CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
I wish I could have given my Moleskine notebook to Emma along with the Raveneau receipt. Maybe if she had the chance to leaf through the pages, she would detect the undercurrent churning together these seemingly disparate events.
But that notebook no longer exists.
By the time I wrote my last entry, my journal contained pages and pages of my recollections and, increasingly, of my fears. After the night when Richard told me he’d gone for the sperm analysis and I vowed to get to the bottom of what had really happened, I could no longer suppress my intuition. My notebook served as a courtroom, with my words arguing both sides of every issue. Perhaps Richard went to a different clinic to have his semen tested, I’d written. But why would he do that when he’d scheduled an appointment at the original one? I’d hunch over in bed in the guest room, the dim bulb in the nightstand light illuminating my scribblings as I tried to puzzle out other confusing encounters, going back to the very beginning of our marriage: Why did he tell me the lamb vindaloo I made was delicious, then leave more than half of it on his plate and send me a gift certificate for cooking lessons the following morning? Was it a thoughtful gesture? Was he trying to convey a subtle message about the inadequacy of the meal? Or was it a punishment for my revelation that day at Dr. Hoffman’s office that I’d gotten pregnant in college? And, a few pages before that: Why would he suddenly appear the night of my bachelorette party when he hadn’t been invited to join us? Did love or control propel him?
As my questions mounted, it became impossible for me to continue to deny it: Something was either deeply wrong with Richard, or deeply wrong with me. Both possibilities were terrifying.
I had been certain Richard sensed the change between us. I couldn’t help withdrawing from him—from everyone. I dropped out of all my volunteer work. I rarely went into the city. My friends from Gibson’s and the Learning Ladder had moved on with their lives. Even Aunt Charlotte was away; she and a Parisian artist friend had arranged a six-month apartment exchange, something they’d done several times in the past. I had felt steeped in loneliness.
I explained to Richard that I was depressed because we couldn’t have a baby. But not being pregnant was a blessing now.
I escaped into alcohol but never around my husband. I needed to be sharp in his presence. When Richard noted the amount of wine I was consuming during the day and asked me to stop drinking, I agreed. Then I began driving a few towns over to buy my Chardonnay. I hid the empty bottles in the garage and sneaked out on early-morning walks to bury the evidence in a neighbor’s recycling bin.
The alcohol made me sleepy, and I napped most afternoons, sobering up in time for Richard’s return from work. I craved the comfort of soft carbohydrates and soon dressed only in my forgiving yoga pants and loose tops. I didn’t need a psychiatrist to tell me that I was trying to add a protective layer to my body. To make me less attractive to my trim, fitness-conscious husband.
Richard didn’t directly say a word about my weight gain. I’d shed and put on the same fifteen pounds several times throughout our marriage. Whenever my weight ticked upward, he made a point of requesting that I cook broiled fish for dinner, and when we went to restaurants, he eschewed bread and asked for his salad dressing on the side. I followed his lead, ashamed that I lacked his discipline. On the night of my birthday dinner with Aunt Charlotte at the club, I’d grown agitated, but not because I thought the waiter had made a mistake with my salad. By that birthday my old clothes no longer fit. My husband had refrained from commenting on this.
But the week before the celebratory dinner, he’d bought a new, high-tech scale and had set it up in our bathroom.
One night I woke up in our Westchester house desperately missing Sam. I’d realized the previous afternoon that it was her birthday. I wondered how she was celebrating. I didn’t even know if she still worked at the Learning Ladder and lived in our old apartment, or if she’d gotten married. I turned to see the clock announce it was almost three A.M. This wasn’t unusual; I rarely slept through the night anymore. Beside me in bed, Richard was like a statue. Other women complained about their husbands snoring or hogging the blankets, but Richard’s stillness always camouflaged whether he was deeply slumbering or on the verge of waking up. I lay there for a few moments, listening to his steady exhalations, then I slipped out from beneath the covers. I padded quietly to the door, then glanced back. Had my movements awoken him? In the darkness it was impossible to tell if his eyes were open.
I eased the door closed behind me, then headed to the guest room. I’d blamed Sam for our rift, but now that I was reevaluating everything, I’d begun to wonder where the fault truly lay. After our dinner at Pica, we’d drifted further apart. Sam had invited me to a going-away party for Marnie, who was moving back home to San Francisco, but Richard and I already had dinner plans at Hillary and George’s house for the same evening. When I showed up at the party late, bringing Richard with me, I recognized disappointment on my best friend’s face. We stayed for less than an hour. For much of it, Richard stood in the corner on his phone. I saw him yawn. I knew he had an early meeting the next morning, so I made our excuses. A few weeks later, I called Sam to see if she wanted to meet for a drink.
