now. You just focus on your interview. When is it?”
I check my watch. “Ninety minutes.”
“Good luck.”
I blow her a kiss and imagine it landing on her soft cheek.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-NINE
FOR THE SECOND TIME in my life, I stand in a white dress at the end of a narrow swath of blue, waiting for Richard to approach.
The elevator doors close behind him. But he is motionless.
I feel the inte
nsity of his gaze all the way down at my end of the hallway. I’ve been deliberately stoking his anger for days, coaxing it from the place where he struggles to keep it buried. It is the opposite of how I taught myself to behave during my marriage.
“Are you surprised, sweetheart? It’s me, Nellie.”
It is precisely two o’clock. Emma is a dozen yards from where I stand, in her living room, with Maureen. Neither of them knows I am here; I snuck into the building an hour ago by trailing a deliveryman through the door. I knew exactly when the uniformed man carrying the long rectangular box would arrive. It was I who placed the order for a dozen white roses to be sent to Emma this afternoon.
“I thought you were out of town,” he says.
“I changed my mind. I wanted to have another chat with your fiancée.”
My hands are touching a few different objects in my pockets. Which I pull out first will depend on Richard’s reaction. Richard takes a step onto the carpet runner. It is almost impossible for me to avoid shrinking back. Despite the summer heat, his dark suit, white shirt, and gold silk tie appear creaseless and elegant. He isn’t unhinged yet, not the way I need him to be.
“Really? And what do you intend to say to her?” His voice is dangerously quiet.
“I’m going to start with this.” I pull out a piece of paper. “It’s your Visa bill showing you never ordered the Raveneau.” He’s too far away to see the fine print and realize it’s actually one of my own statements.
I need to press on before he demands to see the proof. I smile at Richard, though my stomach is churning. “I’m also going to explain to Emma that you are tracking her through her phone.” I keep my voice as low and steady as his. “Just like you did to me.”
I can almost feel his body clench. “You’ve gone over the edge, Vanessa.” Another measured step. “This is my fiancée you’re messing with. After everything I went through with you, you’re trying to ruin this now?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I gauge the distance to Emma’s apartment door. I tense my body in preparation.
“You lied about Duke. I know what you did with him, and I’m going to tell Emma.” This isn’t true—I never found out what happened to my beloved dog, although I truly don’t think Richard actually harmed him—but it hits its target. I see Richard’s face compress in rage.
“And you lied about the sperm analysis, too.” My mouth is so dry it’s difficult to form the words. I take a step backward, toward Emma’s door. “Thank God you couldn’t get me pregnant. You don’t deserve to have a child. I took photos after you hurt me. I collected evidence. You didn’t think I was smart enough, did you?”
I’ve carefully chosen words I know will incite my ex-husband.
They are working.
“Emma is going to leave you when I tell her everything.” I can no longer keep my voice from shaking. But the truth it contains is undeniable. “Just like the woman before me left you.” I take a deep breath and deliver my closing lines. “I wanted to leave you, too. I was never your sweet Nellie. I didn’t want to stay married to you, Richard.”
He explodes in fury.
This I expected.
But I miscalculated how quickly he would lose all control, how fast he would be.
He is upon me before I have taken more than a few running steps toward Emma’s door.
Richard’s hands tighten around my throat, cutting off my supply of oxygen.
I thought I’d have time to scream. To bang on the door and summon Emma and Maureen, so they could witness Richard’s transformation. Richard would never be able to explain this violence away; it would be the physical proof that couldn’t be found in a notebook or a filing cabinet or a storage unit. This was the other insurance policy I needed to save us all—me, Emma, and the women in Richard’s future.
I was also counting on Richard to halt his attack when Maureen and Emma appeared—or that, at least, they would be able to stop him. Now there is no reason for him to deny himself his need to extinguish me.
My windpipe feels as if it is being crushed into the back of my neck. The pain is agonizing. My knees buckle.
My left arm helplessly stretches out toward Emma’s door, though I know it’s futile. She is twirling in her wedding gown for her future sister-in-law. Completely unaware of what is happening on the other side of her living room wall.
Richard’s assault is nearly silent; a gurgling noise wrenches free from my throat, but it is not loud enough to reach her or anyone else who may be home on this floor.
He thrusts me back against the wall. His hot breath brushes my cheeks. I see the scar above his eye, a silvery crescent, as he leans closer.
I am engulfed by dizziness.
I fumble for the pepper spray in my pocket, but as I pull it out, Richard bangs my head against the wall and I lose my grip on it. It tumbles to the carpet.
