“I realize it’s a lot to take in.” I recognize this is an extraordinary understatement.
“Do you know what I keep thinking about? Richard showed up right after you slipped that letter under my door. He immediately tore it up, but I keep remembering this one line you wrote: ‘A part of you already knows who he is.’ ” Emma’s eyes grow unfocused and I suspect she is reliving the moment when she began to see her fiancé anew. “Richard wanted to—it was like he wanted to murder that letter. He kept ripping it into smaller and smaller bits, then he shoved them in his pocket. And his face—it didn’t even look like him.”
She lingers in the memory for a long moment, then shakes it off and stares directly at me. “Will you tell me the truth about something?”
“Of course.”
“Right after the cocktail party at your house, he came in with a bad scratch on his cheek. When I asked him what happened, he said a neighbor’s cat did it when he tried to pick it up.”
Richard could have covered the scratch or come up with a better story for it. But conclusions would be drawn after my sloppy conduct at our party; it was more proof of my instability, my volatility.
Emma is very still now. “I grew up with a cat,” she says slowly. “I know that scratch was different.”
I nod.
Then I inhale deeply and blink hard. “I was trying to get him off me.”
Emma doesn’t react initially. Perhaps she instinctively realizes that if she shows me sympathy, I’ll crumple into tears. She simply looks at me, then turns away.
“I can’t believe I got this so wrong,” she finally says. “I thought you were the one . . . He’s coming back tomorrow. I’m supposed to spend the night at his place. Then Maureen’s coming to town. We’re meeting at my apartment so she can see my dress . . . then we’re all going to taste wedding cakes!”
Her chatter is the only sign that she’s nervous, that our conversation has thrown her.
Maureen is an added complication. I’m not surprised Richard and Emma are including her in the wedding preparations, though; I remember wanting to do the same. Along with the butterfly-clasp necklace I gave her, I sought out her opinion on whether Richard would want black-and-white or color photographs in the album that was my wedding gift to him. Richard also called her and put her on speakerphone while the three of us discussed entrée options for the meal.
I put my arm around Emma. At first her body is rigid, but it softens for a brief moment before she pulls away. She must be holding back a tidal wave of emotions.
Save her. Save her.
I close my eyes and recall the girl I couldn’t save. “Don’t be scared. I’m going to help you.”
When we arrive at Emma’s place, she lays her wedding gown across the back of her sofa.
“Can I get you anything to drink?”
I barely touched my champagne; I want my thoughts to remain clear so I can figure out how Emma can safely extract herself from Richard. “I’d love some water.”
Emma bustles about her galley kitchen, anxiously chattering again. “Do you take ice? I know my place is a little messy. I was going to do laundry and then all of a sudden I just felt like I had to check on the Visa charge. He added me to that account after we got engaged, so all I had to do was call the number on the back of my card. I’ve got some grapes and almonds if you want a snack. . . . Usually I reviewed his AmEx statements before submitting them to Accounting for reimbursement, but a couple of times, he told me he’d handle it himself. That’s why I never saw the refund.” Emma shakes her head.
I absently listen to her as I look around. I know she is grasping for ways to blunt the impact of what she has learned about Richard. The champagne she quickly drank, the frantic energy—I recognize the symptoms too well.
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.