The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks

Author:Greer Hendricks
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

CHAPTER

TWENTY-THREE

SLEEP ELUDES ME AGAIN that night as I recall every detail of my encounter with Richard.

When I finally drift off, he visits me in my dream, too.

He approaches me as I lie in bed. His fingertips trace my lips, then he kisses me tenderly, slowly, first on my mouth and then working his way down my neck. He lifts up my nightgown with one hand, then moves his mouth lower. My hips begin to move involuntarily. I choke back a groan as my body betrays me by growing warm and pliant.

Then he pins me to the mattress, his torso crushing mine, his hands trapping my wrists. I try to push him off, to make him stop, but he’s too strong.

Suddenly, I realize it isn’t me beneath Richard—it isn’t my hands being held down, or my lips parting.

It is Emma.

I jerk awake and sit upright. My breath comes in choppy gasps. I look around my bedroom, desperate to center myself.

I hurry to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face to erase the sensations that linger from my dream. I grip the hard edges of the sink until my breathing finally slows.

* * *

I climb back into bed, thinking of how my heart clattered and my skin tingled when I was dreaming of Richard. I still feel the aftereffects of that treacherous response to him.

How could I have been aroused by him, even in a dream?

Then 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.

Is that what Emma is experiencing? I wonder. Is that what I encountered, too?

I am too shaken to fall back asleep.

I lie there as images of Richard’s visit batter my mind. It was both vivid and fleeting—like a mirage—and as the long night stretches on, I begin wonder if it actually happened, or if it also was just part of my dream.

Was anything of the previous evening real? I wonder.

I walk in the first shimmer of morning gold, as if in a trance, to my armoire. I slide open the top drawer. The check is nestled among my socks.

As I put it back, I look down and see the white satin cover of our wedding album. This is the only physical documentation of my marriage that I have.

I can’t imagine I will ever want to view the photographs again after today, but I need to view them a final time.

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