She's Gone

She's Gone

This is my take on the story of a spouse with a secret life. There isn't much action in this story and no great act of revenge. It's about what happens to a man when he learns that his life is not what he thought it was and he struggles to separate what is real from what is a lie.

There is no sex in this story.

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My name is James Harris. I was fifty-two when the events described here occurred. I was married to a woman I loved with two grown children that we raised right, and I had a good paying job that I enjoyed. I had the world by the tail and life was great until it wasn't.

It all started on a Tuesday night. I worked a bit late that night, but not so late that my wife would worry, and I headed home after the rush hour traffic had subsided. It was my usual Tuesday night. We had agreed that I'd pick up some Chinese carryout on the way home, which I did. I parked in the garage, hit the remote to lower the door, gathered my briefcase and carryout, and headed in. I was the mighty hunter returning to the cave to feed my hungry mate, or what passes for it in twenty-first century America. Almost as an afterthought, I noticed that my wife's car wasn't in its usual place, but I figured she must have run a last-minute errand and assumed she would be back shortly. So I left the food covered on the kitchen table hoping to keep it warm and knowing that if she was too late, we would heat it up in the microwave.

I walked down the hall toward the front door, turned at the stairs, and headed up to our bedroom to change into something more comfortable. It was my normal weeknight routine - get home, get comfortable, and get fed. I was coming down the stairs ten minutes later and called out, "Marie? Are you home?" Nothing. I wondered to myself, "Where could she have gone? Maybe she left a note." I wasn't really alarmed, but by this time I was at least curious.

I wandered into the living room and there on the coffee table I found it. It was not the note I was expecting, but it was the note I could never have imagined.

It read:

"Dearest Jim,

I'm sorry to do this to you, but there is someone who needs me. I got their call today. It's one of those calls that you have to answer when it comes. I'm sorry to run off without warning and I know this will be hard for you, but please know that I love you more than life and I will be home as soon as I can. I cherish the life we have made together, and I hope to return to it when I can. Don't worry about me; I will be fine.

Your loving wife,

Marie"

Her cell phone was sitting on the coffee table alongside the letter.

I was stunned and confused. I kept turning over in my mind what I'd read in her cryptic letter. "She said someone who needs her? Who needs her? Who could be that important, and yet not be worth telling me who they were?" Then the panic began to set in. "Where did she go? How could it be so urgent that she couldn't tell me where she'd be? How could she leave her cell behind? When would she contact me?" This wasn't the kind of note that a wife leaves her husband when she plans to be back late that night. Panic gave way to fear, and fear gave way to anger. "How the hell could she do this? She just picks up and runs off without any meaningful explanation of why or where she'll be?" Then the darker thoughts crept into my mind. "How could she leave her cell behind?" gave way to "Why did she leave her cell behind?"

I read her letter again and it didn't tell me anything more the second time than it did the first. "...there is someone who needs me. I got their call today. It's one of those calls that you have to answer when it comes."

"Who the fuck does she think she is? She's no secret agent, super-spy, brain surgeon to the leaders of the fuckin' free world! Where the fuck is my wife?!" I'll confess that at that point my anger was a mask for my fears. I was worried for my wife. Wherever she was, I was convinced that she would need my help. I wanted to go to her, but where had she gone? I wanted to hear her voice and know that she was alright, but I had no way of contacting her.

I just sat there rereading her note as dinner grew cold, and the sun went down.

It was sometime long after dark when I finally decided to start making calls. I called her sister, our friends, and in the end, I called our kids. Nobody knew anything or they weren't telling me. Worst of all, I only succeeded in alarming our kids. I tried to convince them it was nothing, but I wasn't very good at it, so I left it with a promise that I'd keep them informed. Now I was even more angry and blamed her for scaring our kids even though I was instrumental in that screwup.

