Have You Seen Me?

by Kate White

  I wonder again how distressed he really is. We’ve navigated our share of tough times in our four years together—his younger sister’s serious car accident, which thankfully she fully recovered from; my father’s heart attack this past summer; the stressful periods when Hugh’s smack in the middle of a big case and working nights and weekends with very little time for me. But this is a whole other ball of wax.

  Once my clothes and watch have been returned to me and I’m dressed, Hugh squeezes my hand.

  “You all set?” he asks.

  “Yup.”

  “You don’t have a coat?”

  I glance down at my blouse and pants, wrinkled from being balled into a plastic bag, and my black kitten heels, still damp from the rain. I remember a coat—my black trench.

  “Maybe it was left behind in the ambulance.”

  “Why don’t I follow up on that later—let’s get you home now.”

  Outside I see that the rain has stopped, though it’s left behind a bruised, swollen October sky. In the cab Hugh pulls me toward him and leaves his arm draped around me. My right cheek rests on the soft worsted wool of his suit. My friend Gabby once joked that Hugh probably showered in his suits, but I like them, especially seeing them lined up in his closet. To me they’re a reminder of how hard he’s worked, never taking anything for granted.

  I’m sure he has a billion more questions but is saving them till we’re home and I’m feeling better. It’s a relief to not have to talk and yet at the same time I feel wired again, my limbs jittery.

  Finally, we’re inside our building lobby, hurrying past the doorman and concierge—who probably note my disheveled appearance but would never betray their surprise—and riding the twenty-seven floors to our apartment.

  “Would you like something to drink?” Hugh asks as we pass from the foyer into the great room, which serves as a combination living, dining, and kitchen area.

  “A glass of sparkling water, if you don’t mind,” I tell him, taking in the clean open space as if I’m seeing it for the first time: the white couch and armchairs, the glass-topped dining table, the floor-to-ceiling windows with the city views spilling out below and beyond.

  “What about something more nourishing? Like some soup?”

  “Honey,” I say smiling, hoping to lighten the mood a little. “I’m sure we don’t have any soup. Unless you count the three old cubes of chicken bouillon that I brought along as part of my wedding dowry.”

  He chuckles. “Right. How about takeout then? We can order from Pavone’s.”

  “Um, sure, sounds good.” I’m not hungry, but I need to be sitting across from Hugh at our dining table, a regular nightly ritual for us.

  As Hugh pours me a glass of Pellegrino water, I wander the length of the room.

  “What’s the matter, Ally?” he asks, furrowing his brow.

  “My purse. I was praying it might be here—along with my keys and my phone. Can you call my number?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think it’s here. I would have heard your phone ringing before.” After handing me the glass, he slides his phone from his pants pocket and taps the screen.

  I hold my breath, but there’s only silence.

  “I still have my old iPhone, so I can use it with a new SIM card—but darn, all our credit cards. They have to be canceled.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll handle it. And you can use our spare key. I’ll have another one made for us.”

  “I hate to dump this all on you.”

  “I don’t mind, truly. I just want you to relax, take it easy tonight.”

  I realize how achy I still am. “I think what I want most of all before dinner is a shower.”

  “Of course. Can you handle it alone?”

  “I think so. I don’t feel faint anymore, really.”

  “I might hang in the bedroom while you’re showering.”

  “Hugh, I appreciate the thought, but it’s really not necessary.”

  He steps forward and encircles me with his arms. “You’ll have to forgive me if I glom on to you over the next few days. I want to be sure you’re okay.”

  “I like the idea of you glomming on to me, but I’ll be fine showering.”

  “Okay, I’ll order dinner and cancel the cards. How about chicken piccata? And a salad?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Leaving Hugh behind, I traipse down the long corridor to the master bedroom. After draining the water glass, I peel off my blouse, bra, pants, and underwear and stuff them all into the hamper, though I’m tempted to chuck them in the waste basket. There’s a sour, sweaty smell emanating from them, and they have a clammy feel, too, as if I’ve been in them for days.