“Richard isn’t going to come, is he?”
I lashed back, “Don’t worry, Sam, he doesn’t want to spend time with you any more than you do with him.”
Our argument escalated, and that was the last time we spoke.
As I entered the guest room and reached under the mattress to retrieve my notebook, I wondered if I’d been so hurt and angry because Sam seemed to know something I wouldn’t allow myself to accept—that Richard wasn’t the perfect husband. That our marriage only looked good on the surface. The Prince. Too good to be true. You’re dressed like you’re going to a PTA meeting. She’d even called me Nellie once in a tone that felt more mocking than joking.
I lifted the mattress with my right hand and stretched out my left arm, sweeping it back and forth on top of the box spring. But I couldn’t feel the familiar edges of my journal.
I eased down the mattress and turned on the nightstand lamp. I dropped to my knees and hoisted the mattress even higher. It wasn’t there. I checked under the bed, then began to peel back the comforter, then the top sheet.
My hands stopped moving when I felt static rise over my skin. I detected Richard’s stare before he spoke a word.
“Is this what you’re looking for, Nellie?”
I slowly rose to my feet and turned around.
My husband stood in the doorway, wearing boxers and a T-shirt, holding my notebook. “You haven’t been writing this week. Although I guess you’ve been busy. You went to the grocery store on Tuesday right after I left for work, and yesterday you drove to the wineshop in Katonah. Sneaky, aren’t you?”
He knew everything I was doing.
He lifted up the journal. “You believe I’m the one who can’t get us pregnant? You think there’s something wrong with me?”
He knew everything I was thinking.
He moved closer to me and I cowered. But he merely took an object off the nightstand behind me. A pen.
“You forgot something, Nellie. You left this here. I saw it the other day.” His voice was different, more high-pitched than I’d ever before heard it, and the cadence was almost playful. “Where there’s a pen, there must be paper.”
He riffled through the pages. “This is fucking insane.” His sentences tumbled out faster and faster. “Duke! Lamb vindaloo! Turning your picture around! I set off the house alarm!” With every accusation, he tore out a new page. “My parents’ wedding photo! You snuck into the storage unit! You’re wondering about my parents’ cake topper? You’ve been going into the city to talk about our marriage to some stranger? You’re psychotic. You’re even worse than your mother!”
I didn’t realize I was backing up until I felt the nightstand hit the back of my legs.
“You were a pathetic waitress who couldn’t even walk down the street without thinking someone was going to come after you.” He dragged his hands through his hair, and part of it stood up. His T-shirt was rumpled and stubble coated his jawline. “You ungrateful bitch. How many women would kill to have a man like me? To live in this house, to vacation in Europe and drive a Mercedes.”
All the blood seemed to rush out of my head; I felt dizzy with fear. “You’re right, you’re so good to me,” I began to plead. “Didn’t you see the other pages? I wrote how generous you were in paying for the animal shelter renovation. How much you helped me when my mom died. And how much I love you.”
I wasn’t reaching him; he seemed to be looking through me. “Clean up this mess,” he ordered.
I dropped to my knees and gathered the pages.
“Tear them up.”
I was crying now, but I obeyed, gathering a handful and trying to rip them in half. But my hands were shaking and the stack of pages was too thick for me to shred.
“You’re so fucking incompetent.”
I sensed a metallic change in the air; it felt swollen with pressure.
“Please, Richard,” I sobbed. “I’m so sorry. . . . Please . . .”
His first kick landed near my ribs. The pain was explosive. I curled into a ball and pulled my knees into my chest.
“You want to leave me?” he shouted as he kicked me again.
He climbed on top of me, forcing me onto my back and pinning my arms with his knees. His kneecaps ground into my elbows.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I tried to twist away from him, but he was sitting on my abdomen, trapping me in place.
His hands closed around my neck. “You were supposed to love me forever.”
I gagged as I thrashed and kicked beneath him, but he was too strong. My vision became spotty. I wrenched one hand free and clawed at his face as I grew light-headed.
“You were supposed to save me.” His voice was soft and sad now.
Those were the last words I heard before I blacked out. When I came to, I was still lying on the floor. The pages of my notebook had vanished.
Richard was gone, too.
My throat felt raw and desperately parched. I lay there for a long time. I didn’t know where Richard was. I rolled onto my side, my arms encircling my knees, shivering in my thin nightgown. After a while I reached up and pulled the comforter around me. Fear immobilized me; I couldn’t leave the room.
Then I smelled fresh coffee.
