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“Since I saw you.”
“Oh.” I sit back against the bench. I’m at a loss for words. It’s not like we’re famous really, but every now and then Phillip would make the news for work. Oscar isn’t the first person I’ve heard say Phillip looks mean. He’s a big guy. He’s more than a few inches over six foot, and he’s broad, too. No leanness to him. He’s built like a tank, I often thought, but it always made me feel safe. But then again, I always got the soft Phillip. His eyes never went cold on me. Or they hadn’t. I wouldn’t bet on that now. I know he’s looking for me. I’d even had to put in a call to the New York Police Department to stop him from filing a missing person’s report. Then I got my lawyer to serve him divorce papers. Said I’d agree to whatever he wanted. I wasn’t going to fight him.
I hadn’t heard a word after that and my lawyer said he’d yet to respond. I wasn’t pushing. I just wanted to be left alone for a little bit longer. I was still trying to accept the fact that I was pregnant. I was a little slow on the uptake. I’d only figured it out about a month ago myself.
Time seemed to blur together here with endless days of sadness. It wasn’t until I couldn’t keep anything down that it finally clicked into place.
“He looks like shit.”
“I don’t watch the TV or look at the paper.” Heck, I don’t even own a television in the tiny studio I’m living in above a little print shop. Still, I don’t understand how Oscar’s words make me feel. Happy that he looks like shit without me, or remorse because I still love him and hate the idea of him hurting, even if he hurt me?
“I can’t help myself. Gotta watch my news every night.”
“I’m going to tell him,” I say defensively. I don’t want him to think I’ll keep this baby from him, because I won’t. I just want to get it together. Get my head on straight. I keep thinking time will make the pain lessen, but I’m starting to think nothing will.
One thing I do know, I won’t be like my mother. She ran. Took off and left me behind. This might not have been the life I’d wanted, the family I’d dreamed about having, but I’d make it work. I’d pull myself together. Go back to the city and do what I have to do so we can both be a part of the child’s life. This baby will have both of us. I just hope Phillip will be more engaged in this child’s life than he had been in our marriage.
It would kill me if the novelty of a child could wear off like what had happened to me. Either way, it would be better than having no father at all. My father might not have been perfect, but he was still there, unlike my mother. That was something.
“Didn’t think you would. Just taking your time. You’ll get there.” With that, he stands and tosses the box in the trash.
I’m not sure I’ll ever get there. The time isn’t working as I spend my days painting and my nights lying in bed looking up at the ceiling. Letting things eat away at me. I have to go back. The sooner the better.
To get things ready for this child. To work on how Phillip and I are going to be in each other’s lives.
Finishing my cinnamon roll, I lick my fingers clean before I start packing up my art supplies. I put everything in my bag, fold the easel, and put it under my arm. I pull out my phone and call a number I know by heart. I’m not sure if I want her to answer.
“Cindy Reed speaking.” Cindy’s voice comes through the phone, the sound making my eyes water. I miss her. She’s probably going to kill me.
“Cindy, it’s—”
“Molly!” she barks into the phone, cutting me off. “Where the fuck are you?”
I hear someone gasp in the background. It actually makes me crack a smile. God, I really do miss her.
“I’m coming home. I was wondering if I could stay with you,” I ask, stepping off the sidewalk to cross the street in the direction of my little apartment. I’ll need to start packing things up because I know as soon as I get off this phone, Phillip will find me and show up here. Or worse, he won’t.
I barely hear the sound of the car before I feel someone grab me, slamming me down on the concrete, and everything goes black.
Chapter 4
Phillip
The feel of my fist through the drywall does nothing to ease the anger pulsing through my veins and the sadness weighing heavy in my heart. I’m so fucking angry, I often feel like it consumes me, and I’m so fucking scared, but I don’t know what else to do. It feels hopeless, and then again it feels like any second, she’ll come walking through the door.
“Mr. Tanner, please understand we are doing everything we can to locate Mrs. Tanner.”
Shaking my fist out, I try to get the feeling back in my hand. It doesn’t make me feel better, but it’s all I can do. I’ve got a team of three private investigators on this, and no one has found a trace of her. It’s been weeks, and nothing.
She could be dead.
My heart stops at that thought. No, I would feel it shake my soul if she wasn’t alive. I would know deep in my bones if she wasn’t somewhere on this earth. She is the other half of my heart, and I will find her. No matter how long it takes. She’s checked in with the police and some lawyer. Both claimed not to know where she was, just that she was okay.
She ran out on me without so much as a word. She owes me an explanation, a way to make this right. I rub my face with my now beat-up hand and let out a sigh. I was going to make everything okay. I’d had it all worked out. We were going to have it all. We were just hours from getting it, and then poof!
I pace in my home office, not knowing how to respond to that. What do I say? Prove it? I’ve already yelled at everyone in this room at least once today. I stopped going to work after the night she left, waiting here in case she walked through the door. After the first night, I knew I couldn’t sit still, so I hired Carl Major and his team to find my Molly. She may need time to cool off, but she could have done that in the other room. She didn’t need to leave the house if she was having second thoughts about our marriage.
“How can there be nothing?” I scream the last word, my voice echoing off the walls.
The two men sitting before me flinch a bit, and I’m sure I’m a ragged mess. I haven’t slept in weeks, just walking around like a zombie. My old assistant, Debra, actually flew back from Florida for a few days when she heard Molly left. She made me lots of food I never really touched and left some in the freezer, too. She went back to her family last week, and her small visit was a comfort for a short time. But now I’m all alone in my grief and I can’t take it anymore. Maybe I am a madman, but I’ll be goddamned if she can leave me like this.
The investigators asked if we’d had any problems in our marriage. I didn’t know ho
w to explain that I loved her beyond all sane reasoning, and I had to keep busy at work to stop the obsession that was growing inside me. They asked if there had been any infidelity and I laughed in their faces. No other existed besides my Molly. I was blind until she came into my life, and after that day, she’s the only woman I see. The men seemed skeptical, but I didn’t give a shit. They can think whatever the fuck they want as long as they find her.
I find myself falling between being grief-stricken and being mad as hell. I’m so fucking sad she’s gone, and I’d give anything to hold her in my arms again. But on the other hand, I’m so fucking angry she left me like this that I don’t know if I could look her in the eyes. I finally needed someone, and she was gone.
I know the last part is a lie, even as the thought flits through my jumbled brain. I would never look away from her again if I had her back in my sight. How stupid of me to waste so many nights away from her when I could have had her beneath me as we made love in bed. The thought brings a lump to my throat and I hold back a sob. I spent the last year trying to get shit in order so that I would never have to walk into another office again. I did all that I could to set our lives in motion, and it was to the detriment of our relationship.
Parts of our lives replay over and over in my brain, and I keep trying to pinpoint why she would just leave me like this. Leave us like this. I knew she was unhappy in the penthouse, but I was making strides to change that. To live up to the promises I’d made her, but maybe I took too long.
I didn’t think she was so unhappy with me and our marriage that she would just walk out. No explanation, just a note saying I can’t do this. Don’t follow me. I’d worried that note in my fingers for so many days, I wore a hole in it.
