The Wife Between Us

When grabbing an envelope for her letter to Emma from Charlotte’s room, Vanessa sees a postcard with a German shepherd on it and gasps.

It looks just like Duke, the dog Richard brought home to make her feel safer. Vanessa’s insomnia returned after the night she spent in Richard’s city apartment, and her husband noticed. When Duke first arrived, Vanessa was wary of his massive paws and sharp teeth, but soon he became her greatest companion. Vanessa and Duke would walk for miles, greeting neighbors Vanessa had never met, and the dog would curl up beside her as she read. For the first time since she’d moved to suburbs, Vanessa was happy. Richard noticed the change and joked that Vanessa loves the dog more than him. Secretly, Vanessa thought that her love for Duke was the “purest, most uncomplicated affection” she had ever felt (246).

Suddenly, Duke disappeared. Vanessa had taken Duke out on a long hike and returned just in time to answer a call from Richard. He asked if she’d picked up the dry cleaning and, having forgotten, Vanessa rushed out the door to do so. Vanessa returned to a cold and empty house, then searched the neighborhood to find Duke without success. At the dry cleaner’s, Mrs. Lee said that Richard had just called to ask if his shirts were done. This struck Vanessa as strange because if he had called the dry cleaner’s, then he would have known Vanessa hadn’t picked up the shirts before he asked her.

She didn’t ask her husband about it immediately, but when she found a toy of Duke’s, her resolve crumbled. She poured herself a few glasses of vodka and sat in the den. Richard found her there when he came home. He went to comfort her, and Vanessa told him she wanted a break from the fertility medication. Richard was upset at first, saying it should be a joint decision. This stirred Vanessa’s dormant anger and she asked Richard if it was a “joint decision to get rid of Duke?” (250). Vanessa realized how good it felt to challenge Richard, but in doing so she has broken the most important unspoken rule of their relationship. Angrily, Richard denied that he had any role in Duke’s disappearance, calling Vanessa irrational and crazy. When his anger ebbed, Vanessa’s softened as well, and she decided to believe her husband. From then on, the empty house was torturous for her. 

On her way to work, Vanessa receives a call from her boss, Lucille. She tells Vanessa not to come in and fires her. When Lucille says she’ll mail her last check, Vanessa asks if she can pick it up, hoping to convince Lucille to give her another chance. Beforehand, she attempts to deliver the letter to Emma at her office but the guard tells her that Emma no longer works there. Incensed because she recognizes that Richard probably asked her to quit, Vanessa takes the picture of Duke out of her wallet, places it in an envelope with Richard’s name on it, and asks the guard to take it up to him. She decides she will go to Emma’s apartment again after Saks, repeating “save her” to herself the entire way.

Vanessa thinks of Maggie once again and how she was too late to save the young pledge. Vanessa returned from her encounter with Daniel to notice Maggie’s absence. The other pledges swore that they’d seen Maggie come out of the water, but Vanessa realized that the aggressively rowdy frat boys had as well. The boys had seen the pledges strip and jump into the water, hooting and hollering at them from the beach. When they emerged, the boys had withheld their clothes from them. Maggie, who was painfully shy, had retreated back into the waves. When her body was pulled from the ocean, Vanessa released a long, drawn-out scream. She blamed herself for the girl’s death, and so did the media. Her name and image were printed along with the fact that she’d planned the event and was supposed to be caring for Maggie. Vanessa refuses to let Emma disappear the way Maggie did—and the way Vanessa did.