Page 23 of You Know Why

For the moment, though, I have to stow away all the hurt and the fury. I need to compartmentalize. The only way to handle a crisis is one small step at a time. I make a mental to-do list.

Step one: Get my children to safety. Check. We’re doing that right now.

Step two: Call the police.

Step three: Try to establish some sort of record of Trey’s whereabouts.

Step four: Get into his phone.

What if something happens to him, and they decide I had something to do with it? I need to account for my time and my actions, too. I’m establishing an alibi for a crime I didn’t commit, a crime that hasn’t even happened.

Step five: Account for your own actions.

I analyze the weeks leading up to today. Nothing felt different or off. Typical holiday stress—the party this year had been bigger than normal, but that’s just because the kids are getting older and their schoolmates more numerous. It went great, loads of friends and neighbors, the house decorated to the hilt. Nothing unusual there. I mailed our holiday cards, had most of the shopping completed. I have a few presents with us, small stuff, with larger items to be opened upon our return. The kids loved the idea of two Christmases. So did I, actually.

Trey . . . Christmas is not his favorite. He loves it for the kids, gets joy out of their excitement, but if it were up to him, it would be just another day. The open house makes him tense, even though it was his idea to start the tradition. I always offer not to have the party; he always insists we do.

The kids have been steady, no huge blowups, no big issues. Four was having some trouble earlier in the year with a bully who was teasing him, but the boy’s parents were transferred for work back to the company headquarters in Dallas, taking their vicious little brat with them. Four’s been fine since.

Neve has been excelling in both her studies and her ballet, and I feel the now-familiar pang at taking away her opportunity to be on stage. It was a small moment, but important to her. What good sports they’ve been.

How will they function without a father?

Stop that. You don’t know what’s happening yet. He could walk through the door at any moment.

But we’ve left the airport. Even if he does come back, he won’t know where we are.

I open my texts and look at our last exchange.

Get on the plane. Remember what I told you. Anything. Love you.

He told me to get on the plane. He walked away, and then he told me to get on the plane.

Remember what I told you.

Oh, I remember. I remember that night, in Argentina, when I was pregnant with Four and we were just married, and he told me fantastical things that never came true. Surely this has nothing to do with that conversation. It’s been a decade. And even if it did, things are different now. He works for my uncle. We’re settled. We’re a family. He didn’t really think we’d fly away without him, did he? Or maybe he thought once we were on, the airline wouldn’t let us off. Perhaps he was trying to keep us safe. Which again reinforces my concern that he’s in trouble.

I chew my lip, trying to decide what to do.

Step two: Call the police. Check.

The 9-1-1 operator answers with crisp precision, and I explain my situation as concisely as possible, proud that my voice isn’t shaking.

She listens, and I hear typing. “You’re at the airport now?” she asks.

“We’re on our way to the Marriott on Peachtree. I’ve already talked with TSA, the airport police, and some Atlanta police, and they said I needed to touch base with you directly.”

“You can file a report anytime, ma’am, but if you don’t live in Atlanta, you need to file with your hometown police.”

“That makes no sense. He didn’t go missing from Nashville. He went missing from here.”

“I’m sorry, those are just the rules. Trust me, you’ll have better luck that way, anyway.”

I thank her and hang up. When we get settled in the hotel, I’ll call the police in Nashville.

Neve stirs in her sleep. I put a hand on her warm back to calm her, brush Four’s bangs back gently. There are moments, mothering my children, that I long for my own mother—for any mother, really—to take care of me. To hold me and stroke my hair and tell me things will be okay. That nothing scary is under the bed, that the closet is empty, that all will be well. I’ve been on my own for a long time. Margot and I are very close, and after our mother died when we were teenagers, it was just the two of us. Dad was in and out of the picture; they were already divorced when she got sick. We grew up quickly after that, and while we take care of each other still, it’s not the same. I’m grateful I can give my children the physical and emotional security of unquestioning love that I never stop longing for.

I’d give anything for it right now. A shoulder to bury my face into, strong arms around my back, a soft, gentle murmur that says everything will be okay.