Chapter 14

14

I still remember the day everything changed.

It was nearly a year after we were married. We were sitting together on the love seat in our living room, as we often did. I was reading a book, and Grant had his laptop resting on his knees.

I believed he was working, but all of a sudden, he poked me in the arm and said, "Alice, what color is this dress?"

I put down my book and looked over his shoulder at the photograph of a short dress with stripes and ruffled sleeves. "It's white and gold."

Grant tossed back his head and laughed. "No, it's actually blue and black."

"It looks white and gold to me."

"How could you think such a thing?" He snorted. "Are you blind, Alice? It's very clearly blue and black."

I shrugged. "I don't know what to tell you. I think it looks white and gold."

The smile quickly faded from his lips, which set into a straight line. "What is wrong with you? How could you look at this dress and see white and gold?"

"I just… do."

"Well, you need to get your eyes examined, then. Or maybe your brain." There was no trace of humor on his face anymore. We had been together two years, and he'd never spoken that way to me before. "This is unacceptable. I can't believe I'm married to a woman who is too stupid to tell the difference between white and gold versus blue and black."

"Sorry?"

"Sorry!" he burst out. He flung his laptop onto our overpriced coffee table, and the screen shattered. "That's not an acceptable answer! The dress in that picture is clearly blue and black. I want to hear you say it."

I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

"The dress is blue and black," he spit at me. "I. Want. To. Hear. You. Say. It."

I could only shake my head. "I'll say it if you want. But to me, it does look white and gold."

Grant stared at me, seething with anger. Without another word, he got up off the sofa and stormed out of our home, slamming the door behind him as he left. I could hear his Mercedes zooming away, into the distance.

He didn't return for two days.

I was worried sick. I called the police, but when I told them that he had left of his own accord, they informed me that they would have to wait seventy-two hours to investigate. They were kind to me, though. They said that it's normal for newlyweds to have little lovers' quarrels. They told me he would probably come home with his tail tucked between his legs and an apology.

And that was exactly what happened. Grant returned home two days later, carrying a huge bouquet of flowers and a gift-wrapped box with my name on it. He encircled me in his arms, and although it took a few moments for me to thaw, I eventually relaxed into his hug. Every couple argued—I supposed in our case, it was just a matter of the honeymoon finally being over.

"The flowers are beautiful," I told him.

"Not as beautiful as you."

I felt a deep sense of relief. Yes, I was still mad at Grant for disappearing for two days, but it was inevitable that Grant and I would have our first fight. It was good to finally get it over with so we could move on with our lives.

Grant thrust the gift box into my hands. "And this is for you as well, my love."

Inside was an ornate white box with a gold ribbon on top. It was so beautiful I almost didn't want to open it. I brought the gift to the sofa and set it down on the coffee table in front of me. I undid the ribbon and carefully lifted the top off the box. My heart skipped a beat when I saw what was inside.

Grant was watching me, a strange expression on his face. "What color is the dress, Alice?"

I peered down at the silk dress folded inside the white box. "It's blue and black," I said numbly.

"Right," he said in a slow voice, like he thought I was stupid. "And what color are the box and ribbon?"

"White and gold."

"Very good. Now do you see the difference?"

I still wonder what would have happened if I had simply agreed with him. But instead, I said, "But the dress in the photo looked different."

"No, it didn't!" Grant was shouting now, loud enough, it seemed, for the whole neighborhood to hear. "The dress in the photo is that exact same dress! You were wrong, Alice. Wrong!"

He grabbed his phone from inside his pants pocket. He unlocked the screen and then shoved the phone into my face. That striped dress was on the screen.

"What color is the dress?" he demanded to know.

"White and gold," I whispered.

" What color is the dress? "

I burst into hot tears, which streamed down my cheeks.

My husband's face turned vivid scarlet. He looked as angry as I had ever seen him—as I had ever seen anyone . "Put on the dress," he growled.

"I…" I wiped tears from my eyes with the back of my hand. "I'll wear it some other time, okay?"

"If you don't put on that dress," he hissed at me, "I'll have you locked away."

"Locked away?" I stared at him in astonishment. "For what?"

"For hallucinating!" He waved his phone with the picture of the gold-and-white dress. "I could do it if I wanted. The director of the psychiatric ward is my father's brother's nephew's cousin's former college roommate. He'll do whatever I want him to do—trust me."

I rose from the sofa, my hands clenched into fists. "You can't do that to me. You can't ."

"I can if you don't do what I tell you!" Now his face was the deep purple of a ripe eggplant. "Put on the dress right now !"

I had never been so frightened in my entire life. I ran upstairs to the bedroom and locked the door behind me. He pounded on it, shouting at the top of his lungs. He tried to push the dress through the gap between the door and the floor, but it didn't fit. At one point, I was certain he would break down the door, but he didn't. Eventually, he calmed down.

But it was never the same after that. Grant became relentless. One morning, I opened my closet, and all my outfits had been replaced with blue-and-black dresses. When I would get out of the shower, a blue-and-black dress would be waiting on the bed for me to put on for the day. For my birthday, he gave me a cake with blue icing and the words "Happy Birthday, Alice" spelled out in black letters.

To the entire world, we seemed like the perfect couple. They had no idea what was going on behind closed doors. The rest of the world got bored of debating the color of that dress and moved on to other things, like that BBC guy whose kids burst in during his interview. But for us, the white-and-gold dress had taken over our lives.

Then Grant announced that he wanted to have a baby. When he presented me with a onesie with blue-and-black stripes, I decided right then and there that I could never bring a child into our marriage. So I took precautions to keep from getting pregnant.

It couldn't go on like this forever, though. Grant was a ticking time bomb. One day, my neighbors would find me strangled in the bathroom with a blue-and-black silk scarf. Before that happened, I had to do something about it.

But Grant would never let me leave. That was one thing I was sure of. I was one of his possessions, and he would never give me up. No, there was only one way to escape my marriage, and that was if one of us was dead.