The Wife Between Us

by Greer Hendricks

  As I climb the wide wooden steps toward the entrance, a woman unfolds herself from a chaise lounge, her limbs sharp and athletic looking. The bright afternoon sun is in my eyes and I can’t immediately identify her.

  Then she moves closer, and I see it is Maureen. “I didn’t know you’d be here today.” I shouldn’t be surprised; Maureen is all Richard has left now.

  “I’m here every day. I’ve taken a leave of absence from work.”

  I look around. “Where is he?”

  One of his counselors passed along Richard’s request: He wanted to see me. At first I was unsure if I would comply. Then I realized I needed this visit, too.

  “Richard is resting. I wanted to talk to you first.” Maureen gestures to a pair of rocking chairs. “Shall we?”

  Maureen takes a moment to cross her legs and smooth a crease in her beige linen pantsuit. Clearly she has an agenda. I wait for her to reveal it.

  “I feel terrible about what happened between you and Richard.” I see Maureen glance at the faded yellow discoloration on my neck. But there is a disconnect between her words and the energy she is conveying. Her posture is rigid and her face is devoid of sympathy.

  She doesn’t care for me. She never has, even though early on I’d hoped we would become close.

  “I know you blame him. But it isn’t that simple. Vanessa, my brother has been through a lot. More than you ever knew. More than you can ever imagine.”

  At this, I can’t help blinking in surprise. She is casting Richard as the victim.

  “He attacked me,” I almost shout. “He nearly killed me.”

  Maureen seems unaffected by my outburst; she merely clears her throat and begins again. “When our parents died—”

  “In the car accident.”

  She frowns, as if my remark has irritated her. As if she has planned for this to be less a conversation than a monologue.

  “Yes. Our father lost control of their station wagon. It hit a guardrail and flipped. Our parents died instantly. Richard doesn’t remember much, but the police said skid marks showed my dad was speeding.”

  I jerk back. “Richard doesn’t remember—you mean he was in the car?” I blurt.

  “Yes, yes,” Maureen says impatiently. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  I am stunned; he concealed more of himself than I ever realized.

  “It was horrible for him.” Maureen words are almost rushed, as if she wants to hurry through these details before she gets to the important part of her story. “Richard was trapped in the backseat. He hit his forehead. The frame of the car was all twisted and he couldn’t get out. It took a while for another driver to pass by and call for paramedics. Richard had a concussion and needed stitches, but it could have been so much worse.”

  The silvery scar above his eye, I think. The one he said was caused by a bike accident.

  I picture Richard as a young teenager—a boy, really—dazed and in pain from the crash. Crying out for his mother. Failing to rouse his parents. Trying to wrench open the upside-down station wagon’s doors. Beating his fists against the windows and yelling. And the blood. There must have been so much blood.

  “My dad had a temper, and whenever he got mad, he drove fast. I suspect he was arguing with my mother before the crash.” Maureen’s cadence is slower now. She shakes her head. “Thank God I always told Richard to wear a seat belt. He listened to what I said.”

  “I had no idea,” I finally respond.

  Maureen turns to look at me; it’s as if I’ve pulled her from a reverie. “Yes, Richard never talked about the accident with anyone but me. What I want you to know is that it wasn’t just when he was driving that my father lost his temper. My father was abusive to my mother.”

  I inhale sharply.

  My dad wasn’t always good to my mom, Richard had told me after my mother’s funeral as I sat shivering in the bathtub.

  I think back to the photograph of his parents Richard hid in the storage unit. I wonder if he needed to literally bury it to suppress the memories of his childhood, so they could yield to the more palatable story he presented.

  A shadow falls over me. I instinctively whip my head around. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” a nurse in blue scrubs says, smiling. “You wanted me to let you know when your brother woke up.”

  Maureen nods. “Can you ask him to come down, Angie?” Then Maureen turns to me. “I think it would be better for you two to talk here rather than in his room.”

