“Is that what you thought was happening when he disappeared nine years ago?”
“Ten,” I correct her. “It will be ten in a few days. And, yes. That’s what I thought was happening. I thought it wouldn’t be more than a few days. A week at the most. Then I realized it was something much more. I haven’t heard from him since.”
“How about Greg? Did he go away like that, too?” she asks.
“No. He was the most dependable, predictable person I ever knew. He never left without telling me exactly where he was going and how long he would be gone. That was never more than two days. When he disappeared, there was no warning and no explanation.”
“You mentioned the two of you ended your relationship shortly before he disappeared. If the two of you were no longer dating, why would you expect an explanation for why he was leaving?” she asks.
There’s an accusatory note in her voice, faint behind the words and hidden more by her not lifting her eyes to look at me when she asks the question. It doesn’t affect me. It’s not like this is the first time I’ve had someone ask that, either in words or in the way they looked at me. I know why they ask it, but I don’t care.
“I didn’t expect an explanation. Him disappearing is even stranger because he broke up with me. It’s like he knew it was going to happen and didn’t want me involved. That’s why I’m still looking for him.”
“That’s why you went to Maine recently,” she says.
“Yes. There was a tip that suggested he might be there, so I went to follow up on it.”
“But you’re not actually involved in the investigation.”
“No. As a matter of fact, I’ve been specifically told not to interfere. Which is why I went for the weekend on my own dime.”
“And did you find anything?”
I let out a breath.
“No. The tip didn’t pan out, and I don’t have anything else to go on right now.”
I’m relieved when the virtual assistant positioned on the corner of her desk tells the therapist our time is up. She calls out to it to tell the alarm to stop as she stands and extends her hand to me in our customary end-of-session handshake.
“I’ll expect you the same time next week?” she asks.
“No. I’ll need to reschedule our next session. I’ll be out of town for several days next week.”
“Oh?”
She wants me to give her more of an explanation, but I’m not going to. I sling my bag over my shoulder and give her a small smile.
“I’ll talk to the receptionist and figure out the best day.”
I leave the office, tell the receptionist to email me with a rescheduled appointment, and walk out of the building into the bright June sun.
Chapter Two
Then
If she closed her eyes and concentrated enough, she could almost smell the hints of her birthday cake still lingering in the air. They were the same vanilla-laced, chocolate-studded notes that clung to her father the last time she breathed him in. She always had two birthday cakes. For as long as she could remember, she would have one to celebrate with whatever friends or family she might have nearby when her birthday came along, and another just to share with her father. The first was doled out in neat slices and careful portions. The second eaten with fingertips and mouthfuls, wayward forks chiseling away whenever one of them passed by the counter. They set it between them on the couch while they watched movies and justified it for breakfast.
He smelled like the last chunk of cake he stuffed under the edge of his coffee cup as he balanced it on a chipped bread and butter plate. Her mother always wanted him to throw that plate away. She was embarrassed by the chip and thought it made them look bad that it stayed nestled among the rest of the dishes in the cabinet. Sometimes she snatched it up from the sink and dropped it into the trash can. He would wash it carefully and tuck it back in place, telling her it was still good, it shouldn’t be wasted. It became a joke between them, a playful thread of consistency they carried through no matter where they ended up. Many things got left behind in the times they had to run, but never that plate. It weathered every shift, move, and sudden change.
They kept it then because it made them feel closer. He kept it now because it was her turn.
She watched him carry that plate into his tiny office two days after her birthday, right before leaving for one of her summer classes. She found it there the next day. She got home late the night before and hadn’t seen him all morning, so she went in to check. She stood in her father’s office, breathing in the lingering energy of her party, staring at the plate and the crumbs of cake. The mug and the cold coffee. She wrapped her arms around herself and searched for the warmth of the sugar-nuanced hug he gave her before she left.
He had left already. Something caught his attention and lured him away. He was expected somewhere, needed by someone. She knew he would back. She had seen this before.
She let the plate sit there for another three days before cleaning it up.
She didn’t start worrying for another three days.
That’s when the envelopes came. Sitting among the rest of the mail like an innocuous circular or ‘to our friend at this address‘, they seemed like nothing. They were anything but.
She recognized the handwriting packed tightly on the front of each one. It was the faceless lawyer her parents always worked with. She’d never met him but heard his name and saw his handwriting. This time it formed her name. Sitting on the couch, the remnants of her birthday cake wrapped tightly in foil and tucked in the freezer; she opened the envelopes. One by one, the structure of her father’s life slipped out onto the table.
The deed to the house signed over to her.
An acknowledgement of her car loan paid off in full.
Notices of credit cards and other accounts closed.
Receipts from large pre-payments made to the utility companies to cover many months of service.
Gift cards to several stores in the area to cover groceries, clothes, gas, and other necessities.
Notices of her college tuition paid in full for the next three years.
His marriage license.
Her mother’s death certificate.
Papers for a bank account holding a considerable amount of money, enough that it seemed her parents saved from before she was born to squirrel it away.
There was nothing to explain any of it. No letter, no note. No contact information for someone to tell her what was happening or help her when she might need it. Just the pieces of a life that now seemed like it didn’t even exist. She sat and stared at the papers until the sun was gone and shadows made the house feel cold even with the summer heat outside. When she finally looked away, everything seemed different. The house, a place she had started to think of as home after her father actually bought it, unlike all the other ones they ever lived in, didn’t look the same. It didn’t feel the same. But it was hers.
It was hers, and it never felt more foreign.
Barely a week beyond her eighteenth birthday, she was alone. The house her father bought so she could stay home while she went to college belonged to her. Her car was paid off. Her tuition covered. A bank account brimmed with more money than she imagined having until well into adulthood. Her life was set up for her, but she was at the edge of facing it by herself.
That’s when she knew he was gone. It would be a while still before she fully accepted it as her reality enough to say it to other people. But that was the moment she would look back on as when everything in her life changed. It would go on. Life always went on. It had to. But in so many ways, it stopped then.