“Are you heading upstairs?” he asked Emma.
“If my boss says it’s okay!”
“Your boss says it’s an order,” Richard joked. So the three of us rode the elevator together to the forty-fifth floor.
“I love your dress, Mrs.—I mean Vanessa.” Emma gave me a toothpaste-ad smile.
I looked down at my plain outfit. “Thank you.”
A lot of women might have been threatened by the possibilities of an Emma: those late nights at the office when Chinese food was ordered in and bottles of vodka pulled from a partner’s bar, the overnight trips to see clients, her daily proximity to my husband’s corner office.
But I never was. Not even when Richard called me to say he was working late and would crash in the city apartment.
Back when we were first dating—back when I was Richard’s Nellie—I remember wondering about the sterile quality of that apartment. Another woman had lived there with Richard before he met me. All he told me about her was that she still resided in the city and was perpetually late. I stopped worrying she was somehow a threat to me once Richard and I were married; she was never an intrusion in our lives, even though I became more curious about her as the years went by.
But I never made a mark on the apartment, either. It remained much as it had during Richard’s bachelor days, with the brown suede sofa and complicated lighting system and tidy row of family photographs lining the hallway, plus one of me and Richard on our wedding day, in a simple black frame that matched those of the other images.
During those months when Richard and Emma thought they were having a secret affair—when he took her to the apartment or visited hers—I actually relished his being gone. It meant I didn’t have to change out of my sweats. I could empty a bottle of wine and not worry about where to hide the evidence. I didn’t have to concoct a story about what I’d done that day or come up with a new way to avoid having sex with my husband.
His affair was a reprieve. A vacation, really.
If only it had remained just that—an affair.
I’ve spent most of the morning talking with Aunt Charlotte. She has agreed to allow me to accompany her to the doctor to learn more about how I can help her, but she insisted on going to meet a friend for a lecture at MoMA, as she’d planned.
“My life isn’t going to stop,” Aunt Charlotte had said, brushing off my offer to skip work and go with her or, at the very least, call her a cab.
After I clean the kitchen, I open my laptop and type in the words macular degeneration. I read, The condition is caused by the deterioration of the central portion of the retina. If the eye is a camera, the macula is the central and most sensitive area of the so-called film, the website explains. A working macula collects highly detailed images at the center of the field of vision and sends them up the optic nerve to the brain. When the cells of the macula deteriorate, images are not received correctly.
It sounds so clinical. So sterile. As if these words have no connection to how my aunt will no longer be able to blend together blues and reds and yellows and browns to replicate the skin on a hand, the veins and creases, the gentle dips and swells of the knuckles.
I close my laptop and retrieve two things from my room: Richard’s check, which I put into my wallet to cash later this week. He’d told me to use it to get help, and I will. Help for Aunt Charlotte. Her medical bills, audiobooks and other supplies, and whatever else she needs.
I also pull Emma’s letter from the desk drawer and read it a final time.
Dear Emma,
I would never have listened to anyone who told me not to marry Richard. So I understand why you’re resisting me. I haven’t been clear because it’s hard to know where to begin.
I could tell you what really happened the night of our party, when there was no Raveneau in our cellar. But I am certain Richard will erase any doubt I might create in you. So if you won’t talk to me—if you won’t see me—then please just believe this one thing: A part of you already knows who he is.
There’s a reptilian inheritance in each of our brains that alerts us to danger. You’ve almost certainly felt it stirring by now. You’ve dismissed it. I did, too. You’ve made excuses. So did I. But when you are alone, please listen for it; listen to it. There were clues before our wedding that I ignored; hesitations I waved away. Don’t make the same mistake I did.
I couldn’t save myself. But it is not too late for you.
I fold up the letter again, then go to look for an envelope.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
One of the first clues surfaced even before we were married. I held it in my hand. Sam saw it. So did everyone else at our wedding.
A blond bride and her handsome groom, frozen in a perfect moment.
“Jeez, they even look like you two,” Sam had said when I showed her the cake topper.
When Richard took it out of the storage unit in his apartment building’s basement, he told me it had belonged to his parents. At that time, I had no cause to question this.
But a year and a half after our wedding, on a night when I went into the city to see Sam, two things happened. I realized how distant my best friend and I had already become. And I began to find reasons to doubt my husband.
I was so looking forward to seeing Sam. It felt like forever since we’d had more than a quick lunch together. We set a date for a Friday night, when Richard was at a work conference in Hong Kong. It was scheduled to last only for three days, so even though he’d invited me to come, we agreed it didn’t make sense. “You won’t even recover from jet lag by the time we’ll be heading home,” Richard had said. As with everything else, Richard adapted easily to new time zones. But I knew the combination of the Xanax I’d need for the long plane ride and the Clomid I was taking to get pregnant would leave me so groggy I wouldn’t enjoy the brief stay in Asia.
Impulsively, I booked a table at Pica, deciding to treat Sam. I took the train in, planning to spend the night at Richard’s city apartment. Even after all this time, and even though I still kept some toiletries and a few items of clothes there, I always thought of it as his place.
Sam and I had agreed to meet at the apartment we used to share. She greeted me at the door and we hugged hello. She loosened her arms, but I held on a beat longer, savoring her warmth. I’d missed her even more than I’d realized.
She wore a fitted sleeveless suede dress and high boots. Her hair had a few more layers than the last time I had seen her, and her arms looked more sculpted than ever.
“Is Tara here?” I followed Sam through the tiny entranceway and kitchen and into her bedroom. Beyond it, the door was shut to my old room—Tara’s bedroom now.
“Yeah,” Sam said as I plopped down on the bed. “She just got back from the studio. She’s in the shower.”
I could hear the water running through the old pipes, the ones that would occasionally scald me without warning. White lights were still woven through Sam’s headboard, and clothes were scattered across the floor. Everything was exactly the same, yet different. The apartment seemed smaller and shabbier; I felt the same sensation of alienness I’d experienced when I visited my old elementary school as a teenager.
“I guess there are benefits to rooming with a Pilates instructor. You look amazing.”
“Thanks.” She reached for a thick chain bracelet on her dresser and fastened it on her wrist. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look . . . how do I put this delicately? Sort of terrible.”
I grabbed a pillow and threw it at her. “Is there a right way to take that?” My tone was light, but I felt hurt.
“Oh, shut up, you’re still gorgeous. But what the heck are you wearing? I love the necklace, but you kinda look like you’re on the way to a PTA meeting.”