CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
After Aunt Charlotte comes to get me at the Robertson bar, I take a cool shower, scrubbing off my sweat and makeup. Wishing I could rinse away the day as easily and have a fresh chance with Emma.
I’d planned my words so carefully; I’d anticipated that Emma would be skeptical at first. I would have been, too—I still remember how I’d bristled when Sam seemed suspicious of Richard, or when my mother expressed concern that I seemed to be losing my identity.
But I’d assumed Emma would at least listen to me. That I would have the opportunity to plant doubts that might prompt her to take a closer look at the man she was choosing to spend the rest of her life with.
But clearly she’d already formed a strong opinion of me, one that tells her I’m not to be trusted.
Now I recognize how foolish I was to think this could end so easily.
I will have to find another way to make her understand.
I notice my left arm is red and slightly raw from where I’ve been aggressively scrubbing it. I turn off the shower and smooth lotion on my tender skin.
Then Aunt Charlotte knocks on my bedroom door. “Up for a walk?”
“Sure.” I’d rather not, but it’s my inadequate concession to her for the worry I’ve caused.
So the two of us head over to Riverside Park. Usually Aunt Charlotte sets a brisk pace, but today she strolls slowly. The steady, repetitive movement of my arms and legs and the soft breeze from the Hudson River help me feel more grounded.
“Do you want to continue our conversation?” Aunt Charlotte asks.
I think about what she requested: Please stop lying to me.
I’m not going to lie to her, but before I can tell Aunt Charlotte the truth, I need to figure out what it is for myself.
“Yes.” I reach for her hand. “But I’m not ready yet.”
Although at the bar we only dissected a single evening of my marriage, talking with my aunt has released some of the pressure that has built up inside me. The full story is far too tangled and complex to unravel in one afternoon. For the first time, though, I have someone else’s recollections to rely on other than my own. Someone I can trust as I absorb the aftershocks of my life with Richard.
I take Aunt Charlotte to the Italian restaurant near her apartment, and we order minestrone soup. The waiter brings us warm, crusty bread, and I drink three glasses of ice water, realizing I’m parched. We talk about the biography of Matisse that she is reading, and a movie I pretend to want to see.
Physically I feel a little better. And the superficial chat with my aunt distracts me. But the moment I’m back in my room, closing my blinds as dusk falls, my replacement returns. She is an uninvited guest I can never turn away.
I see her at her dress fitting, twirling before a mirror, the new diamond glinting on her finger. I imagine her pouring Richard a drink and bringing it to him, kissing him as he takes it from her hand.
I am pacing back and forth in the small bedroom, I realize.
I walk to my desk and locate a yellow legal pad in a drawer. I bring it and a pen back to my bed and stare at the blank page.
I begin to form her name, my pen lingering over the edges and curves in her letters: Emma.
I have to get the words exactly right. I must make her understand.
I realize I am pressing the pen into the paper so deeply that the ink has bled through the page.
I don’t know what to write next. I don’t know how to start.
If I could only figure out where my demise began, I might be able to explain it to her. Was it with my mother’s mental illness? My father’s death? My inability to conceive a child?
I am growing more and more certain the origin lies within that October night in Florida.
I can’t tell Emma about that, though. The only part of my story she needs to understand is Richard’s role in it.
I tear away the paper and begin again with a clean one.
This time I write, Dear Emma.
Then I hear his voice.
For a moment, I wonder if my mind has conjured it, until I realize he’s in the apartment, and that Aunt Charlotte is calling my name. Summoning me to Richard.
I leap to my feet and glance in the mirror. The afternoon sun and walk have left me pink cheeked, and my hair is swept into a low ponytail. I’m wearing Lycra shorts and a tank top. Dark circles mark my eyes, but the soft, forgiving light is kind to my body’s sharp angles. Earlier today I dressed up for Emma, but in this moment I look more like the Nellie my husband fell in love with than I have in years.
I walk barefoot into the living room, and my body reacts instinctively, my vision tunneling until he is all I can see. He is broad shouldered and fit; his runner’s build filled out during the years we were married. Richard is one of those men who grow more attractive with age.
