The Wife Between Us

“I can still feel him […] Sometimes I’m certain I catch on my own clothes—even though they’ve been cleaned—a whiff of that citrus scent of the L’Occitane soap he washed himself with. He feels linked to me always, as close yet diaphanous as a shadow.” 

Sensory imagery is very important in this text, particularly because the senses are often intentionally obscured. The overwhelming presence of Richard’s scent—whether it is a memory or real—is indicative of his reach and the consumptive nature of his and Vanessa’s relationship; Vanessa cannot move through her day without feeling Richard’s presence because, for so long, her life revolved entirely around him. 

“It wasn’t difficult to dodge questions once you learned the tricks […] Tell colorful, drawn-out stories that deflect attention from the fact that you aren’t actually sharing anything. Avoid specifics that will separate you from the crowd. Be vague about the year you graduated. Lie, but only when completely necessary.” 

For the first time, Nellie is presented as capable of deception, a trait that will prove to be fundamental to her survival as the story unravels. Nellie is private because of her anxieties, which have shaped her into a careful and perceptive person. This passage demonstrates how her experiences have informed every decision she’s made and that Nellie has greater depth than Richard can see in his pretty, young fiancée. 

“He handed her a pen from his suit pocket, and she tilted her head to jot it down on a napkin, her long blond hair falling forward in front of her shoulders. Richard reached out and gently ran his fingers down the length of it before tucking it back behind her ear. ‘So beautiful. Don’t ever cut it.’” 

As a symbol of control and autonomy within the text, hair is a significant fixation of Richard’s. Upon first meeting Nellie, Richard lays down the first rule of their relationship by telling her to never change her hair. Richard’s preference for Nellie’s long, blond hair is suggested to be because of the dark-haired ex who left him. Whether this is the reason or Richard just likes Nellie as she is, the emphasis is upon his dominance in the relationship; this first meeting sets the tone of the entire relationship, in which Vanessa must be Richard’s Nellie, just as he likes her.  

“Richard took such good care of his things—and of her. He worried about her commuting to the apartment from Gibson’s, and he called or texted every night to make sure she’d arrived home safely. He’d bought her a top-of-the-line cell phone. ‘I’d feel better if you took it with you whenever you go out,’ he’d said. He’d offered to buy her mace, too, but she told him she already carried pepper spray. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘There are so many creeps out there.’” 

Richard’s protective nature is the thing that attracts Nellie the most. In the beginning, she finds him secure and safe. The noteworthy point Nellie accidentally makes here is that Richard takes care of “his things,” and Nellie is lumped alongside them. The passage is an early indication of Richard’s obsessive need to control Nellie—by knowing where she is and reminding her of ever-present dangers—and pointedly hints that Richard sees Nellie, too, as one of “his things.” 

“Intellectually, she knew the changes ahead were wonderful. Enviable, even. But, emotionally, it all felt a little overwhelming.” 

When Richard asks Nellie to consider music first emotionally and then intellectually, Nellie’s first thoughts are her reservations about marrying him. Instincts are important to the text and are continually represented as more reliable than logic. Nellie admits to being unsettled in some way by her engagement but chooses to push the feeling away. Here, Nellie rejects the concept of considering anything emotionally in favor of the nicer reality offered by her intellect. 

“My mind wanders to the topic of a recent podcast: obsession. ‘Our genes are not our destiny,’ insisted the speaker. But he acknowledged that addiction is hereditary. I think of the way my mother left a trail of destruction. I think of the way my mother dug her nails into her palms when she was agitated. And I think, as always, of her.” 

This excerpt employs the motif of podcasts to communicate the novel’s and Vanessa’s preoccupation with obsession and the hereditary nature of mental illness. For years, Richard nurtured Vanessa’s paranoia about becoming like her mother, and that instinctual dread haunts her well after her marriage. The “her” Vanessa worries has triggered an addiction is her replacement; her obsession over reaching Richard’s new fiancée forces lifelong anxieties to resurface. 

“Nellie thought she’d been in love once before […] None of it had been real. It didn’t bother her when he disappeared for a day of two at a time—until that night in October when she needed him. She’d called him over and over, leaving increasingly urgent messages. He never answered […] She’d be smarter the next time, she’d vowed. She’d never again be with a man who’d look away when she started to fall. But Richard did more than that. Somehow, he caught her before she even realized she was about to stumble.” 