  After grabbing my robe, I search all around the space, and also in the alcove off the bedroom, which I use as a home office when I don’t go to WorkSpace. There’s no sign of my purse anywhere, but my laptop is here, in the middle of my desk—exactly where I always keep it when I’m home. I breathe a sigh of relief that I hadn’t had it with me today, because surely it would be missing now, too.

  I open the laptop and click on “find my phone,” hoping for a miracle. But a miracle doesn’t happen. The response is phone not found. It was either turned off or ran out of battery in the general vicinity of my apartment building.

  Next, I check the day’s calendar to see what light it can shed. The hours from 8:30 to 11:00 are blocked off with the notation “work on book,” and at 11:30, there’s a note to myself to “call Jackie,” a reference to my book agent. Obviously, that call never happened.

  I’m not usually an early morning person, and I can’t figure out why in the world I’d gotten up and left the house by 7:15, which is when I must have departed to have arrived at Greenbacks by 8:05. Had I planned something I hadn’t noted on the calendar?

  I rest my hands on the desk, one on each side of the computer, and try to picture myself here. Hugh generally leaves in the morning before I do—he’s recently been made a junior partner at his law firm and likes to be in his office most days by 7:30—and after he’s gone I like to take my coffee into the alcove. I scan through the Wall Street Journal online and review my schedule. But my efforts to recall this morning are futile. It feels as if I’m trying to light a match that’s been soaked in water.

  I trudge to the bathroom, start the shower, and close my eyes as the warm water gushes over me. I soap my hair twice with shampoo, kneading my scalp with my fingers.

  Once I’m finished, I dry off and settle onto the stool in the bathroom, finally sensing my body relax a little. I’ve always loved this room. It’s entirely white and spalike, with shelves holding impossibly thick bath towels, one of which I’ve swaddled myself in. At the end of a tough day, I’ll often light the room with candles and soak in the tub, feeling my tension melt away. Letting go of the silly need to do everything perfectly. Yet somehow, for a few hours this morning, I managed to forget that this room, this entire apartment, even existed.

  What if it happens again? Me not knowing where I live or who my husband is or who I really am? I grip the edges of the stool, terrified at the thought.

  I rise quickly from the stool and return to the alcove, where I type out an email to Dr. Erling.

  Can you possibly squeeze me in for an extra appointment before Wednesday? Tomorrow would be best. Something really scary happened to me and I need to see you urgently.

  A few minutes later, dressed in a long-sleeved tee and sweats, I find Hugh standing at the granite-topped island that separates the kitchen area from the rest of the great room, opening a bottle of Italian red wine. His tie’s off now, as well as his jacket, both draped over the back of one of the barstools along the island.

  “I thought I’d have a glass of wine, but you probably shouldn’t, right? At least not tonight.”

  “Right, I’d better not. Water is fine.”

  “Let’s sit for a bit, okay?” he adds, pouring me another glass of sparkling water. “Dinner should be here soon.”

  He’s dimmed
the overhead lights, I notice, and switched on a few table lamps so that the lighting is soft and soothing. The city is sparkling outside the windows now. This is the kind of apartment I fantasized about during my early days in New York, and though we were able to buy it in large part because of Hugh’s generous salary, I contributed a nice chunk to the down payment thanks to the savings I’d dutifully squirreled away. I’ve always practiced what I preach as a personal finance reporter.

  We settle onto the couch a foot or so apart. There’s something slightly awkward about our interaction, I notice. This can’t be easy for him.

  “You must have been really worried when the hospital called you,” I say.

  “Forget about me. I was just concerned about you . . . and not being able to get there fast enough. There was a brief moment when all I could think was, ‘How do I hire a freaking chopper?’”

