9. Quin
— ? —
Quin
A week passed, and I burned through every connection I had trying to find a wife who did not want to be found.
Clara’s parents in Arizona were my first call, and my worst. Her mother answered on the third ring, her voice warm until I identified myself.
“Oh. Quintus.”
The warmth vanished like it had never existed.
“Mrs. Reyes, I’m trying to find Clara. She left without telling me where she was going, and I’m worried about her and Katie. Please, if you know anything…”
“I know my daughter left her husband because she overheard him telling another woman he wasn’t sure he loved her anymore.
” Her voice could have frozen the phone line.
“I know she’s been unhappy for months and you were too busy to notice.
I know she called me crying in the middle of the night, and I had to listen to my baby girl’s heart break from a thousand miles away. ”
“I made a mistake. I made a lot of mistakes. But I love her, Mrs. Reyes. I love them both. I just need a chance to…”
“You had chances. Five years of chances. She gave you everything, and you gave her loneliness.” A pause. “I don’t know where she is, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. Maybe you should use this time to think about why your wife felt like disappearing was better than staying.”
She hung up.
I called mutual friends next. Danny, who’d known us both since childhood, said he hadn’t heard from Clara in months and sounded genuinely surprised to learn she’d left.
The couple we used to double-date with said the same thing.
The women from Clara’s book club, her old college roommate, even Perla and Agustin.
No one had seen her. No one had heard from her. She’d vanished like smoke.
On day three, I hired a private investigator.
His name was Owen, and he had the kind of face that looked like it had seen everything twice and was tired of the view. I met him in his cramped office downtown, sliding an envelope of cash across the desk along with every photo of Clara and Katie I could find.
“Wife and daughter,” I said. “Left about seventy-two hours ago. No forwarding address, changed phone number, closed all joint bank accounts.”
Owen studied the photos with professional detachment. “She running from you specifically, or from something else?”
“From me.” The words tasted like ash. “I gave her reason to.”
“That’s honest, at least.” He tucked the photos into a folder. “I’ll start with the basics. Credit card activity, vehicle registration, employment records. If she’s trying to stay hidden, she’s probably using cash and staying off the grid. But everyone slips up eventually.”
“How long?”
“Hard to say. Could be days, could be weeks. Depends on how good she is at disappearing.”
Clara was good at everything she did. I had a feeling this would be no exception.
Back at the ranch, I stopped going to the headquarters. The deal could handle itself. The board meetings could happen without me. Eva could take her expansion plans and her efficiency metrics and shove them somewhere uncomfortable for all I cared.
Her riding boots were still by the mudroom door.
She’d taken clothes and Katie’s rabbit and the emergency cash and left the boots I’d unlaced for her a hundred times, my mouth on the back of her calf and her fingers drumming on the counter telling me to hurry up.
I stepped around them every morning. I couldn’t make myself move them.
I couldn’t fire her yet. Not until I figured out exactly how much damage she’d done and how to contain it. But I stopped returning her calls. Stopped pretending that she had any place in my life beyond the mess she’d helped create.
Her father started calling on day four. Angry voicemails about unprofessionalism and broken promises and the board questioning Eva’s position. I deleted them without listening past the first few seconds.
Let him question. Let them all question. I had bigger problems.
The nights were the hardest. I slept on Clara’s side of the bed because the pillow still smelled faintly like her shampoo, lavender and something citrusy that I’d never been able to identify.
I lay there in the dark and replayed every moment of the past months, looking for the places where I could have done something different.
Where I could have been the husband she deserved instead of the one she got.
The list was endless.
On day eight, the process server arrived.
I was in my office, pretending to work, when Perla knocked on the door with an expression that told me something was wrong.
“There’s a man here for you,” she said quietly. “He says he needs you to sign for something.”
The papers were thick in my hands. Legal documents covered in dense text and official stamps. I flipped through them, my chest getting tighter with each page, until I found the summary at the front.
Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.
Clara had filed for divorce.
The return address was a law office in a city two hours away. Not a home address, but a starting point. I called Owen before the process server’s car had even left the driveway.
“Cross-reference this address with any residential registrations in the area,” I told him. “Apartment buildings, rental properties, anything. She’s there somewhere.”
By that evening, I had what I needed.
A modest apartment building in a decent neighborhood. Third floor, unit 307. The investigator had photos of Clara’s car in the parking lot, photos of a daycare three blocks away with Katie’s name on the registration list, photos of a marketing firm downtown where Clara had apparently found work.
She’d rebuilt an entire life in eight days. Because that’s what Clara did. She built things.
Or maybe she’d been preparing longer than I knew. Maybe this had been coming for months, and I was just the last one to see it.
I stared at the address until my eyes burned.
“Don’t go tonight.”
My mother’s voice from the doorway. She’d let herself in without knocking, which was her right as the woman who’d raised me and currently owned the moral high ground in every conversation.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Liar.” She sat down in the chair across from my desk, the same chair Clara used to sit in when we’d talk about ranch business. “You have that look on your face. The one that says you’re about to do something stupid and call it decisive.”
“I just want to see them. I want to know they’re okay.”
“They’re okay. They’re better than okay, probably. Clara’s smart and capable and stronger than you ever gave her credit for.” Naomi’s voice softened just slightly. “If you show up desperate and demanding, you’ll prove you’ve learned nothing. You’ll push her further away.”
“Then what am I supposed to do? Just sit here while my wife files for divorce and my daughter grows up without me?”
“You’re supposed to prove you’ve changed. Not with words, not with grand gestures, not with showing up unannounced and begging. With actions. Small ones. Consistent ones. The kind that show her you understand what you did wrong and you’re committed to doing better.”
I was quiet for a long moment.
“How?”
Naomi smiled, and it was the first real smile I’d seen from her since Clara left.
“That’s the right question. Now let’s figure out the answer.”
I stayed up all night staring at the address, and by morning I had a plan.