“Vanessa.” That deep voice. The one I still hear in my dreams all the time. “I’d like to talk.”
He turns to Aunt Charlotte. “May we have a moment?”
Aunt Charlotte looks at me and I nod. My mouth is dry. “Of course,” she says, retreating to the kitchen.
“Emma told me you went to see her today.” Richard is wearing a shirt I don’t recognize, one he must have bought after I left. Or maybe one Emma bought for him. His face is tanned, the way it always gets in the summer because he runs outside in good weather.
I nod, knowing it’s futile to deny it.
Unexpectedly, his expression softens and he takes a step toward me. “You look terrified. Don’t you know I’m here because I’m worried about you?”
I gesture to the sofa. My legs feel shaky. “Can we sit down?”
Throw pillows are piled at either end of the couch, which means we end up closer to each other than either of us might have expected. I smell lemons. I feel his warmth.
“I’m marrying Emma. You have to accept this.”
I don’t have to, I think. I don’t have to accept you marrying anyone. But instead I say, “It all happened so fast. Why the rush?”
Richard won’t indulge my question. “Everyone asked me why I stayed with you all those years. You complained that I left you alone at home too much, but when we socialized, you were . . . The night of our cocktail party—well, people still talk about it.”
I don’t realize a tear is rolling down my cheek until he gently wipes it away.
His touch sets off an explosion of sensation inside me; it has been months since I’ve felt it. My body clenches.
“I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I never wanted to say it because I knew it would hurt you. But after today . . . I don’t have any choice. I think you should get help. An inpatient stay somewhere, maybe the place where your mom went. You don’t want to end up like she did.”
“I’m doing better, Richard.” I feel a flash of my old spirit. “I’ve got a job. I’m getting out more and meeting people. . . .” My voice trails off. The truth is visible to him. “I’m not like my mother.”
We’ve had this conversation before. It’s clear he doesn’t believe me.
“She overdosed on painkillers,” Richard says gently.
“We don’t know that for sure!” I protest. “It could have been a mistake. She might have gotten her pills mixed up.”
Richard sighs. “Before she died, she told you and Aunt Charlotte she was doing better. So when you just said that to me . . . Look, do you have a pen?”
I freeze, wondering how he senses what I was doing in the moment before he arrived.
“A pen,” he repeats, furrowing his brow at my reaction. “May I borrow one?”
I nod, then stand up and return to my bedroom, where the legal pad with Emma’s name sits on my bed. I glance over my shoulder, suddenly gripped by the fear that he has followed me. But the space in my wake is empty. I turn over the pad and pick up the pen, then I notice our wedding album still splayed on the floor. I put it on the floor of my armoire, then go back into the living room.
My knee gently bumps against Richard’s when I sit back down next to him.
He tilts toward me on the couch as he reaches for his wallet. He withdraws the single blank check he always carries. I watch as he writes a number and adds several zeros.
I gape at the amount. “What is this for?”
“You didn’t get enough in the settlement.” He puts the check on the coffee table. “I liquidated some stock for you and let the bank know there would be a large withdrawal from my checking account. Please use this to get some help. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you.”
“I don’t want your money, Richard.” He fixes his eyes on me. “I never did.”
I’ve known people with hazel eyes that morph from green to blue to brown based on the light, or what they’re wearing. But Richard is the only person I’ve ever met whose irises shift solely through shades of blue—from denim to Caribbean sea to a beetle’s wing.
Now they are my favorite shade, a soft indigo.
“Nellie”—it is the first time he has called me this since I moved out—“I love Emma.”
A sharp pain bursts in my chest.
“But I will never love anyone as much as I loved you,” he says.
I continue to look into his eyes, then I jerk away my gaze. I am stunned by his admission. But the truth is, I feel the same way about him. The silence in the air hangs like an icicle about to crack.
Then he leans forward again, and shock robs me of the ability to think coherently as his soft lips find mine. His hand cups the back of my head, pulling me in closer. For just a few seconds, I am Nellie again and he is the man I fell in love with.
Then I’m jolted back to reality. I push him away, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
He looks at me for a long moment, then stands up and leaves without a word.