  We watch the nurse retreat. When the woman is out of earshot, Maureen’s voice turns steely. Her words are clipped. “Look, Vanessa. Richard is fragile right now. Can we agree that you will finally leave him alone?”

  “He’s the one who wanted me to come here.”

  “Richard doesn’t know what he wants right now. Two weeks ago, he thought he wanted to marry Emma. He believed she was perfect”—Maureen makes a little scoffing sound—“even though he barely knew her. He thought that about you at one time, too. He always wanted his life to look a certain way, like the idealized bride and groom on the cake topper he bought for my parents all those years ago.”

  I think of the mismatched date on the bottom of the figurines. “Richard bought that for your parents?”

  “I see he didn’t tell you about that, either. It was for their anniversary. He had this whole plan that we’d cook them a special dinner and bake them a cake. That they’d have a wonderful night and start loving each other again. But then the car crash happened. He never got to give it to them.

  “It was hollow inside, you know. The cake topper. That’s what I thought when I saw it broken in the hallway that day.… I guess he was bringing it to the tasting to show the cake designer. But Richard really has no business being married to anyone. And it’s my job now to make sure that it doesn’t happen.”

  She suddenly smiles—a wide, genuine grin—and I’m completely unnerved.

  But it isn’t for me. It’s for her brother, who is approaching us.

  Maureen stands up. “I’ll give you two a few minutes alone.”

  * * *

  I sit beside the man who both is and is no longer a mystery to me.

  He wears jeans and a plain cotton shirt. Dark stubble lines his jaw. Despite the fact that he’s been sleeping so much, he appears tired and his skin is sallow. He is no longer the man who enthralled me, then subsequently terrorized me.

  He appears ordinary to me now, somehow deflated, like a man I wouldn’t look at twice as he waited for a bus or bought a cup of coffee at a street kiosk.

  My husband kept me off-balance for years. He tried to erase me.

  My husband also hugged my waist on a green sled while we sped down a hill in Central Park. He brought me rum raisin ice cream on the anniversary of my father’s death and left me love notes for no reason at all.

  And he hoped I could save him from himself.

  When Richard finally speaks, he says what I have wanted to hear for so long.

  “I’m sorry, Vanessa.”

  He has apologized to me before, but this time I know his words are different.

  At last they are real.

  “Is there any way you could give me another chance? I’m getting better. We could start over.”

  I gaze out at the gardens and rolling green lawn. I had envisioned a scene much like this when Richard first showed me our Westchester house: The two of us side by side on a porch swing, but decades into our marriage. Connected by memories we’d constructed together, each of us layering in our favorite details with every retelling, until we’d created a unified recollection.

  I’d expected to be angry when I saw him. But I only feel pity.

  By way of an answer to his question, I hand Richard my cloth bag. He pulls out the top item, a black jewelry box. In it are my wedding and engagement rings. He opens the box.

  “I wanted to give these back to you.” I have spent so long mired in our past. It is time to return them to him and truly move on.

  “We could ado
pt a child. We could make it perfect this time.”

  He wipes his eyes. I have never seen him cry before.

  Maureen is between us in an instant. She takes the bag and the rings from Richard. “Vanessa, I think it’s time for you to go. I’ll see you out.”

  I stand up. Not because she told me to, but because I am ready to leave. “Good-bye, Richard.”

  * * *

  Maureen leads me down the steps toward the parking lot.

  I follow at a slower pace.

  “You can do whatever you want with the wedding album.” I gesture to the bag. “It was my gift to Richard, so it’s rightfully his.”

  “I remember. Terry did a nice job. Lucky that he was able to fit you in that day after all.”

  I stop short. I’d never told anyone how close we’d come to not having a photographer at our ceremony.

  And it has been nearly a decade since our wedding; even I couldn’t come up with Terry’s name that quickly.

