51 pages • 1-hour read
Happy Wife
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Chapters 14-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 14 Summary: “Before”
In a flashback, as Will and Nora grow closer, the Winter Park gossip mill grows even fiercer—Nora feels as if she can’t go anywhere without people watching her and resenting her for her relationship with such a prominent citizen. Worried that news of their relationship will reach Will’s ex-wife Constance, Nora asks him to stop being so affectionate towards her in public. Will reveals that he has already told Constance about them, surprising Nora, who takes it as a sign that he is more serious about her than she thought. Will suggests that they take a trip to New York City to escape the gossip mill in Winter Park.
Chapter 15 Summary
Nora and Will spend a romantic, luxurious weekend together in New York City visiting museums, eating at expensive restaurants, and enjoying as much public affection as they want. While in New York, Nora allows herself to imagine what it would be like to be with Will full-time. On their arrival back at Winter Park, Will promises Nora that they will return to New York at Christmas. Nora takes this as confirmation that he is also thinking about a future with her.
When they arrive at Will’s house, Nora discovers that Will’s ex-wife Constance has stolen the most expensive wine in his cellar. Will declines to call the police. In hindsight, Nora believes she should have questioned this decision.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Three Days After”
In the present, Nora frantically searches the internet for information about Dean Morrison, whose phone number she found in Will’s desk. When she sees a news report about Will featuring a photo she does not recognize, Nora realizes that his ex-wife Constance has been speaking to the press. In the same news report, she learns that Dean Morrison is the man who crashed his car into her neighbor Carol’s fence several days prior, and that he died as a result of injuries in the crash.
Mia arrives at the house and reveals that, contrary to what Will said, she was not the one who called Will the night of the party. Nora realizes that everything she believes about the night of the disappearance is wrong.
Chapter 17 Summary
Winter Park police call Nora into the station. On arrival, Nora spots a man attempting to film her secretly. Detective Ardell reveals that boaters found a shirt with Will’s name on it floating in a lake, and Nora identifies it as the shirt he was wearing the night of the party.
Nora realizes that Ardell is studying her closely, and that she has become a suspect in the disappearance. Desperate, she asks Ardell about Dean Morrison and the phone number she found in Will’s desk. Ardell insists there’s no connection. Feeling she cannot trust him, Nora decides not to tell him that Mia was not the one who called Will the night he disappeared.
Chapter 18 Summary: “Before”
In a flashback, three months after they first start dating, Will forgets his briefcase at home and asks Nora to deliver it to his office. Nora is delighted that Will is letting her into his life, but worries about what his colleagues will think when they see her wearing her date-night clothes from the previous night.
Outside the building, Nora is stopped by Will’s partner Fritz, who openly propositions her. When Will appears, he kisses Nora possessively and introduces her as his girlfriend. The success of this meeting prompts Will to formally introduce Nora to his daughter Mia as his girlfriend. Although Nora and Mia get along, the evening is ruined by Constance, who storms into the house and insults Nora viciously.
Chapter 19 Summary: “Four Days After”
In the present, unable to sleep and waiting for news about Will, Nora wakes up early to go for a run. While out, she sees the mysterious grey car that has been following her since Will’s disappearance. She tries to avoid it, but it nearly hits her.
On her arrival home, Nora is horrified to find that news stations are reporting the discovery of Will’s shirt, and that they have identified her as a person of interest. Nora decides that Constance must be behind the leaks and drives to her house to confront her. Constance admits that she gave the news a picture of Will, but she denies any involvement in the other leaks. As Nora leaves, Constance reveals that Will told her that their marriage was falling apart before his disappearance.
Chapter 20 Summary
On the drive home from Constance’s house, Nora realizes that she is once again being followed by the grey car. She forces the driver to rear-end her and jumps out to confront him.
The driver introduces himself as Perry Conroy and explains that he is a friend of Dean Morrison, who was a private investigator hired by Will. Conroy explains that Will hired Morrison because he couldn’t trust the private investigators in Winter Park, but claims not to know what he was investigating. Conroy and Morrison had been friends with Will’s father Roger and took care of Will after Roger’s death. Nora realizes that she does not know as much about her husband as she thought.
Chapter 21 Summary: “Before”
In a flashback, Nora and Will spend several weeks apart as Will isolates himself in a hotel working on a case. When the firm wins the case in mediation, Nora and Will attend a celebratory party at Fritz’s house. At the party, Nora meets popular party planner Autumn, who fills her in on the most important Winter Park gossip.
A few days later, Will and Nora fly to the Caribbean island of Nevis. When Will learns that his contact information is still saved in Nora’s phone under the name “Hot Mean Lawyer,” he proposes to her with a ring made of straw. Although they have been dating for less than a year, Nora accepts, and the pair marry that day. Despite her joy, Nora worries it’s too soon.
Chapter 22 Summary
On their return to Winter Park, Will and Nora organize a wedding celebration with Autumn’s help. The celebration is dampened by a loud fight between Will and Fritz, who is furious that Will would marry without asking Nora to sign a prenuptial agreement to protect their firm in the case of a divorce. Will insists that his personal life is not Fritz’s business. Nora overhears party guests calling her a gold-digger, and she drinks too much.
When Autumn sends her away to sober up, Nora meets her next-door neighbor, Este. Este’s honesty, carefree attitude, and eagerness to help Nora stand up to the Winter Park crowd make them instant friends.