I read the letter again. "I cherish the life we have made together, and I hope to return to it when I can." Those aren't the words of someone coming home in a few hours or even a few days. Now I was really scared, and while I told myself I was overreacting, I called the hospital. They didn't have her. Then I called the police, but they said I couldn't file a missing person's report for 48 hours unless I was reporting a missing child. I thought about lying, but how do I tell them I want to report a five-foot eight-inch, brown haired child who could pass for thirty-eight even though she was forty-nine? I thanked them and hung up.

Eventually, I tried eating something, but I wasn't hungry, so I just put the food I'd bought in the fridge and sat in the darkened living room hoping she would return. She didn't. I climbed the stairs a little after two in the morning and slept fitfully.

I woke the next morning and reached over to find her side of the bed cold and empty. It all came flooding back to me and I lay there wondering what I should do?

I called work and told them I wouldn't be in. My blowing off work was such an unusual occurrence that it seems I raised concerns, and before you know it my phone was ringing with coworkers wanting to know if I was okay, what did I need, could they do anything, and what did I do with those files? Truth be told, trying to help them a little was cathartic for me, and it briefly distracted me from my worries.

I called her office, but all they would tell me was that she had called in and taken some time off. I don't think they were keeping anything from me, although I considered it for a time, and as the days passed, I was increasingly convinced that they were as much in the dark as I was. I did visit her office several times hoping that some face-to-face discussions would be revealing, but they didn't know anything more than I already knew which was basically nothing.

She left sometime on Tuesday, but I didn't discover her missing until Tuesday night and the police required 48 hours, so Friday morning I drove to the police station to file a missing person's report. I showed them her note and they asked if she'd ever done something like this before? Yelling at cops is never a good idea, but I wasn't exactly in my best frame of mind by that point. They threatened to charge me if I didn't calm down, so I forced myself to sit before they decided that I was a hot-headed suspect, and they completed the form. That's when they said, "Usually in cases like this, the wife has run off with her boyfriend. You'll know for sure if you get served divorce papers in the next few days." I've never wanted to hit a cop so badly in all my life. Instead, I just mumbled, "Thanks for nothing!" and walked out. So much for the serve part of "To Protect and Serve".

I got home and collapsed in a chair. The stress was tearing me apart. With nothing else to do, I resumed calling friends and relatives, but this time I had enough sense not to call the kids. Instead, they called me, and I had to tell them, "I still don't know anything, but I'm sure that mom is fine. She's smart, she's capable, and I'm certain that she has everything under control." In other words, I lied my ass off to my own kids. A father should never be required to lie to his own children, but I had nothing good or bad to tell them other than their mother was still missing. How do you have that conversation with your kids who have every reason to be worried about their mother?

My calls to friends and relatives Tuesday night triggered an avalanche of calls to me on Wednesday. They started out calm with comments like "Just checking in..." and grew progressively more concerned by Thursday. Everyone wanted to know what I was doing to find Marie and by Friday the tone of some took on an unmistakable edge. Nobody was saying it yet, but concern was giving way to accusation.

If the calls on Friday were bad, the visits on Saturday were impossible. I was flooded by visitors as friends and family stopped in to see how I was doing. They always began with words of support, but soon the questions would come. "Were there any problems between the two of you? Were you fighting? Was she unhappy?" The killer came when her mother asked, "Are you sure you don't know where she is?"

I blew my top and yelled at my mother-in-law for the first time in our history. "What the fuck are you saying, Margaret? Are you accusing me of something? Do you think I'd lie about something like this?"

"No, no, Jim! Of course not! It's just that..." She trailed off.

"Spit it out, Margaret! It's just what?"

She looked me in the eye and with an angry look that I'll remember until the day I die, she said, "It's just that she's never done anything like this before."

I pushed my anger and pain down deep where I hoped it wouldn't show and in the calmest voice I could muster said, "Don't you think I know that?"