  As Maureen meets my stare, I recollect how a woman had phoned to cancel our booking. Maureen knew which photographer we were using; she had suggested I include black-and-white shots when I emailed her a link to Terry’s website and sought her opinion about Richard’s gift.

  Her icy-blue eyes look so much like Richard’s in this instant. It is impossible to gauge what she is thinking.

  I recall how Maureen came to our house for every holiday, how she spent her birthdays with her brother engaged in an activity she knew I didn’t enjoy, how she never married or had children. How I cannot remember her mentioning the name of a single friend.

  “I’ll take care of the album.” She stops at the edge of the parking lot and touches my arm. “Good-bye.”

  I feel cold, smooth metal against my skin.

  When I look down, I see she has slipped my rings onto the fourth finger of her right hand.

  She follows my gaze. “For safekeeping.”

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-ONE

  “THANK YOU FOR SEEING ME today,” I say to Kate as I settle into my usual spot on her couch.

  Though I haven’t been here in months—since when I was still married—the room is exactly the same, with magazines fanned on the coffee table and a few snow globes on the windowsill. Across from me, in the large aquarium, two angelfish languidly wind around a leafy green plant, while orange-and-white clown fish and neon tetra swim through a rock tunnel.

  Kate is unchanged, too. Her eyes are large and sympathetic. Her long dark hair is brushed back behind her shoulders.

  Richard caught me the first time I snuck into the city to meet Kate. I didn’t return for quite a while. When I did, I made sure to tell him I was going to visit Aunt Charlotte. Then I deliberately left my phone at her place while I rushed the thirty blocks here.

  “I’m divorced,” I begin.

  Kate smiles slightly. She has always been so careful to avoid letting me know how she feels, but even though we’ve met only a few times, I’ve learned to read her.

  “He left me for another woman.”

  The smile disappears from Kate’s face.

  “But she’s not with him anymore, either,” I add quickly. “He had a kind of breakdown—he tried to hurt me and there were witnesses. He’s getting help.”

  I watch Kate as she processes all of this.

  “Okay,” she finally says. “So he is … no longer a threat to you?”

  “Correct.”

  Kate cocks her head to the side. “He left you for another woman?”

  This time it’s me who smiles slightly. “She was the perfect replacement. That’s what I thought the first time I saw her.… She’s safe now, too.”

  “Richard always did like everything to be perfect.” Kate leans back in her chair and crosses her right leg over her left, then absently massages her ankle.

  The first time I met Kate, she’d merely asked me a few questions. But the queries helped me untangle the twisting thoughts in my mind: Can you tell me why you think Richard is trying to keep you off-balance? What would his motivation be for this?

  The second time I came to see Kate, she’d reached for the box of tissues on the side table between us, even though I hadn’t been crying.

  She’d stretched out her arm to pass them to me, and my gaze had fallen on the thick cuff bracelet on her wrist.

  She’d held her arm still, letting me take it in. But she hadn’t said a single word.

  Seeing that distinctive cuff shouldn’t have come as a surprise. After all, collecting information was part of the reason why I’d sought out Richard’s ex, the dark-haired woman he’d been with before me.

  It hadn’t been difficult to find her; Kate still lived in the city and was listed in the phone book. I was so careful. I never even mentioned her by name when I wrote about our meetings in my Moleskine notebook, and when Richard discovered I’d snuck into the city, I told him I’d been to see a therapist.

  But Kate was even more careful.

  She listened to me thoughtfully, but she didn’t seem willing to share the story of what had happened during the years she and Richard were together.

  I believe I discovered why during my third visit.

  During our previous meetings, Kate had moved to one side after letting me into her apartment, gesturing for me to walk ahead of her toward the living room. When she stood up to signal our conversations had concluded, she motioned for me to go first and then followed to see me out.

  On our third visit, though, when I wondered aloud if I should simply try to leave Richard and go stay with Aunt Charlotte, Kate abruptly stood and offered me tea.

  I nodded, confused.

  She walked into the kitchen while I stared after her.

