The Wife Between Us

Sarah Pekkanen, Greer HendricksFiction | 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

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Part 3, Chapter 40-Epilogue Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3, Chapter 40 Summary

Sometime later, Vanessa visits Richard at the mental health facility where he agreed to spend 28 days to avoid prosecution. Maureen intercepts Vanessa before she can find Richard. When Maureen begins to cast Richard as the victim, Vanessa retorts in surprise that he was the attacker. Then, Maureen reveals that Richard was in the car crash that killed their parents. Vanessa realizes that the silver crescent-shaped scar above his eye and his fear of blood came from that crash, when he hung upside down for ages with his parents dead in front of him. Maureen tells Vanessa that their father had a very bad temper and would often harm his wife. When he was very angry, he would speed. She suspects that her father was arguing with her mother when they crashed.

Maureen asks Vanessa to “finally leave him alone,” and when Vanessa reminds her that Richard asked for her, Maureen asserts that her brother “doesn’t know what he wants” (375). She remembers Richard buying the wedding topper for their parents on their anniversary, hoping that the perfection of the figurines would inspire their parents to fall in love again. The topper, though, was hollow.