  I smile. “I don’t think that hospital has a helipad on the roof, though.” I take a long sip of water, realizing how thirsty I am. “They said they couldn’t reach you for a while.”

  “Yeah, I’d gone to Westport to meet with that potential client—Ben Sachs—and two of his associates.”

  “That’s what I guessed.”

  “Unbeknownst to me, he’d decided to turn the office meeting we’d set up into brunch on his boat, and needless to say, the cell service sucked. Apparently, Melinda was trying to reach me for hours without any luck, so she ended up sending someone to the marina to wait for me.”

  “Well, I’m just glad she finally got through.” I let my eyes roam the great room, hoping that clues will present themselves. “Hugh, I really need you to help me fill in a few blanks, okay? According to my calendar, I’d blocked off time this morning to work on my book, so why would I have left here so early? Did I mention anything to you about an appointment or last-minute meeting today?”

  His expression clouds. “I can’t help you with this morning.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, puzzled.

  “I didn’t see you.”

  “You mean I left even earlier than you did?”

  “No, Ally, you weren’t here at all. You’ve been gone for two whole days.”

  6

  I hear his words, but they stall out in my brain.

  “Hugh, I don’t understand,” I say. “What are you talking about?”

  “I haven’t set eyes on you since Tuesday morning.”

  The full-blown panic I experienced this morning had slowly subsided, but it now it rears its head again like a jungle cat catching the scent of prey on the wind.

  “But . . . we ordered in.” I think of the vague memory of the evening I’d shared with Dr. Agarwal. “We watched TV.”

  “That was Monday night.” Hugh’s expression is pained. “You were in bed when I left the next morning at around—I’d say, seven—and I assumed you were asleep. That was the last time I saw you before I came to pick you up at the hospital.”

  My heart races as I grasp the truth. I’ve been so focused on making sense of today that I didn’t give much thought to the days immediately prior. But Tuesday and Wednesday, I now realize, are a total blank. Where the hell was I?

  “Why didn’t you explain this to Dr. Agarwal?”

  “I wanted to get you out of there, and it seemed that the less said at the moment, the better.”

  “But . . . weren’t you worried about where I was?” I say, almost pleading. Why hadn’t Hugh called the police?

  “Yes, of course I was, but not because I thought you were in any danger.” He takes a breath, exhales. “We . . . we had a big argument before bed Monday night. I thought you’d gone to stay with a friend for a couple of nights. Gabby, maybe.”

  It’s not that odd that his mind went to her. Gabby’s the first important friend I made in New York—we ended up sharing an apartment after we met through mutual friends—and though we’re wildly different, we’ve been close for more than a decade. But the idea of my taking off seems unfathomable.

  “Hugh, that’s crazy. How could you think I would just move out for a few days?”

  He swipes a hand over his scalp, raking his fingers through his short brown hair. “You said you needed space, that you wanted time alone to think, and so I took you at your word. I tried calling you, of course—a bunch of times. But you never called me back.”

  I push myself up from the sofa, stumbling slightly on the edge of the rug.

  “Ally, please sit down,” he insists.

  But I can’t, and instead pace in front of the coffee table, trying to grapple with what he’s just revealed.

  “So what was the fight about?” I ask. That’s the million-dollar question, after all.

  He rises from the couch himself and heads to the island, where he pours another glass of wine.

  “It was my fault,” he says, avoiding my gaze momentarily. “It was a discussion I was hoping to keep positive, but it ended up spiraling in the wrong direction.”

  “A discussion about what?”

  “Kids. I pressed you again.”

  “Well, how bad did it get?”

  “We weren’t screaming, if that’s what you mean.”

  No, we wouldn’t have screamed. We’re both controlled and averse to messiness, and that’s how I prefer it.

  “But it did get a little heated,” he adds. “And you seemed really upset.”

