The Wife Between Us

After Vanessa’s mother died, Richard reassumed his role as the perfect husband by looking after Vanessa and tending to all the funeral arrangements. Vanessa, Richard, and Charlotte cleaned out Vanessa’s childhood home and Vanessa threw out every remnant from her college life, including her diploma. That night, Richard opened up to Vanessa about how his father had been unkind to his mother and his mother had been unhappy. He told her that he never wanted to be a bad husband, but he had been one to Vanessa. They made love for the first time in a long time, and Vanessa asked him to promise her that they would never let things get bad again. Richard promised, but Vanessa reflects that things only got worse from then on.

On her flight back to New York, Vanessa thinks again of Maggie—specifically, attending her funeral and meeting her brother, Jason. When she’d tried to apologize to Jason, though, he’d crushed her hand in his grip and told her he would make sure she never forgot what she’d done to his sister. Jason’s angry words haunted Vanessa and made her wary of every dark corner and anonymous call. Later, someone broke into their sorority house and vandalized it, writing “bitches,”  “whores,” and “you killed her” across the walls (275). Vanessa knew the final words were meant for her. The police told Jason to stay away from the sorority, but Vanessa never felt safe again. At graduation, she saw him standing apart from the other graduates, his eyes fixed upon her. When the calls began again shortly after her engagement, she was certain that Jason had found her. The night the alarm had gone off in their house, it was Jason’s face Vanessa had imagined seeing in the dark.

Now, as she considers her increased insomnia and anxiety following her engagement to Richard, she wonders why she only associated the feelings with Jason. As she remembers that arousal and fear are often confused, she realizes she “was wearing a blindfold after all” (280).

After leaving Saks, Vanessa heads towards Emma’s apartment to deliver the letter. When passing a couple that seems happy and in love, she considers how perception shaped her life with Richard, and how she only saw what she wanted and then needed to. She considers her marriage existing in three realities: Richard’s truth, her truth, and the ever-elusive actual truth. Richard calls, interrupting her thoughts. He tells her to stay away from Emma, and Vanessa’s frustrations from years of abuse from Richard boil over. She asks him, “What are you going to do the first time she makes you mad? When she isn’t your perfect little wife?” (282). Now heading to beat Vanessa to Emma, Richard claims that it was Vanessa who kissed him the night before.

Vanessa remembers that this is what Richard does—blur the truth. She thinks of the journal she kept during their marriage to keep track of it all. She asks Richard if he’s told Emma about the diamond necklace he gave her and if he thinks Emma will need one someday. As she hoped, it enrages him, and she hangs up.

She admits she was never the woman Richard thought she was, but she also wasn’t who Emma thought she was. When she first met Richard’s beautiful new assistant, she noticed the electricity between them and began to hope. One night after a work event that Richard spent near Emma, he entered Vanessa roughly from behind. She suspected he’d been thinking of someone else. A few weeks later, Vanessa was sick, and Richard took Emma to the Philharmonic instead, then spent the night in the city. Instead of confronting them, she just let them carry on despite her suspicions.

After Vanessa slides the letter beneath Emma’s door, she thinks of all the things she left out in the letter—like how she orchestrated the entire affair. She faked a stomach bug and suggested Richard take Emma; weeks later, she suggested Richard give his assistant a generous gift; she even urged them to stay longer on business trips. She saw Emma as her “perfect replacement,” hoping their affair would free her from Richard.