The Wife Between Us

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Prologue-Chapter 3

Part 1, Chapters 4-6

Part 1, Chapters 7-9

Part 1, Chapters 10-12

Part 1, Chapters 13-15

Part 1, Chapters 16-18

Part 2, Chapters 19-21

Part 2, Chapters 22-24

Part 2, Chapters 25-27

Part 2, Chapters 28-30

Part 3, Chapters 31-33

Part 3, Chapters 34-36

Part 3, Chapters 37-39

Part 3, Chapter 40-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Part 1, Chapters 10-12 Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapter 10 Summary

Vanessa is outside Richard’s fiancée’s apartment when the young woman appears. She’s wearing workout clothes and carrying a take-out salad. To her disappointment, Vanessa can’t tell if she’s pregnant and realizes that if her replacement were pregnant, she wouldn’t be showing yet anyway. After the young woman has disappeared into her building, Vanessa wonders if she should confront her and tell her not to marry Richard. Vanessa decides to wait and begins to walk home, ordering a salad from the same place the young woman did. She consumes it immediately, feeling a sudden hunger she hasn’t felt in years.

Once home, Vanessa finds Aunt Charlotte sprawled across the couch with a towel pressed to her face. Though Vanessa is worried, Charlotte promises that she is fine. Regardless, Vanessa makes them both dinner. The act reminds them both of Vanessa’s mother, who was an accomplished cook but would leave a path of destruction after each meal. Charlotte asks Vanessa if she likes cooking now and Vanessa thinks, “I hate it,” remembering the times she felt obliged to cook for Richard (107). After their fight at the fertility office, Vanessa tried to make things right between them by making Richard’s favorite dish—lamb vindaloo. She worked very hard to make the dinner perfect for him, but he said little about it and left half of it on his plate. The morning afterwards, Vanessa received a gift certificate for cooking lessons from Richard via email.

Vanessa finishes her dinner with Charlotte and then withdraws to her room. She thinks of a recent podcast she listened to about obsession, and, as always, she thinks of her replacement. She begins to form a plan, one that will require strength on her part. She tells herself, “Richard cannot marry again,” and begins to prepare (112).

Part 1, Chapter 11 Summary

After having her night in with Sam, Nellie is alone in her apartment, listening to the sounds of the city and thinking how quiet the suburbs will be. Sam invited Nellie to go out with her, but Nellie wanted to stay home in case Richard called. She was hoping to rest, but thoughts of Richard’s ex keep her up. Though she eventually falls asleep, she is woken early by construction and decides to begin working through her to-do list. She then gets a call from Josie, her fellow server, who asks her to cover the second half of her shift later that the day. Nellie has the preschool’s graduation and dinner with Richard’s sister, Maureen, but feels she owes it to Josie and accepts.

Nellie receives an email from her photographer asking if she’d like a refund or to reschedule. Confused, she calls him and discovers that his office received a call last week that the wedding had been postponed and he has already booked another couple—and he says it was she who made the call. Confused and flustered, Nellie asserts that the mistake was on their end and they must fix it. The photographer complies, telling her “[e]verything should be perfect,” and Nellie agrees but thinks of the painful absence of her father, who died when she was a freshman in high school (118). She also reveals that the wedding will take place in Florida—Richard insisted they not have it in New York to keep it small and intimate.

At the bar, Nellie waits impatiently for her last few tables to finish up, worried she’ll be late to dinner with Richard and Maureen. On her way to deliver more drinks, she is cornered by a group of drunk frat boys, who aggressively flirt with her. The exchange flusters her, and she drops her tray of martinis. Her coworker rushes over to help, telling her he will take over her tables and that she can leave. After cleaning up and changing, Nellie emerges from the backroom to find the group of guys still there and still calling out to her, asking for a kiss. She spots something on the bar and decides to hug one of them before she leaves. In a cab on her way to dinner, she pulls out the wallet she took from the bar and tosses it out the window.

Part 1, Chapter 12 Summary

When Vanessa returns home, Aunt Charlotte is surprised she has been gone all day, thinking she didn’t have work that day, and hands her a package. Vanessa doesn’t tell her where she’s really been but focuses on the package, which Charlotte tells her is from Richard. Vanessa remains stoic, not wanting Charlotte “to blame herself later for not doing more to help” her (122). She places the take-out salads she brought home for them in the fridge and goes to her room to open the package. Inside, she finds their wedding album, clothing, and the diamond choker Richard gave her after one of their worst fights. There’s no note, but Vanessa is convinced the items are a message. Impulsively, calls Maureen, wanting to meet with her to speak about Richard’s engagement. Maureen is kind but curt, telling Vanessa to move on before hanging up. After the call, Vanessa realizes that the address she heard Maureen give the cab driver is a restaurant that Richard used to love. Convinced that Maureen is heading there to meet Richard and his fiancée, Vanessa decides to meet them there to speak to her. Traffic is backed up, so she breaks into a run.

Part 1, Chapters 10-12 Analysis

Vanessa’s obsession with her replacement reaches a new height in Chapter 10. She watches her like a predator watches their prey, attempting to understand her thoughts, preferences, and surroundings in order to understand her better. As she devours the salad she hopes the younger woman ate, too, Vanessa is really hoping to devour all she can about Richard’s fiancée. Vanessa’s obsession is muted when she’s around her aunt. As she’s cooking, Vanessa proves that she is a better cook than she previously stated. Her dislike of cooking has more to do with how Richard treated her cooking, his indifference forcing her to hate it.

The chapter also works in a frequent motif throughout the novel: podcasts. Since her divorce, psychology podcasts have been therapeutic for Vanessa, but they also poignantly comment on pertinent themes. When she recalls the speaker’s words, “Our genes are not our destiny” but “addiction is hereditary,” she reveals her fear of inheriting her mother’s unnamed mental illness (111). She also acknowledges her own obsession with her replacement, self-conscious of her addiction to this young woman.

Nellie is similarly obsessed with Richard’s ex, but only for brief moments. Nellie’s obsession for Richard, however, takes precedence, as she again neglects her friendships for him. Chapter 11 begins to build the picture of her upcoming wedding, which Richard predominantly controls. Since he has paid for everything aside from the photographer, Nellie knows very little about the rest, but she doesn’t mind. In fact, her appreciation for Richard’s efforts suggests that she’d rather have less to do with the wedding planning than more. She doesn’t stop to wonder at Richard’s reluctance to have the wedding in New York. The revelation is subtle but substantial, hinting at a darker reason Richard would want to have the wedding far away.

The chapter also delicately develops the trauma Nellie suffered as a college student in Florida through her interaction with the frat guys. However, rather than taking herself out of the situation, as she has often done when feeling threatened, she chooses a small but satisfactory act of revenge. The action alludes to a desire for retaliation that stems from something larger than this brief but disturbing interaction.

In Chapter 12, the sense that Vanessa is going to do something dangerous grows. Though she doesn’t admit to where she’s been all day, it is clear from the salads she brings home that she was by—if not in—Richard’s fiancée’s apartment. The sense that she has done or is planning something terrible builds as she worries about how Charlotte will react afterwards. Receiving the package from Richard intensifies her desperation to intervene in his upcoming marriage, the delivery of the wedding album marking his moving on. The diamond choker, which Vanessa never wore nor liked, represents her role in the marriage—it is lovely and lavish but a collar all the same and a symbol of belonging to Richard. Receiving the final remnants of her marriage reminds Vanessa of the urgency of her situation, forcing her to redouble her efforts to reach her replacement. The tension between the two women is rising, and the chapter hints at a coming confrontation.