My vision recedes; it is being hemmed in by black borders. I frantically kick at his shins, but he is unaffected by my blows.
My lungs are burning. I am desperate for air.
His eyes blaze into mine. I claw at his body and my hand hits something hard in his suit jacket pocket. I wrench it free.
Save us.
I summon the last of my strength and smash the object against his face.
Richard releases a cry.
A splash of bright red blood erupts from the wound by his temple.
My limbs grow heavy and my body begins to relax. A calmness I haven’t felt in years—perhaps ever—overtakes me. My knees give way.
I am fading into the blackness when the pressure abruptly disappears. I collapse and draw in a ragged breath. I cough violently, then I retch.
“Vanessa,” a woman calls from what seems a great distance away.
I am splayed on the carpet, one of my legs bent beneath me, but I feel as if I am floating.
“Vanessa!”
Emma. All I can do is roll my head to one side, bringing broken pieces of porcelain into view. I see jagged pieces of china figurines—a serenely smiling blond bride and her handsome groom. It was our cake topper.
And beside them is Richard on his knees, his expression blank, a rivulet of blood streaming down his face and staining his white shirt.
I suck in a painful breath, then another. All of the menace has leached out of my ex-husband. His hair has fallen forward into his eyes. He is immobile.
Fresh oxygen returns a little strength to my body, though my throat feels so swollen and tender I can’t swallow. I manage to edge backward and pull myself into a sitting position, slumping against the hallway wall.
Emma hurries to my side. She is barefoot and, like me, clad in a white sheath. Her wedding gown. “I heard someone yell—I came out to see—but then … What happened?”
I can’t speak. I can only suck in shallow, greedy breaths.
I see her eyes drift down to my neck. “I’m calling an ambulance.”
Richard doesn’t react to any of this, not even to the gasp of surprise Maureen gives as she suddenly appears in the doorway.
“What is going on?” Maureen stares at me—the woman she dismissed as unstable, as her brother’s cast-off wife. Then she looks at Richard, the man she helped raise and loves unconditionally. She goes to him. She reaches out and touches his back. “Richard?”
He raises a hand to his forehead, then stares at the streak of red on his palm. He seems oddly distant, as if he’s in shock.
I hate the sight of blood. That was one of the first things he’d ever said to me. I suddenly realize that in all of the ways Richard hurt me, he never once made me bleed.
Maureen hurries into the apartment and returns with a wad of paper towels. She kneels next to him and presses the towels to his wound. “What’s going on?” Her words grow sharper. “Vanessa, why are you here? What did you do to him?”
“He hurt me.” My voice is hoarse and every syllable feels as if one of the shards of porcelain is rubbing against the inside of my throat.
I need to finally s
ay these words.
I grimace as I make my voice louder. “He choked me. He nearly killed me. Just like he used to hurt me when we were married.”
Maureen gasps. “He wouldn’t—no, not—”
Then she falls silent. She is still shaking her head, but her shoulders sag and her face collapses. I am certain that even though she hasn’t yet seen the fingerprint-shaped marks that I know are blooming on my neck, she believes me.
Maureen straightens up. She pulls the paper towels away from Richard’s face and examines his injury. When she speaks again, her tone is brisk, yet caring.
“It isn’t so bad. I don’t think you need stitches.”
Richard doesn’t react to this, either.
“I’ll take care of everything, Richard.” Maureen gathers up the shattered pieces of porcelain. She cups them in one hand, then wraps her arms around her brother and tilts her head close to his. I can just barely make out her whispered words: “I always took care of you, Richard. I never let anything bad happen to you. You don’t have to worry. I’m here. I’m going to fix everything.”
Her utterances are bewildering. But what shocks me most is the strange emotion infusing them. Maureen doesn’t sound angry or sad or confused.
Her voice is filled with something I can’t identify at first, because it is so out of place.
I finally realize what it is: satisfaction.
CHAPTER
FORTY
THE BUILDING BEFORE ME could be a Southern mansion, with its grand columns and wraparound porch lined with a tidy row of rocking chairs. But to gain access to the grounds, I have to pass through a gate manned by a security guard and show photo identification. The guard also searches the cloth bag I’m carrying. He raises his eyebrows when he sees the items inside, but merely nods for me to continue on my way.
A few patients at the New Springs Hospital are gardening or playing cards on the porch. I don’t see him among them.
Richard is spending twenty-eight days at this acute mental-health facility, where he is undergoing intensive daily therapy sessions. It is part of the deal he made to avoid being prosecuted for assaulting me.
The Wife Between Us Page 32