  Mostly I’ve tried to be understanding of Hugh’s position. I mean, let’s face it, I pulled a bait and switch on the guy, leading him to believe when we married that I was enthusiastic about parenthood but then developing cold feet. That said, the sudden pressure from him was unexpected. It was as if “have a kid” was the next box he wanted to tick off after “make partner” and “buy a dream apartment.” But as I’d told Dr. Agarwal, Hugh had promised to table the issue for a while. I must have been really pissed when he raised it again the other night.

  And yet, how could a fight on well-trodden terrain be enough to make me disassociate, lose track of my identity?

  “Do you think I was at Gabby’s all this time?” That would be some kind of relief—meaning (1) at least I was safe and (2) she’ll have a few answers for me.

  “No. I called her Wednesday morning, hoping to make contact with you, and it was clear you hadn’t gone there.”

  “Did you ask her directly?”

  He shakes his head. “I didn’t want to let on what had happened in case you weren’t there. So I told her I needed a few ideas for your birthday, and she ended up giving me a bunch of suggestions. It was clear from her tone that you weren’t at her place, and that she probably had no clue about our argument.”

  I throw up my hands, more confused than ever. “If I wasn’t with Gabby, where was I?”

  “At another friend’s, I guess.”

  It’s hard to imagine who that could be. My other two closest friends aren’t in New York at the moment: Diane recently accepted a job in Chicago, and John is freelance writing from Dallas while his partner handles a two-month project there.

  “Maybe I stayed in a hotel. Do you know if I took a bag?”

  “I assumed you did, but I haven’t taken a look in your closet. But I don’t think you were at a hotel. I checked the credit card statement on Wednesday afternoon. Like I said, I wasn’t worried at that point, but of course I wanted to know where you were. The only charge was for around fifteen dollars for food on Wednesday. It must have been for lunch.”

  “Where was it?”

  “A place called Eastside Eats. I googled it and it’s on Fifty-First Street between Third and Lex.”

  I can’t imagine what I would be doing in Midtown East. I’m rarely in that part of the city.

  “According to the website,” Hugh adds, “it looks like it’s your standard-issue gourmet café.”

  That tells me nothing other than the fact that at some point while I was missing, I went hunting for a cup of coffee and maybe my usual tuna salad and sprouts on multigrain.

  “What about my bank card? Did I e
ver take cash from an ATM?”

  “Nope.”

  I glance around the room, hoping again for a prompt, for a hint of any kind.

  “Was the fight in here?”

  He shakes his head. “It started in the den, right after we turned off the TV.”

  “What did we watch?”

  “A documentary. About the financial meltdown in 2008.”

  “Okay,” I say, as images from that day pop up in my memory, “I do remember Monday.” I spent a chunk of the day at WorkSpace with my assistant/researcher, Nicole. Then Hugh and I had dinner and watched the documentary. “But nothing after that.”

  Nothing. I grab my head in my hands. “This is crazy.”

  “Ally, as Dr. Agarwal said, it’s important not to stress yourself out.”

  “I’d be much less stressed if I could figure out where I was all this time. . . . I wonder if I managed to show up for my appointment with Dr. Erling on Wednesday.”

  “If you missed it, Erling will clearly understand. You’re going to get ahold of her, right?”

  “I already left her a message. God, she has to help me remember.”

  “Is it really the end of the world if you don’t end up remembering everything? The key thing is that it doesn’t happen again, and that means getting the best medical help.”

  It does feel catastrophic to me; there’s a sense of fear creeping up my back, spreading over me. Fear about the missing days and what happened to me during that time. I grip my head again, as if the pressure could somehow force the memories to the surface.

  “I also think you should see a neurologist for a second opinion,” Hugh adds. “Maybe you did sustain a concussion.”

  “Yes, that makes sense, I guess,” I say, but I’m still thinking about Tuesday and Wednesday. “Shit, what about my podcast on Tuesday? What if I didn’t show for it?”

  “You’re okay on that front. You’d told me before this that you’d banked one last Tuesday and weren’t recording this week.”