“Of course, honey. What did he lose?”
I panicked.
I hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“His sunglasses.”
“Okay. What’s his name?”
“Mark Ellison.”
Silence.
Not the ordinary kind of silence you hear when someone checks a lost-and-found box.
A long, uneasy silence.
Then the woman spoke again.
“Are you Mark’s wife?”
Something cold moved through my chest.
“Yes.”
Another pause.
And then, in a voice filled with sudden sympathy, she whispered,
“Oh, honey.”
I ended the call.
I didn’t say goodbye.
I simply pressed the button and dropped my phone onto the kitchen table.
It slid off the edge
and landed on the floor.
I sat motionless.
Why would a woman at a lakeside café recognize my husband’s name?
Why would she immediately ask whether I was his wife?
And why had she sounded so terribly sorry for me?
I knew that tone.
It was the voice people used when they knew something painful but couldn’t bring themselves to say it.
I rested my forehead against my hands.
For twenty-six years, I’d believed I knew my husband.
Now I wasn’t certain of anything.
Room Twelve
Mark came home that evening acting perfectly normal.
He kissed the top of my head.
Asked what was for dinner.
Opened a beer.
And cheerfully told me about a delivery driver who’d backed into a portable restroom at a construction site.
He laughed at his own jokes.
Helped set the table.
Even washed dishes without being asked.
That last part was particularly suspicious.
Mark
loved me.
But he had never been enthusiastic about washing dishes.
It felt as though I were watching an actor perform the role of my husband.
Later, we sat together watching television.
He put his arm around me.
I leaned against him, listening to his heartbeat.
For a moment, I wanted desperately to believe everything was fine.
But Carol’s voice kept echoing in my head.
Oh, honey.
That night, I waited until Mark was deeply asleep.
Then I slipped out of bed and opened our closet.
His old green duffel bag was still on the floor.
He hadn’t unpacked it.
Normally, he emptied his luggage as soon as he returned home.
I carried the bag into the hallway.
Under the soft light of a night-lamp, I opened it.
Dirty clothes.
Socks.
A flannel shirt.
Sunscreen.
A paperback mystery.
Nothing unusual.
