The Perfect Wife Read online

  The Perfect Wife is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Shippen Productions Ltd.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Hardback ISBN 9781524796747

  International edition ISBN 9781984819949

  Ebook ISBN 9781524796754

  randomhousebooks.com

  Title-page image: © iStockphoto.com

  Book design by Dana Leigh Blanchette, adapted for ebook

  Cover design: Carlos Beltrán

  Cover photograph: Gallery Stock

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  One

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Two

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Three

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Four

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Five

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Six

  Chapter 20

  Seven

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Eight

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Nine

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Ten

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Eleven

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Twelve

  Chapter 38

  Thirteen

  Chapter 39

  Fourteen

  Chapter 40

  Fifteen

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Sixteen

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Seventeen

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Eighteen

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Nineteen

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Twenty

  Chapter 59

  Twenty-one

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Twenty-two

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Twenty-three

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Twenty-four

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Twenty-five

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Twenty-six

  Chapter 84

  Epigraph

  Acknowledgments

  By JP Delaney

  About the Author

  When Pygmalion saw the way these women behaved, he was disgusted by the many faults nature has instilled in the female sex, and for a long time lived as a bachelor, without a wife to share his bed.

  —OVID,

  Metamorphoses

  What is love but another name for positive reinforcement?

  —B. F. SKINNER,

  Walden Two

  1

  You’re having that dream again, the one where you and Tim are in Jaipur for Diwali. Everywhere you look, every doorway and window, there are lanterns and candles, firecrackers and fairy lights. Courtyards have become flickering pools of flame, their entrances surrounded by intricate designs of colored rice paste. Drums and cymbals throb and sizzle. Surrendering to the din and confusion, you surge with the crowd through a market, the stallholders urging platters of sweets on you from every side. On an impulse you stop at a stall where a woman decorates skin with beautiful Hindi patterns, the smell of sandalwood from her brushes mingling with the acrid, savory cordite from the firecrackers and the aroma of kaaju, roasting cashew nuts. As she paints you, deft and quick, a cluster of young men dance past, their faces painted blue, their muscular torsos bare, then come back, dancing just for you, their expressions deadly serious. And then, the final touch, she paints a bindi on your forehead, right between your eyes, telling you how the scarlet dot marks you out as married, a woman with all the knowledge of the world. “But I’m not,” you protest, almost pulling away, fearful you’re going to offend some local sensibility, and then you hear Tim’s laugh and see the box he produces from his pocket and even before he goes down on one knee, right here in the midst of all this noise and mayhem, you know this is it, he’s really going to do it, and your heart overflows.

  “Abbie Cullen,” he begins, “ever since you erupted into my life, I’ve known we have to be together.”

  And then you’re waking up.

  Every part of you hurts. Your eyes are the worst, the bright lights searing into your skull, the ache in your brain connecting with the stiffness in your neck, soreness all the way down your spine.

  Machines beep and whir. A hospital? Were you in an accident? You try to move your arms. They’re stiff—you can barely bend your elbows. Painfully, you reach up and touch your face.

  Bandages encase your neck. You must have been in an accident of some kind, but you can’t remember it. That happens, you tell yourself groggily. People come around from crashes not remembering the impact, or even having been in a car. The important thing is, you’re alive.

  Was Tim in the car as well? Was he driving? What about Danny?

  At the thought that Danny or Tim might have been killed you almost gasp, but you can’t. Some change in the beeping machine, though, has alerted a nurse. A blue hospital uniform, a
woman’s waist, passes at eye level, adjusting something, but it hurts too much to look up at her.

  “She’s up and running,” she murmurs.

  “Thank God,” Tim’s voice says. So he’s alive, after all. And right here, by your bedside. Relief floods through you.

  Then his face appears, looking down at you. He’s wearing what he always wears: black jeans, a plain gray T-shirt, and a white baseball cap. But his face is gaunt, the lines deeper than you’ve ever seen them before.

  “Abbie,” he says. “Abbie.” His eyes glisten with tears, which fills you with alarm. Tim never cries.

  “Where am I?” Your voice is hoarse.

  “You’re safe.”

  “Was there an accident? Is Danny okay?”

  “Danny’s fine. Rest now. I’ll explain later.”

  “Have I had surgery?”

  “Later. I promise. When you’re stronger.”

  “I’m stronger now.” It’s true: Already the pain is receding, the fog and grogginess clearing from your head.

  “It’s incredible,” he says, not to you but the nurse. “Amazing. It’s her.”

  “I was dreaming,” you say. “About when you proposed. It was so vivid.” That’ll be the anesthetic, you realize. It makes things richer. Like that line from that play. What was it? For a moment the words elude you but then, with an almost painful effort, a clunk, you remember.

  I cried to dream again.

  Again Tim’s eyes fill with tears.

  “Don’t be sad,” you tell him. “I’m alive. That’s all that matters, isn’t it? We’re all three of us alive.”

  “I’m not sad,” he says, smiling through his tears. “I’m happy. People cry when they’re happy, too.”

  You knew that, of course. But even through the pain and the drugs you can tell those aren’t everything’s-going-to-be-all-right-now tears. Have you lost your legs? You try to move your feet and feel them—slowly, stiffly—responding under the blanket. Thank God.

  Tim seems to come to a decision.

  “There’s something I have to explain, my love,” he says, taking your hand in his. “Something very difficult, but you need to know right away. That wasn’t a dream. It was an upload.”

  2

  Your first thought is that you’re hallucinating—that this, not the dream about him proposing, is the bit that isn’t real. How can it be? What he’s saying to you now—a stream of technical stuff about mind files and neural nets—simply makes no sense.

