The Wife Between Us(37)

CHAPTER





TWELVE




“Were you at Saks?” Aunt Charlotte asks when I arrive home. “For some reason I thought you had the day off. . . . Anyway, a package came from FedEx. I put it in your room.”

“Really?” I say, feigning interest as I skim past her question. I wasn’t at work today. “I didn’t order anything.”

Aunt Charlotte is standing on a stool in the kitchen, reorganizing the cabinets. She steps down, leaving the bowls and mugs she has been sorting through lined up on the counter. “It’s from Richard. I saw his name on the return address when I signed for it.” She is staring at me, waiting for my reaction.

I keep my expression calm. “Probably just some things I left behind.” She can’t know how I feel about Richard and his engagement. I don’t want her to blame herself later for not doing more to help me.

“I picked us up some salads for dinner.” I hold up a white paper bag decorated with black letters and dancing greens. I’ve vowed to pitch in more. Besides, Chop’t was a convenient stop. “I’ll just stick these in the fridge and then go change.” I’m desperate to open the box.

The package is waiting on my bed. My hands begin to tremble when I see the neatly printed numbers and letters written in all capitals. Richard used to leave me notes in that handwriting nearly every day before he left for work: You are so beautiful when you’re asleep. Or, I can’t wait to make love to you tonight.

The tenor of the notes changed as time passed. Try to get some exercise today, sweetheart. It’ll make you feel better. And near the end of our marriage, the notes were replaced by emails: I just phoned and you didn’t answer. Are you sleeping again? We need to talk about this tonight.

I use scissors to slice through the masking tape and open up my past.

Our wedding album is on top. I lift the heavy satin keepsake. Beneath it I see some of my clothes, neatly folded. When I left, I took mostly cold-weather outfits. Richard has sent ensembles suitable for summertime. He has selected the pieces that always looked the best on me.

At the bottom is a padded black jewelry box. I open it and see a diamond choker. It’s the necklace I could never bear to wear because Richard gave it to me after one of our worst fights.

This isn’t all I’ve left behind, of course. Richard probably donated the rest of my things to charity.

He knows I never cared much about clothes. What he really wanted me to have is the album and the necklace. But why?

There’s no note in the box.

But he is sending me a message with its contents, I realize.

I open the album and stare at a young woman in a lacy gown with a full skirt, smiling up at Richard. I barely recognize myself; it’s like looking at an image of a different person.

I wonder if his new fiancée will take his last name: Thompson. It is still my name, too.

I see her turning her face up to Richard as the minister unites them. She is beaming. Will he think of me briefly and remember how I looked in that moment, before he pushes the memory away? Does he ever call her my name by accident? Do they talk about me, the two of them, when they’re cuddling in bed?

I pick up the album and hurl it across the room. It leaves a mark on the wall before it falls to the floor with a thud. My entire body is shaking now.

I’ve been putting on an act for Aunt Charlotte. But my costume can no longer camouflage what I’ve become.

I think of the liquor store down the street. I could buy a bottle or two. A drink might help douse the rage inside me.

I shove the box into my wardrobe, but now I’m imagining Richard lifting her chin and clasping a diamond choker around her neck, then leaning in to kiss her. I can’t bear the image of his lips on her mouth, of his hands on her.

My time is running out.

I need to see her. I waited outside of her apartment for hours today, but she never appeared.

Is she scared? I wonder. Does she sense what is coming?

I elect to allow myself a final bottle of wine. I’ll drink it and go over my plan again. But I choose to do one thing before going to the liquor store. And miraculously, because of that simple act, an unexpected chance drops into my lap.

I decide to call Maureen. Even after all these years, she is the person with whom Richard is the closest.

We haven’t talked in a while. Our relationship began pleasantly enough, but during my marriage to her brother, her feelings toward me seemed to shift. She grew distant. I’m sure Richard confided in her. No wonder she was wary of me.

But early on, I tried to form an independent relationship with her. It seemed important to Richard that we be close. So I called her every week or two. But we quickly ran out of things to talk about. Maureen had a Ph.D. and ran the Boston Marathon each spring. She rarely drank, other than a single glass of champagne on special occasions, and she rose at five A.M. to practice the piano, an instrument she’d taken up as an adult.

Shortly after my wedding, I accompanied Maureen and Richard on the annual ski trip they took for her birthday. They whipped down black diamonds with ease, and I only held them up. I ended up leaving the slopes at lunchtime and curling up by the fireplace with a hot toddy until they returned, pink cheeked and exhilarated, to collect me for dinner. They always invited me to come, but I never joined them after that first trip, staying home while they went to Aspen or Vail, and on their week-long trip to Switzerland.