The Silent Wife

Todd’s morning routine is brisk. On this particular day, he and his team are working on a six-unit apartment house, which, having been permitted and gutted, now awaits improvements. His assistant, Stephanie, arrives late. Todd likes to look at her crotch, thighs, and breasts, depending on what she’s wearing that day. They have a meeting about the toilets in the apartment building they are developing. Todd calls his young girlfriend, Natasha, and has a flirty conversation. He feels jealous of the younger men she could be going out with instead.

Todd calls Jodi on his way out of the office for the afternoon to remind her of his plans to have dinner with his friend Dean Kovacs that night. Dean is his oldest friend, a man he’s known since high school. Dean is also Natasha’s father. Todd is not sure how Dean will react when he finds out about the relationship, but he assumes it will be fine.

While driving to the building site to meet his foreman, Cliff, Todd reminisces about the accident that led to his meeting Jodi. He remembers the sight of her breasts under her rain-soaked t-shirt, but also how he was struck by her “bearing.” He calls Natasha again when he leaves the building site. Todd’s affair with Natasha feels different to him than his other affairs, not a “fling.” For this reason, Todd has agreed to spend the weekend away with her, at her insistence. To Todd, Jodi and Natasha are entirely separate and have nothing to do with each other. After going to the gym, Todd calls Natasha for a third time, then goes to meet Dean. Dean drinks quite a bit and makes lewd comments about women in the bar. Around midnight, when Todd and Dean part, Todd arranges to meet a sex worker at the Four Seasons hotel.

Todd being gone for the weekend upsets the rituals and routines that keep Jodi’s life moving. Jodi gets desperate enough for distraction to call her friend Alison, a peripheral friend that she met in a cooking class. Alison works in what Jodi implies is a gentleman’s club. They make plans to meet for dinner on Monday.

On a typical weekend, Todd spends his Saturday running errands, but Jodi still feels at loose ends with him being away. She takes a bath and falls asleep on the couch, then takes the dog on a walk by the lake. Back at the apartment, Jodi gets into bed and reads, distracting herself with the drama and tragedy of her novel.

Jodi reflects on her and Todd’s second date. After seeing The Crying Game, they walked in the cold for hours, sharing important truths from their lives. Jodi shared that her parents would sometimes go through long cycles of not speaking to each other; one lasted almost a year. Todd shared that his father had alcoholism and bullied his mother. Jodi told Todd that her father “wasn’t good at monogamy,” and Todd replied that “Monogamy wasn’t designed for men” (64). In hindsight, she thinks that this statement should have caught her attention, but it didn’t. That night they went back to the old house Todd was renovating and slept together.

After their weekend away, Todd drops Natasha off and goes home. He isn’t looking forward to spending the night in quiet comfort with Jodi. When he gets home, however, the rooms are full of fresh roses, Jodi has set out smoked oysters on crackers and white wine, and he finds her sunbathing half-naked on their balcony.

Todd reflects on the way he and Natasha had been treated at the inn over the weekend. Their obvious age difference had drawn disapproval from inn staff and the other guests. Over the weekend, Natasha also told Todd that spending the time together had changed things. She pushed him for a June wedding, though he could not remember having proposed in the first place. He put her off by saying he would need to talk to his lawyer first.

Jodi teasingly asks if Todd caught any fish. He likes that she isn’t going to punish him with the truth if she knows it. They go out to dinner and have sex that night for the first time in a month.

The next day, Todd discovers that the key to his office building is missing. He waits for the janitor, who is supposed to come in at eight o’clock, but arrives 12 minutes late. Todd is short-tempered and angry about the inconvenience. He berates the janitor, who quits without letting him into the building. Stephanie calls in sick. When Natasha calls to ask if Todd has spoken to his lawyer yet, he is short and dismissive with her. Natasha is upset by this, which Todd finds “wearing” in comparison to Jodi’s calm and poised behavior. Todd talks Natasha into meeting him for lunch. After the meal, she tells him that she’s pregnant. He is angry and says he thought she was on the pill. She seems confused by his reaction and says she thought he wanted to have children. She offers to have an abortion but reacts angrily when he asks if it’s still possible. He says that he doesn’t think she should tell her father, but she says she already told him. Todd asks what Dean said; Natasha tells him that her father was angry and threatened to “wring [Todd’s] neck” (80). Dean also said he was going to call Jodi. As soon as Natasha leaves, Todd calls Dean, hoping to calm him down and prevent him from telling Jodi. Dean is furious and threatens to have Todd arrested for sexual assault.