Nellie carries her past with her always, relying on fear and regret to control her life. Her tragic past, the night alluded to as determining her entire life, is the primary reason she stays with Richard despite all the early signs of his dark side. This first love, later revealed as the married professor who impregnated Vanessa and pushed her to get an abortion, is the seeming opposite of Richard; where he was absent, Richard is ever-present; where he was uncaring, Richard is doting. The irony is that Nellie, in trying to avoid the danger and pain of men like her ex, runs into the arms of a clandestine villain. 

“I never knew what had made her commit such a desperate act—if she’d been planning it or if something inside her had suddenly snapped. I think I’ve figured out the answer, all these years later: It was both. Because something inside me has finally cracked open, but I’ve come to realize I’ve also been heading toward this moment all along. The phone calls, the watching, the other things I’ve done…I’ve been circling around my replacement, drawing closer to her, assessing her. Preparing. Her life with Richard is beginning. My life feels as if it is ending.” 

Vanessa’s memory of the woman who jumped to her death echoes the grave danger Vanessa faces in trying to reach her replacement—either from Richard or from herself. The passage places the rising intensity and implied severity of the confrontation between the two women against an ominous tone, foreshadowing the consequences of Vanessa’s plan. Vanessa is presented as the antagonist in this passage—she appears as a villain awaiting her self-destructive plan to reach, or even harm, the heroine. 

“I am a very different woman today than when Richard and I fell in love all those years ago […] In my old life, I even had another name. The first time we met, Richard nicknamed me Nellie. That was all he ever called me. But to everyone else, I was always—and am still—Vanessa.” 

This revelation is the first major plot-twist of the novel. Vanessa, as Nellie, was a different person with Richard—the woman he demanded her to be. The disclosure emphasizes how changed Vanessa is because of her marriage and how much she’s lost: the job she loved, her friends, and her entire identity were swallowed up by her abusive relationship with Richard. Significantly, the passage emphasizes that she is still Vanessa, despite the transformation she’s endured. The repossession of her identity is a testament to her resilience and a rejection of Richard’s control. 

“I stand on the sidewalk outside her apartment, as I’ve done so many times before, but for the first time I truly wonder if everything Richard said about me is true. Am I crazy, like my mother, who battled mental illness her entire life—at times more successfully than others?” 

Vanessa turns to questioning herself and her perception of reality because of Richard’s psychological abuse. When she challenged Richard’s lies, he responded with gaslighting—making Vanessa question her psychological state. Vanessa still suffers the aftereffects of Richard’s torture, experiencing his ability to make her doubt her own memories and emotions because of the reality he manipulated. This passage deals with the theme of truth by making it seem complicated and elusive. 

“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.” 

Aunt Charlotte is the only constant in Vanessa’s life. Charlotte often acts as a voice of reason and unequivocal arbitrator of truth. This is helpful for Vanessa, who has been conditioned to doubt her every thought and move. With Charlotte as her sounding board, Vanessa reclaims the truth and can fully decipher the complexities of her marriage.  

“I recall one of my recent psychology podcasts on the part of the brain that processes emotions. ‘The human body often responds in the same way to two overarching emotional states—romantic arousal and fear,’ a scientist had explained. I close my eyes and try to recall exactly what the expert said. ‘Consider the pounding in the chest, the dilating of the pupils, the increase in blood pressure. These are sensations that appear in both terror and arousal.’ This, I know well. The expert had said something else about how our thought processes change during both states. When we are in the throes of romantic love, for example, the neural machinery responsible for making critical assessments of other people can be compromised.” 

Vanessa wakes from a dream about Richard, shocked that she can still be so aroused by him. When her emotions overwhelm her, Vanessa often turns to psychology to make sense of them. Here, understanding that her attraction towards him is powerful because she has confused the sensation with fear allows Vanessa to see her relationship clearly. Though she spent a lifetime aware of fear in order to survive, Vanessa repeatedly mistook her trepidation near Richard for love or arousal. The podcast allows Vanessa to interpret her misreading of Richard as no fault of her own, but as part of her biological makeup.  

“During the life span of my marriage, I became gripped by a growing urgency to capture the truth. I chased it in my dreams. I worried my memories would fade like an old color photograph that’s been bleached by light, so I tried to keep them alive. I began to write everything down in a kind of diary—a black moleskin notebook that I hid from Richard under the mattress of the bed in our guest room.” 