By then she was visibly shaking. Her husband said, "Jim, we know you're doing all you can. Could you tell us what you know and maybe we can think of something?" I nodded my head, we sat quietly, and then I told them everything I knew, or rather how I didn't know anything. I showed them the letter and they were equally confused and concerned. The not-so-veiled accusations fell away, and we spent a tear-filled hour wracking our brains to come up with something, anything, that might explain Marie's sudden disappearance. We had nothing.

Henry and Margaret stayed through the afternoon as I prepared a light lunch for the three of us, or what I thought would be the three of us. It seemed our friends had other ideas and there was a steady stream of people at the front door, some carrying food and others with beer and everyone wanting to know what had happened and what I knew. At some point I gave up retelling the story. That was when Margaret and Henry stepped in. To her credit, the blame was gone, and she gave me full marks for being a worried husband. I know that everyone had their suspicions in the back of their mind, but at least it felt like I was getting support once again.

I was a wreck as one well-wisher after another sat with me to express their support and concern. I encouraged everyone to speak with the police if they thought of anything that might help, but I was secretly thinking that someone knew something that they weren't tell me and I just hoped that word would get to the authorities even if I never found out about it. As far as I could ever tell, nobody knew anything and other than a few supporters calling the police to ask if they had any leads, nothing happened for weeks.

That is, nothing happened for exactly two weeks. The police had my wife's car license along with the make and model and they put it on their watch list for possible stollen cars. When I would make a comment to someone along the lines of "I hope they find her car so maybe they can find her" they'd look at each other as if I didn't understand. I did and I knew what they were thinking. She'd run off and there was a good chance that she didn't want to come home even if she were found.

I tried going into work, but I was useless there and everyone told me to go home. So I went home, and I was just as useless there. First, I sat and made calls. Then I would drive around looking for her car. I even drove past some friends' houses thinking that maybe they were hiding her, although I couldn't imagine why. Day after day I worried, called, drove, bothered the police, and got nowhere. In a fit of desperation I went to my lawyer to ask what I should do, and he hooked me up with a private investigator. Officially, the police said that was my right. Unofficially, I could tell they didn't like it. They told me that P.I.s tend to interfere and get in the way of official investigations, so I asked them, "What do you have so far?" They had nothing, so I told them in language that could politely be described as "candid" that I didn't think a P.I. would get in the way of them finding nothing. They didn't like it, but they also couldn't object. The P.I. was expensive and came up with exactly what the police already had - nothing.

Like I said, it was two weeks after Marie disappeared. I was still doing the same things of calling, driving, and watching the news, but I had also started checking Marie's social media, her credit card activity, and our bank accounts. There was nothing on the card, but after two weeks there was a withdrawal from an ATM machine in a town two-hundred miles away. I immediately called the police to inform them. That got their attention, and a half hour later there were two detectives at my door and the suspicion started all over again.

I finally looked them in the eye and in the calmest voice I could manage, which in hindsight was one small step short of rage, I said, "No, I did not drive there and use that machine! I've been here in town the entire time. I've been calling friends and driving around looking for her car and doing a damn sight more than any of you! Now you have a lead - get off your fat asses and go follow it!" They clearly didn't like me much, and just as clearly, I didn't care, but after a half hour of assurances and implied accusations they left.

To their credit, they did contact the police in that town and put them on the lookout for Marie and her car. Two days later they hit paydirt when her car was found in a hospital parking lot. I got the call from the local police who said, "Don't do anything. Let us take care of this."

I said, "Like hell!" and I drove. A little over three hours later I pulled into the hospital parking lot. It took about two minutes to find her car, but it seemed like two hours. I also spotted two suits in a car that screamed "COPS!", so I parked and walked over to them. I guess they were expecting me. I showed them my driver's license and said, "Show me your badges." They looked at each other and they weren't happy, but they did as I asked. I knelt down and asked what they knew, and all they knew was that they had the car, and nobody had approached it since they got there.

When I told them I was going in to ask for my wife, they informed me that they already had. I thanked them with all the false sincerity I could muster and informed them that I was going to do it anyway. I was getting wound up and making friends fast.

