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 16-18 Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapter 16 Summary

Vanessa remembers the time she came across a “jumper,” the woman’s mangled body covered in a blanket. She recalls how struck she was to see a blue, low-heeled pump, wondering if the woman it belonged to had planned to die that day, or if something had suddenly pushed her to it. Now, years later, she understands that it was both. She, too, feels she has reached a boiling point but that she was always heading towards it. She envisions her replacement on her wedding day and obsesses over preventing it. Unable to sleep, Vanessa spends the night going over an unspoken plan that will put her in the path of Richard’s fiancée and allow her to beg the young woman not to marry Richard.

Morning comes, and she puts on a dress Richard once loved on her and carefully makes up her face. She heads to the salon, aware of her roots peeking out of her dark hair. The stylist asks her what she wants, and Vanessa holds up a picture of a beautiful, blond young woman—a picture of herself.

Part 1, Chapter 17 Summary

Nellie packs up the rest of her things for her honeymoon, overpacking because she still doesn’t know where Richard is taking her. Nellie takes a call from her mother, who expresses reservations about the marriage, particularly worrying that Nellie will lose herself. Her mother points out that Richard bought the two of them a spa package without asking first—Nellie’s mother hates spas, and facials make Nellie break out. Feeling protective of Richard, Nellie quickly ends the conversation with her mother and finishes packing. She realizes she can’t find her late father’s blue handkerchief, which planned to wrap around her bouquet. Richard comes in, and Nellie explains the reason behind her frazzled state. Immediately, he lifts the suitcase and finds the blue square beneath it. Nellie, relieved and grateful, follows Richard out to his car, thinking that her mother just doesn’t understand: “Richard fixed everything” (156).

Part 1, Chapter 18 Summary

Vanessa approaches her replacement, feeling calm and ready for the moment she has anticipated for so long. She takes in the sight of the younger woman, realizing that they look so much alike that they could be sisters. However, the person Vanessa is now is very different from the one she was when she was with Richard. Since her wedding at the age of 27, she has transformed. She is no longer the optimistic preschool teacher who loved dancing with her friends—she has lost every one of them since her marriage. Vanessa reveals that it was Richard who nicknamed her Nellie, and only he ever called her that. Now, she emphasizes, she is only Vanessa.

Vanessa recalls how Richard would tell the story of how they first met: He watched her hand some of her cookie to a crying boy and then offered his first-class seat to the soldier sitting beside her so he could speak to her. Vanessa was surprised Richard wasn’t married—he seemed so perfect. Later, she learned he had a dark-haired ex. After their engagement, Richard’s ex haunted her. Someone was indeed following Vanessa, but it wasn’t Richard’s ex; she reveals this but elaborates no more. As soon as Richard met Vanessa, he began calling her Nellie because she was such a “nervous Nellie” on the flight (160). Although Vanessa hated the name, she never told Richard to stop and was Nellie throughout their entire relationship. Now, “Nellie is gone forever” (161). Back in the present, Vanessa confronts her replacement, telling the nervous young woman that she must know the truth about Richard.

Part 1, Chapters 16-18 Analysis

In Chapter 16, Vanessa’s mental and emotional anguish has driven her to madness. When she recalls the jumper’s body she passed years ago, Vanessa reveals the extent of her deteriorating mental health. She likens her anticipated encounter with her replacement to that of that woman’s suicide—seeing it as a climactic end to something. This change is marked by Vanessa’s decision to dye her hair. Hair color acts as a symbol of autonomy throughout the novel. Vanessa’s dark hair is in stark contrast to the soft blond of her replacement’s. It is also not her natural color. Vanessa’s decision to abandon the blond locks, which her husband clearly adored, illustrates her freedom from him; in returning to them, Vanessa shows to her replacement their similarity, or interchangeability.

The concerns Nellie’s mother expresses in Chapter 17 reveal the ways in which Richard has begun to control Nellie’s life. The problem with the gift of the spa package is not the gift itself, but how little Richard knows of his wife and her family. Nellie’s refusal to simply tell Richard the truth is indicative of how their marriage will function: Rather than recognizing the toxicity of his controlling nature, Nellie will feel grateful towards Richard because of the comfort and safety he offers her and therefore will never speak out against him. This is clearly an abusive tactic of Richard’s. Richard controls nearly every aspect of Nellie’s life under the pretense of spoiling or protecting her—and it works. Nellie, who has spent her life feeling unstable and vulnerable, finds an unprecedented level of security in her relationship: “She’d be safe with him no matter where they lived” (156). To Nellie, finding someone safe and reliability is paramount, even if it comes at the expense of her autonomy.

Chapter 18’s big reveal that Nellie is Vanessa’s younger self—the woman she was with Richard—begins to reveal the truth of her relationship with Richard. The tensions between truth and falsity have played against each other, building up to this point. Vanessa, though she was initially presented as an unreliable narrator, finally begins to share a more complete account of her relationship. When she reveals that “Richard nicknamed [her] Nellie” and that was all he ever called her, Vanessa exposes the beginning of Richard’s control over her (158). She never liked the name but never told him because she was “his Nellie.” From the beginning, she was groomed to be someone other than herself: a wife for Richard. The chapter further alludes to their dark and possibly abusive relationship with Vanessa’s plea to her replacement that she wants to tell her the truth about Richard. Truth, here, is a significant theme because it has been and continues to be evasive in the novel.