Truth is evasive throughout the text because it is consistently obscured by Richard. The passage uses a simile to convey Vanessa’s trepidation that her memories will weaken, particularly because Richard has systematically destabilized them. Therefore, the moleskin notebook acts as evidence of her reality—her beacon of hope. Keeping a detailed record is Vanessa’s first step towards understanding the danger she’s in and is vital for her survival. Even after its destruction, it acts as a painful reminder of Richard’s deception and abuse. 

“‘Do you remember when we read Little Women together?’ I nod. ‘Yes.’ I’m already wondering what she can and can’t see. ‘In the book, Amy said, “I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.” Well, I’ve never feared bad weather, either.’ Then my aunt does one of the bravest things I have seen. She smiles.” 

This moment offers Vanessa an insightful example of strength in the face of adversity when she needs it most. Charlotte, despite facing the loss of her sight, remains optimistic. This is typical of Charlotte’s character—she is often cheerful and steady—but the allusion is particularly significant: In Little Women, Amy jokes about keeping her new husband moral, which at times may be difficult but will be worthwhile. The general meaning of the quote applies to both Charlotte and Vanessa: For Vanessa, the storm she continues to sail through is Richard, and each time she becomes a wiser sailor.

“With the release of those words, I knew I’d crossed a line in our relationship. What stunned me was how good it felt. Our marriage, like every marriage, had unspoken rules, and I’d broken one of the most important ones: Don’t challenge Richard. Now I realize my adherence to that mandate had prevented me from asking why he’d bought a house without showing it to me, and why he never wanted to discuss his childhood, as well as other questions I’d tried to push out of my mind. Richard hadn’t made that rule alone; I’d been a willing accomplice. How much easier it was to just let my husband—the man who’d always made me feel safe—take charge of the direction of our lives. I didn’t feel safe anymore.” 

For the first time, Vanessa confronts Richard, and the results are both satisfying and terrifying. This realization accompanies Vanessa’s acceptance of her culpability in the dynamic of her relationship. When she met Richard, she had been moving through the motions of life, dreading decisions; he’d alleviated that anxiety. However, the passage suggests that Vanessa discards the main tenant of their relationship because Richard has forsaken the one most important to her: making her feel safe. 

“In my mind, I always see skinny, freckled Maggie retreating into the ocean, trying to hide her body […] She can’t see. She can’t breathe. Another wave drags her under. Maggie vanished. But maybe she wouldn’t have if I hadn’t disappeared first. Emma will disappear, too, if she marries Richard. She will lose her friends. She will become estranged from her family. She will disconnect from herself, just as I did. And then it will get so much worse. Save her, my mind chants.” 

Vanessa’s obsession with saving Emma from Richard is partially due to her failure to save Maggie during a hazing event. The young woman’s death has always haunted Vanessa, but it is the possibility of Emma’s erasure that consumes her because she—perhaps only she—has the knowledge to save her replacement. In this passage, Emma is set up as a parallel to Maggie, particularly in the fate she faces as Richard’s wife. 

“I became acutely aware of my surroundings. I cultivated my sense of gaze detection, to avoid becoming prey. The sensation of static rising over my skin, the instinctual lifting of my head to search out a pair of eyes—these early-warning signs were what I relied upon to protect me. I never made the connection that there could have been another reason why my nervous system became exquisitely heightened immediately after my engagement to Richard […] The symptoms of arousal and fear can be muddled in the mind. I was wearing a blindfold after all.”

The symbolic use of the blindfold here highlights all the signs Vanessa couldn’t see because of her love for Richard—signs that hindsight has made clear. By employing repetition of major thematic elements—such as “gaze detection,” “early-warning signs,” and the confusion of fear and arousal—the passage elucidates the many ways in which the danger of Richard went unseen by Vanessa. Ironically, while Vanessa worked tirelessly to avoid being prey, Richard manipulated this quality because her fear made her docile.  

This was our pattern: I challenged Richard by trying to assert my independence, and he made me pay for my transgression. My punishments were always proportional to my perceived crimes. On the night of the Alvin Ailey gala, for example, I knew Richard had told his partner Paul that he needed to get me home because I was drunk. But that wasn’t true; Richard was angry that Paul had offered to help me find a job […] Making me look bad in public—having other people view me as unstable and, worse, causing me to question myself—was one of Richard’s default ways to discipline me. It was especially effective given my mother’s struggles.” 