Chapter 23 Summary: “Four Days After”
In the present, Nora receives a call from Fritz, who admonishes her for being photographed getting Botox and attending workout classes while Will is missing. She confronts him about the shirt news leaking and Constance’s involvement, and she is infuriated when he seems to take Constance’s side. Nora decides she cannot trust him.
She returns home to find reporters lining her street and Detective Ardell waiting with Este inside her house. Ardell asks whether Will had a life insurance policy and requests a guest list for Will’s party. He also questions the state of Nora’s marriage. Nora insists that their marriage was strong but suspects that Este knows she is lying. After a fight, Este leaves.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Before”
In a flashback, in the weeks after the wedding party, Nora and Este become close friends. Este has a habit of letting herself into Nora’s home without asking, but Nora is so grateful to have a friend that she doesn’t mind. Having quit her job after the wedding, Nora has hours of free time during the day, and she spends most of it with Este. When Will works late or travels, Nora eats dinner and spends her evenings with Este and her husband, Beau.
One night, while Nora and Este are shopping for ingredients, Will calls unexpectedly to complain about a bad day and asks Nora to come be with him. Nora agrees, cancelling her plans with Este and Beau.
Chapters 14-24 Analysis
In this section of Happy Wife, protagonist Nora loses control of events in her life in both the primary narrative and the flashbacks describing the start of her relationship with Will, further complicating the present-day Nora’s experience of The Complex Nature of Grief. The parallel structure of the past and present narratives suggests that Nora’s perfect marriage may not be what it seems.
As the investigation into Will’s disappearance continues, Nora has a series of revelations that fracture her picture of her life by suggesting that her husband did not trust her. In Chapter 16, Will’s daughter Mia reveals that she was not the one who called Will on the night he disappeared. This revelation not only changes Nora’s understanding of the events of that night, but also reveals that Will lied to her, something she previously hadn’t thought possible. Later, Mia’s mom and Will’s first wife Constance reveals that Will had told her “he wasn’t happy” and that his marriage to Nora “was falling apart” (113). In both these episodes, Will’s first family disrupts Nora’s sense of the new life they were building together by suggesting that Will was not happy and did not trust her.
Nora’s encounter with Perry Conroy also suggests that Will did not fully trust her. Conroy reveals that Will had recently hired a man named Dean Morrison as a private investigator, shocking Nora. Nora knows that her husband has previously worked with private investigators in Winter Park, and she realizes that “hiring someone from outside his usual network would be a great way to keep the details of what Will was looking for out of the gossip mill” (117). Conroy admits that he has been following her, and asks whether Will would have any reason to investigate her. Like her conversations with Mia and Constance, Nora’s conversation with Conroy suggests that Will did not fully trust her, fracturing her picture of their relationship. Nora’s grief thus becomes more complicated, as she realizes that her husband may not have loved or trusted her the way she assumed.
Nora’s conversation with Conroy also demonstrates that Nora does not know basic facts about her husband’s life. Conroy reveals that he and Dean Morrison were close friends with Will’s father Roger, and that they helped Will attend law school after Roger’s death. Shocked, Nora questions, “[H]ow can I not know these things about the man I am married to?” (118). The fact that Nora does not know such basic facts about her husband once again reinforces the idea of secrecy and mistrust in their marriage, leaving Nora to wrestle both with Will’s disappearance and her rapidly disintegrating sense of stability and trust in their union.
In the “Before” chapters, Nora similarly loses control of her life as she forges her relationship with Will. This parallel loss of control in the two narratives further suggests that Nora’s relationship with Will was not perfect. As soon as Nora and Will start dating seriously, she molds her life to meet his. After three months, Nora “barely went home anymore” (100), instead spending all her time at Will’s house. Nora describes how, “every few days, [she] quietly rounded up any clothes that had accumulated at Will’s place and took them home” (101), retrieved new clothes, and returned to Will’s. Nora’s claim that this pattern “was [her] playing ‘the cool girl’” indicates that she did not want to live this way but was doing so to please Will (101), suggesting that he is gaining control of her life.
The novel’s description of Will’s romantic gestures also suggest that he is the controlling partner in their relationship, reinforcing the sense of an unequal power dynamic and highlighting the socioeconomic aspect of The Power of Cliques in the novel. In Chapter 21, Will calls Nora out of the blue “to announce we were leaving in the morning” even though she “hadn’t seen him in weeks” because of his work schedule (121). Although Nora is annoyed by Will’s chronic absences, she feels she can’t complain about how he treats her because she “was so acutely aware of how Constance’s criticisms of his workaholic ways had ended their marriage” (147). Nora agrees to take a week off work for the trip in order to please Will, even though, as a person with a minimal income, such time off means a significant loss of income for her. Her compliance and timidity in asserting herself suggest that, as a working-class woman, she feels intimidated by Will’s social prestige and the high-flying lifestyle he maintains.
While on the trip, Will proposes to Nora and suggests that they marry the same day. Again, Nora agrees, despite the presence of, “a tiny voice in the back of [her] head […] a whisper of hesitation [she] couldn’t shake no matter how hard [she] tried” telling her that “it’s too soon” (128). In both of these instances, Will’s seemingly romantic gestures have an undercurrent of control, as he tells Nora what to do and when to do it, regardless of how she feels at the time. Nora’s loss of control in these “Before” chapters reflects her loss of control in the primary narrative, as Will’s disappearance exposes her vulnerable social and emotional position.
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