Todd paces in his office, trying to come to terms with the fact that his two lives—his official one with Jodi and his unofficial one with Natasha—will now be colliding. Things will have to change, and he feels out of control. When he goes home, Jodi’s parking spot is empty. She isn’t in the apartment, but Dean’s number is on their call log three times. Todd goes to the Drake Hotel bar and drinks, which relaxes him. He remembers that he does want a child. He tries to call Natasha to celebrate, but she doesn’t answer. He wants to preserve his good mood, so he buys a round of drinks for everyone at the bar.

Jodi begins her Monday morning by efficiently setting aside her misgivings about Todd’s weekend activities, feeling that stealing his office key has been enough revenge. She sees a couple of patients and then goes about her typical afternoon schedule. She has a message from Alison to confirm dinner and one from Dean Kovacs. She calls Dean back and leaves him a message. She drops off the dry cleaning, where the dry cleaner finds an object in Todd’s pocket.

At a professional seminar, she shows the object to a psychiatrist. It is a bottle of Eszopiclone, a type of sleeping pills, prescribed to Natasha Kovacs. Jodi wonders how they got into Todd’s pocket and tries to picture Natasha, who she has not seen in several years. She brings home the framed Rajput painting and admires its detail anew. Suddenly, with a “sickening” realization, she understands the connection between Natasha’s sleeping pills and Dean’s attempts to reach her. When Dean calls again, Jodi answers. At dinner, Alison tells Jodi all of the news from the Garnet Club, where she works, and Jodi happily lets her talk while she herself settles in. Before they get dessert, Jodi admits to feeling dizzy. Alison insists on escorting Jodi home, where Jodi confesses to Alison about Todd’s and Natasha’s affair and pregnancy. She tells Alison that, according to Dean, Todd plans to marry Natasha.

After Alison leaves, Jodi tidies up and goes through her nighttime routine. She does not confront Todd when he gets home, instead acting as though everything is normal. Todd asks if she talked to Dean, and Jodi says she hasn’t. She makes him a mug of Ovaltine, into which she has crushed all 11 of Natasha’s sleeping pills. He drinks it and tells her he loves her.

By the morning, Todd has not moved from the spot in bed where Jodi had left him the night before. Killing him was not Jodi’s intention. It had simply seemed logical to her that Todd should “be the one to ingest them” because he’d been “careless enough to leave them” in his pocket (111). Todd sleeps through the morning. Jodi doesn’t think that 11 sleeping pills would be enough to kill him, but she knows there will be questions if she has to call emergency services.

Todd wakes that afternoon feeling groggy and sick. He can’t believe that he slept so late. Natasha calls and asks if he’s told Jodi yet, but Todd says that he hasn’t. Natasha asks what happened after Jodi spoke to Dean, and Todd says she hasn’t. Natasha tells him that Dean told Jodi everything the day before. Todd reflects on Jodi’s self-possession, even though he acknowledges that she must suffer. He reflects on his tumultuous relationship with his father, including the night when Todd was 16 and finally fought back against his father for physically abusing his mother. He compares his mother to Jodi, but assures himself that he is not as bad as his father was. He goes to sit with Jodi and apologizes for ruining her afternoon. She tells him she will make him chicken soup and suggests he go back to bed.

Jodi feels vindicated by her success with the sleeping pills. With the emotional surge behind her, she now doubts Dean’s version of the story. She decides that Todd has no intention of marrying Natasha and must be in the affair for the short term. She congratulates herself for being “stable, mature, and loyal, capable of holding a marriage together” and credits her sanity to a happy childhood and a course of psychotherapy during her extended schooling (129). A professor of hers suggested psychotherapy as a way to build empathy for her own patients.

Jodi reflects on her experience with therapy; her therapist, Gerard Hartmann, was a big man who Jodi liked. When they began working together, they went through Jodi’s earliest memories, which Jodi now recalls in dialogue that reads like a script. Jodi explains that she’d seen psychotherapy as a calling since she was a child, when she had been the only one able to calm down her younger brother, Ryan, who “was prone to nightmares, tantrums, and self-biting” (135). Jodi did not have high hopes for therapy. She saw it as part of her education rather than as a method to solve problems—chiefly because she did not see herself as having problems that needed solving. Yet, in the same exchange, Jodi tells a story about finding out that her father was having an affair.