We Are Us

Chapter 41 New York City

Two months later

I’ve never been so empty in all my life. My body is a vacant, vacuous cavity I can hardly stand to inhabit. My heart is an aching void that beats for no reason, every dull thud a betrayal of the two hearts that don’t.

Our glamorous penthouse apartment is nothing but a shell. Because, really, what is it holding? Grief.

Tucker is gone all the time now. Working, traveling, schmoozing. Maybe he’s even fucking Wren, too, because he’s sure as hell not fucking me. I ca

I want to laugh, nearly as much as I want to cry. Now that I’m empty inside, have I truly lost Tucker to Wren? We’ve known each other for nearly a decade now, but I’ve never considered Wren my friend. Frenemy, maybe. Nemesis is probably a more accurate description.

She would be only too happy to comfort him with open arms. And her pale, slender thighs with their gap in between when she stands up straight. Every bite of food I haven’t eaten, every bite I’ve thrown up over the years has been because of that gap.

Is that what I’ve spent so many years chasing? The empty space between Wren’s perfectly long, lean legs?

The joke is on me, I guess. I have no interest in food anymore. Not even to binge and purge. It’s been a long time since I put a finger down my throat, forcing myself to give up all the things I’d swallowed. Not since I began trying to conceive. This cycle has followed me, I guess. Full, then empty. I am empty now. So empty I don’t care if Tucker is having an affair with Wren. She can have him.

All the years I’ve spent, trying so hard to be the perfect girlfriend, the perfect fiancée, the perfect wife. Now look at me. My empty stomach is no longer as flat and firm as it once was. Stretch marks mar my hips. My hair is greasy and my roots are showing. And my clothes are the same ones I put on after getting home from the hospital and have barely taken off in the weeks since.

I’m an exile from Stepford.

All I want is to be a mother. Even an imperfect one.

Sadie has stopped looking for an apartment of her own, and she’s here more often than Tucker. Isla, too, although at least she knows to leave me alone. Sadie, not so much. She is constantly pestering me to take a shower, go for a walk, get some fresh air. Even Wren has taken advantage of the opportunity to come over, to see me at my worst. Oh, she says all the appropriate things, even schools her face into an expression of sympathy. But I know what she’s really doing. On the inside, she’s gloating. She’s saying to herself, I was right all along. Tucker should have never chosen you over me.

And maybe she’s right.

Wren aside, I don’t mind when Sadie and Isla coddle Tucker. These days, I’m certainly not. Sadie is now the one he shares the Sunday New York Times with, handing her the style section while he pores over everything else. And Isla hovers nearby whenever Tucker eats the meals she prepares for him, jumping up to grate fresh pepper over his food or refresh his drink before he can even ask.

I don’t want to look at Tucker, let alone cater to him. I don’t want to do much at all, actually. I am exhausted just brushing my teeth in the morning, and brushing my hair seems pointless. Why? I’m not going anywhere. The world outside these walls is chaotic, dangerous.

I might never go anywhere, ever again.

Mostly, I sit in my babies’ room, in their rocking chair. The drapery panels and blackout shades were installed, probably at the very moment I learned my son was dead and my daughter would be soon.

Offensive sunlight streams through the windows because I’m afraid to pull the shades. I’m afraid to touch anything, actually. Because if I do, I might just keep pulling and pulling. And then I might knock over the never-used furniture, tear apart the cribs, smash the chandelier, rip up the rug.

There is so much rage inside my body I don’t know how it hasn’t boiled over and consumed me. I am a lobster in a pot, cooking and cooking and cooking. When the water finally evaporates, all that will be left of me is a shell.

I hate Tucker. I hate him.

He brought me here, into his perfect life. And I fell for his trap. He is Tucker Stockton, how could he not have super sperm? I married into his family, knowing our children would be wi

But I was duped, that dream was a hoax. A mirage.

My body is empty, my husband feels like an enemy, and I am sitting in a room I decorated for two babies who aren’t alive to see it.

I think back to all the moments when I should have seen Tucker for who he really is—a mean, manipulative, controlling son of a bitch who has ruined my life.

There is his mistake, of course. Our original sin.

And then Tucker stepped in when I lost my scholarship. Later, once I was financially indebted to him—he compounded the fact by putting my mom in the most expensive rehab facility in New England. I know, because the bills came to me… so that every month I had to go to Tucker with my hand out.

Tucker bought me clothes that were too small, so I had to agonize over every calorie.

He hacked into my phone. And by then, I didn’t even put up a fight. I just accepted it, as if I didn’t deserve a shred of privacy.

Just like I accepted Wren joining us on our honeymoon and practically being a third person in our marriage.

Tucker convinced me to quit a job I loved.

Because of him, I gave up any hope of reco

But my eyes are wide open now, the veil swept aside. I’ve been thinking about that night again. Going over and over every detail in my head. And all those feelings, all those emotions I pushed down have risen to the surface. They are choking me.

I wouldn’t admit it back then, not even to myself, but I know it now. This is what it feels like to be raped.

God, I wish I was dead.

Almost as much as I wish Tucker was.

The only thing keeping me alive is the hatred ru

So I sit in the beautifully upholstered chair inside my quiet nursery with two empty cribs and walls the color of the winter sky, lit by sunshine and a dazzling crystal chandelier.

I rock and I rock and I rock.

And, one day, I will have my revenge.