The Wife Between Us(101)

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.”