  “I don’t understand. Are you saying something happened to my brain?”

  Tim shakes his head. “I’m saying you’re artificial. Intelligent, conscious…but man-made.”

  “But I’m fine,” you insist, baffled. “Look, I’ll tell you three random things about myself. My favorite meal is salade Niçoise. I was angry for weeks last year because my favorite cashmere jacket got eaten by moths. I go swimming almost every day—” You stop. Your voice, instead of reflecting your rising panic, is coming out in a dull, croaky monotone. A Stephen Hawking voice.

  “The damage to that jacket was six years ago,” Tim says. “I kept it, though. I’ve kept all your things.”

  You stare at him, trying to get your head around this.

  “I guess I’m not doing this very well.” He pulls a piece of paper from his pocket. “Here—I wrote this for our investors. Maybe it’ll help.”

  FAQ

  Q: What is a cobot?

  A: Cobot is short for “companion robot.” Studies with prototypes suggest the presence of a cobot may alleviate the loss of a loved one, providing solace, company, and emotional support in the aftermath of bereavement.

  Q: How will cobots differ from other forms of artificial intelligence?

  A: Cobots have been specifically designed to be empathetic.

  Q: Will each cobot be unique?

  A: Each cobot will be customized to closely replicate the physical appearance of the loved one. Social media records, texts, and other documents will be aggregated to create a “neural file” reflecting their unique traits and personality.

  There’s more, much more, but you can’t focus. You let the sheet fall from your hand. Only Tim could possibly imagine that a list of factual questions and answers could help at a time like this.

  “This is what you do,” you remember. “You design artificial intelligence. But that’s something to do with customer service—chatbots—”

  “That’s right,” he interrupts. “I was working on that side of it. But that was five years ago—your memories are all five years out of date. After I lost you, I realized bereavement was the bigger need. It’s taken all this time to get you to this stage.”

  His words take a moment to sink in. Bereavement. You’ve just realized what he’s trying to tell you.

  “You’re saying I died.” You stare up at him. “You’re saying the real me died—what? Five years ago. And you’ve somehow brought me back like this.”

  He doesn’t reply.

  You feel a mixture of emotions. Disbelief, obviously. But also horror at the thought of his grief, at what he must have been through. At least you were spared that.

  Cobots have been specifically designed to be empathetic…

  And Danny. You’ve missed five whole years of his life.

  At the thought of Danny, a familiar sadness washes over you. A sadness you firmly put to one side. And that, too—both the sadness, and the putting-aside—feels so normal, so ordinary, that it can’t be anything except your own, individual emotion.

  Can it?

  “Can I move?” you say, trying to sit up.

  “Yes. It’ll feel stiff at first. Careful—”

  You’ve just attempted to swing your legs onto the floor. They go in different directions, weak as a baby’s. He’s caught you just in time.

  “One foot, then the other,” he adds. “Shift your weight to each in turn. That’s better.” He holds your elbow to steady you as you head for the mirror.

  Each cobot will be customized to closely replicate the physical appearance of the loved one…

  The face that stares back at you above the collar of a blue hospital gown is your face. It’s puffy and bruised-looking, and there’s a faint line under your chin, like the strap of those hats soldiers wear on ceremonial parades. But it’s still unarguably you. Not something artificial.

  “I don’t believe you,” you say. You feel weirdly calm, but the conviction sweeps over you that nothing he’s saying can possibly be true, that your husband—your brilliant, adoring, but undeniably obsessive husband—has gone stark raving mad. He’s always worked too hard, driven himself right to the edge. Now, finally, he’s flipped.

  “I know it’s a lot to take in,” he says gently. “But I’m going to prove it to you. Look.”

  He reaches behind your head and fiddles with your hair. There’s a sucking sound, a strange, cold sensation, and then your skin, your face—your face—is peeling away like a wet suit, revealing the hard white plastic skull underneath.

  3

  You can’t cry, you discover. However great your horror, you can’t shed actual tears. It’s something they’re still working on, Tim says.

  Instead you stare at yourself, speechless, at the hideous thing you’ve become. You’re a crash-test dummy, a store-window mannequin. A bundle of cables dangles behind your head like some grotesque ponytail.

  He stretches the rubber back over your face, and you’re you again. But the memory of that horrible blank plastic is seared into your mind.

  If you even have a mind. As opposed to a neural net, or whatever he called it.

  In the mirror your mouth gapes silently. You can feel tiny motors under your skin whirring and stretching, pulling your expression into a rictus of dismay. And now that you look more closely, you realize this face is only an approximat
ion of yours, slightly out of focus, as if a photograph of you has been printed onto the exact shape of your head.

  “Let’s go home,” Tim says. “You’ll feel better there.”

  Home. Where’s home? You can’t remember. Then—clunk—amemory drops into place. Dolores Street, in central San Francisco.

  “I never moved,” he adds. “I wanted to stay where you’d been. Where we’d been so happy.”

  You nod numbly. You feel as if you ought to thank him. But you can’t. You’re trapped in a nightmare, immobile with shock.

  He takes your arm and guides you from the room. The nurse—if she was a nurse—is nowhere to be seen. As you walk with painful slowness down the corridor you glimpse other rooms, other patients in blue hospital gowns like yours. An old lady gazes at you with milky eyes. A child, a little girl with long brown ringlets, turns her head to watch you pass. Something about the movement—just a little farther than it should be, like an owl’s—makes you wonder. And then the next room contains, not a person, but a dog, a boxer, watching you exactly the same way—