The front desk at the hospital didn't have my wife's name and knew nothing about the car parked outside, so I decided to join the surveillance. I had nothing to hide and everything to gain, so I asked to sit in the back of their car. It might have been the first time I'd surprised a cop since this all began, but they agreed, and I joined them. We talked for the next hour, and I briefed them on what little I knew. When their shift was over and it was time for them to leave, they agreed to let me watch the car, but they were very clear on one thing: "If anyone comes to claim the car, it doesn't matter whether they come out of the hospital or somebody drives them up to it, don't interfere! Just call us and tell us the car is moving. Don't try to follow it. Don't do anything except call us. Do you understand?"

I nodded.

"Remember, there is a small chance that they have your wife and will lead us to her, but there's a bigger chance that they just bought the car off someone and don't know anything. Still, they may help us track down who sold them the car. It's imperative that you not do anything! Understand?"

For the first time since this all began, I did understand, and I agreed.

I returned to my own car and sat there, hunched down in my seat and watching Marie's car for the next three hours. The only time I left my post was for the quickest pee in history where I was in and out of the hospital so fast that I was still zipping my fly as I crossed the lobby. An hour later I saw a woman approach the car and my heart stopped. I fought to catch my breath. It was Marie!

She opened her car door and removed something small, then closed the car and started walking back into the hospital. I followed her. I kept my distance; something told me that if she knew I was there I'd never get to the truth. I was about twenty yards behind her as we entered the hospital. I watched her get on the elevator and I watched the elevator stop on the third floor. It didn't take me long until I was looking into a room and watching her sit beside a man's bed. He appeared to be sleeping or unconscious, and she was holding his hand. I cleared my throat, and when she turned around and saw me standing in the doorway my lovely and loving wife fainted dead away. I was angry and confused, but I called a nurse who looked after her until she came around. I took much of that time to study the man in the bed. I'd never seen him before; he wasn't friend or family. He was just a man, but it was clear that to Marie he was more important than her marriage, more important than her family, and more important it seemed than me.

One mystery solved and a new mystery presents itself. While the nurse was helping Marie off the floor, I took the opportunity to call the local detectives and inform them that my wife was found. They said to stay where we were and they'd be right over, so I gave them the room number. Life was about to get very interesting, and as I stared at the man in the bed, I felt a cold chill grip at my heart where the fear had been.

Marie was borderline hysterical when she regained her wits and would only shake her head as I calmly and coldly asked her questions. "Why, Marie? Who is this man? Why did you run off like that? Why haven't you told us where you were? Why didn't you tell us you were okay? Marie, what's going on for God's sake?" Several times she looked as though she was going to answer, but then she would drop her head and begin sobbing all over again.

I was standing there, waiting, asking, and wondering, when the detectives arrived. I let them take over and stepped to the side, but they immediately asked me to step out of the room. One joined me and asked a dozen questions. I simply told him the truth, that I'd seen Marie approach the car, I followed her back in, and then I confronted her in the room. "Confronted" might have been a poor choice of words and I spent the next five minutes assuring him that I had not harmed her in any way. When he learned that the nurse found her lying on the floor, the questions resumed in greater earnest. All the while his partner was talking with Marie.

In time I guess I convinced them that I hadn't harmed my wife, or maybe she convinced them. I don't know. They wanted me to leave, so I called into the room, "Marie, if I leave here, I'm divorcing you! Do you understand me?" That brought back the hysterics and she begged me not to leave. So I looked the detective in the eyes and said, "I'm not going anywhere until I get some answers."

They eventually let me back into the room. As quietly and as calmly as I could, I began to ask Marie the questions that were burning in my brain.

Marie offered little more than cryptic half-answers to my questions. He was an old boyfriend from school. He was her first love. He was dying and he didn't have anyone. There were long pages of information written between those lines, but I was left to ask or guess.