  Her right foot dragged along the floor; her body compensating for it by tilting down and up, gathering momentum to propel her forward. Something had happened to her leg, the one she massaged at times during our talk. Something that had left her with a pronounced limp.

  When she returned with the tray of tea, she merely said, “What was it you were saying?”

  I shook my head when she tried to hand me a cup. I knew my hands were trembling too violently for me to hold it.

  I looked at the intricate platinum necklace she was wearing, that cuff bracelet, and the emerald ring on her right hand. Such exquisite, expensive pieces. They stood out against her simple clothing.

  “I was saying … I can’t just leave him.” I choked out the words.

  I rushed out a few moments later, suddenly terrified that Richard was trying to call my cell phone. That was the last time I’d seen Kate until today.

  “There’s a police record of the incident. And Maureen has stepped in to watch over Richard,” I say now.

  Kate closes her eyes briefly. “That’s good.”

  “Your leg…”

  When Kate speaks, her voice is emotionless. “I fell down some stairs.” She hesitates and shifts her gaze to stare at her fish gliding through the aquarium. “Richard and I had argued that night because I was late to an important event.” Her voice is much softer now. “After we got home and he went to bed … I left the apartment. I was carrying a suitcase.” She swallows hard and her hand begins to massage her calf. “I decided to take the stairwell instead of the elevator. I didn’t want anyone to hear the chime. But Richard … he wasn’t asleep.”

  Her face crumples for an instant, then she recovers. “I never saw him again.”

  “I’m so sorry. You’re safe now, too.”

  Kate nods.

  After a moment, she says, “Be well, Vanessa.”

  She stands and walks me to the door.

  I hear her lock click behind me as I start down the hallway. Then my head snaps back to look toward her apartment, a connection firing in my brain as I recall a long-ago vision.

  The woman in the raincoat who’d stood outside the Learning Ladder, staring while I packed up my classroom. She had turned away with an odd jerking motion when I approached the window.

  It could h
ave been a limp.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-TWO

  I AWAKEN TO FEEL RICH sunlight pouring through the slats of the window blinds, warming my body as I lie in bed in Aunt Charlotte’s spare room.

  My room, I think, spreading out my arms and legs like a starfish so I take up the entire bed. Then I stretch out my left hand and turn off my alarm before it can blare.

  Sleep still eludes me on some nights, as I turn over in my mind all that has happened and try to put together the pieces that remain a mystery to me.

  But I no longer dread mornings.

  I rise and wrap myself in my robe. As I walk toward the bathroom to take a quick shower, I pass my desk, where the itinerary for our trip to Venice and Florence rests. Aunt Charlotte and I leave in ten days. It’s still summertime, and I won’t begin work teaching pre-K students in the South Bronx until after Labor Day.

  An hour later, I step out of the apartment building into the warm air. I’m not in a rush today, so I stroll down the sidewalk, taking care not to smudge the chalk hopscotch squares a child has drawn. New York City is always quieter in August; the pace seems gentler. I pass a cluster of tourists taking photos of the skyline. An elderly man sits on the steps of a brownstone, reading the paper. A vendor fills buckets with clusters of fresh poppies and sunflowers, lilies and asters. I decide I’ll buy some on my way home.

  I reach the coffee shop and pull open the door, then scan the room.

  “Table for one?” a waitress asks as she passes by with a handful of menus.

  I shake my head. “Thanks, but I’m meeting someone.”

  I see her in the corner, lifting a white mug to her lips. Her gold wedding band glints as it catches the light. I pause, staring at it.

  Part of me wants to run to her. Part of me wants more time to prepare.

  Then she looks up and our eyes meet.

  I walk over and she stands up quickly. She reaches out unhesitatingly and hugs me.

  When we draw back, we wipe our eyes in unison. Then we burst into laughter.

  I slide into the booth across from her.

  “It is really good to see you, Sam.” I look at her bright, beaded necklace and smile.