I heard Richard’s footsteps coming up the stairs. There was nowhere to hide. I couldn’t run, either; he was between me and the front door.
He walked unhurriedly into the room, holding a mug.
“Forgive me,” I blurted. My voice was hoarse. “I didn’t realize . . . I’ve been drinking and I haven’t been sleeping. I haven’t been thinking clearly. . . .”
He just stared at me. He was capable of killing me. I had to convince him not to.
“I wasn’t going to leave you,” I lied. “I don’t know why I wrote those bad things. You’re so good to me.”
Richard took a sip of coffee, keeping his eyes on mine over the rim of his mug.
“Sometimes I worry I am becoming like my mother. I need help.”
“Of course you wouldn’t leave me. I know that.” He had regained his composure. I’d said the right words. “I acknowledge I lost my temper, but you pushed me,” he said, as if he’d merely snapped at me during a minor spat. “You’ve been lying to me. You’ve been deceiving me. You are not acting like the Nellie I married.” He paused. He patted the bed and I hesitantly climbed up to sit on its edge, keeping the comforter around me like a shield. He sat down next to me, and I felt the mattress sink beneath his weight, tilting me toward him.
“I’ve thought about it, and this is partly my fault. I should have recognized the warning signs. I indulged your depression. What you need is structure. A routine. From now on you’ll get up with me. We’ll work out together in the morning. Then we’ll eat breakfast. More protein. You’ll get fresh air every day. Rejoin some committees at the club. You used to make an effort with dinner. I’d like for you to do that again.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“I am committed to our marriage, Nellie. Do not ever make me question whether you are again.”
I quickly nodded, even though the motion hurt my neck.
He left for work an hour later, telling me he would phone me when he got to the office and that he expected me to answer. I did exactly as he said. I could only swallow some yogurt for breakfast because of my throat, but it was high in protein. It was early fall, so I took a walk in the cool fresh air, keeping the ringer on my cell phone turned up as high as possible. I put on a turtleneck to cover the red, oval imprints that would turn into bruises, then went to the grocery store and selected filet mignon and white asparagus to serve to my husband.
I was in the checkout lane when I heard the cashier saying, “Ma’am?” I realized she’d been waiting for me to pay for my groceries. I looked up from the bag of food I was starting at, wondering if he already knew what I was buying for his dinner. Somehow Richard was aware of every time I left the house; he’d found out about my secret journey into the city, the liquor store I frequented, the errands I ran.
Even when I’m not there, I’m always with you.
I looked at the woman at the next register over as she appeased a cranky toddler who wanted to be lifted out of the cart. I glanced up at the security camera near the door. I saw the pile of red baskets with gleaming metal handles, the display of tabloid magazines, the candy in bright, crinkly wrappers.
I had no idea how my husband was constantly watching me. But his surveillance was no longer stealth. I could not deviate from the more stringent new rules of our marriage. And I could certainly never try to leave him.
He would know.
He would stop me.
He would hurt me.
He might kill me.
A week or two later, I looked up from the breakfast table and watched Richard select a crispy piece of turkey bacon that I’d prepared along with our scrambled eggs. His face was still slightly flushed from our morning workout. Steam curled from his cup of espresso; The Wall Street Journal was folded by his plate.
He bit into the bacon. “This is perfectly cooked.”
“Thank you.”
“What are your plans for today?”
“I’m going to shower and then head over to the club for the used-book drive. Lots of sorting to do.”
He nodded. “Sounds good.” He wiped his fingertips on his napkin, then snapped opened the newspaper. “And don’t forget Diane’s retirement luncheon is next Friday. Can you pick up a nice card and I’ll put the cruise tickets inside?”
“Of course.”
He bent his head and began to scan the stocks.
I stood up and cleared the table. I loaded the dishwasher and wiped down the counters. As I ran the sponge over the marbled granite, Richard approached me from behind and wrapped his arms around my waist. He kissed my neck.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you, too.”
He put on his suit jacket, then picked up his briefcase and walked toward the front door. I followed him, watching as he headed to his Mercedes.
Everything was exactly as Richard wished it to be. When he came home tonight, dinner would be ready. I’d have changed out of my yoga pants into a pretty dress. I’d entertain him with a funny story about what Mindy had said at the club.
Richard looked up at me through the big bay window as he walked toward the driveway.
“Good-bye!” I called, waving.
His smile was wide and genuine. He radiated contentment.
I realized something in that moment. It felt like glimpsing a pinpoint of sunlight in the cottony, suffocating gray pressing in on me.
There was one way my husband would let me go.
It would need to be his idea to end our marriage.