Themes of control and truth/perception convey the extent of Richard’s manipulation in this passage. This cruel proclivity of his becomes a discernable pattern once Vanessa is able to reflect back upon her relationship clearly; things that once seemed coincidental suddenly become methodical. The insight is indicative of the extent of Richard’s obsession with control, but it also makes him predictable. Vanessa exploits this in Richard, relying on his temper and twisted sense of justice to escape and then catch him. 

“Richard must have known this for years; he intercepted the correspondence. He wanted me to be afraid, to be his nervous Nellie. He needed to pretend to be my protector because of some depravity within him. He cultivated my dependence upon him; her preyed upon my fear.” 

Richard’s greatest brutality is the exploitation of Vanessa’s fear; after sharing with Richard her guilt over Maggie’s death, she also expressed her dread that Maggie’s brother would seek vengeance against her. Richard used this guilt and fear to control Vanessa, heightening her anxiety to punish her and then comfort her. The discovery stresses the true sickness of Richard, who kept the woman who loved him low and fearful for years. By hiding from Vanessa that Maggie’s brother was no longer angry, he stole Vanessa’s peace of mind and denied her the possibility of closure. 

“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.” 

Vanessa comprehends the full extent of Richard’s abuse. The realization comes once she sees that Richard has tapped their landline—the journal helped her understand that she made a joke with Sam and the burglar alarm went off right away. His physical and verbal abuse followed his psychological torture; his efforts to control her by keeping her off-balance made him feel needed, and when those failed, he dealt other assaults to make her obey. These signs are so small—seemingly insignificant on their own—but together they complete an image of conditioned cruelty. 

“My guilt and anxiety had concocted a lie. It was never even about me. I couldn’t help but feel sad for the woman who let all that fear shape so many of her life choices. I am still very afraid, but it is no longer constricting me.” 

After speaking with Maggie’s brother, Vanessa realizes that her life has been shaped by a false fear: He was never after her, and she has been running from a ghost. Though the realization should unburden her of her guilt and alarm, it is also treated as a tragic discovery. As Vanessa pities her younger self for making fear-based decisions, the passage suggests that she might not have stayed with Richard had she not been running from another threat. However, Vanessa does not let this cripple her. Rather, she chooses to use the discovery to redefine her relationship to fear.  

“‘Richard doesn’t know what he wants right now. Two weeks ago, he thought he wanted to marry Emma. He believed she was perfect’—Maureen makes a little scoffing sound—‘even though he barely knew her. He thought that about you at one time, too. He always wanted his life to look a certain way, like the idealized bride and groom on the cake topper he bought for my parents all those years ago […] It was hollow inside, you know.’” 

Maureen is indifferent to Vanessa’s pain and Richard’s violence. After the bloody confrontation in the hallway, Maureen relishes in the opportunity to swoop in and help Richard, suggesting that she, like her brother, enjoys the pain of others because she can act as a savior. She sees her brother as foolish and the women he chooses as even more so. Most significantly, the passage focuses on the symbolism of the wedding topper: Richard, having bought it to repair his parents’ broken relationship, sees the antique bride and groom as an archetype of marriage—an unattainable example of perfection. Maureen’s comment that it is hollow represents both the emptiness of Richard’s idealization and his rejection of substance in favor of a pleasant perception. 

“The first time I met Kate, she’d merely asked me a few questions. But the queries helped me untangle the twisting thoughts in my mind: Can you tell me why you think Richard is trying to keep you off-balance? What would his motivation be for this? The second time I came to see Kate, she’d reached over as if to pat my arm. But she didn’t touch me; her hand had just hovered there. My gaze had fallen on the thick cuff bracelet on her wrist. She’d held her arm still, letting me take it in. But she hadn’t said a single word.” 

Another twist in the story is that the woman Vanessa snuck away to see to speak about her marriage was in fact Richard’s mysterious dark-haired ex. The revelation that Vanessa sought her out even before Richard’s first physical assault demonstrates the doubts Vanessa had about their marriage early on. In these meetings, Kate wordlessly expresses the danger Vanessa is in, doing what she can to save Vanessa from a similar fate. Though Kate escaped Richard, she walks with a limp for attempting to leave. The encounters with Kate not only show that violence is a pattern of Richard’s, but also teach Vanessa that she must be crafty about extracting herself from her marriage.