Chapter 2 #2
The next one began with a long silence, filled with slow breathing.
Then: “I don’t know, Scott. Really. I mean, am I overreacting?
Maybe, I guess, maybe I am. But how should I react?
How would any wife react when their husband starts disappearing for days at a time?
I waited. I thought maybe—maybe you’d show up, like you did on Tuesday.
” Another pause. “Call me when you get this.”
I ended the call before the next message could start. I thumbed through the contacts and speed-dialed Amy’s phone, even as I put the car in reverse and started out of the parking lot.
She answered on the third ring. “Scott?”
“Amy, honey, I don’t know what’s going on—”
“Scott.”
“Yes, it’s me. I—”
“Scott, did you—what’s going on?”
“Amy—”
“It’s been two days, Scott. Two days without a single word. Not even a text.”
“I know. I mean, I don’t, I don’t know—”
“How should I take all this, Scott? How would you take it if you were me?”
“I—I don’t know, Amy. I really don’t. But I would give you a chance to explain or I’d help you figure it out.”
She was silent. I heard her breathe.
“Look, Amy. I’m on my way home. Are you home? We’ll talk about this, okay? We’ll figure out what’s going on.” My heart was pounding in my chest.
“Scott, I—”
“I’ll be home in a few minutes. We can talk about it then.” I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles popped. I stopped at a red light. She had to listen. I had no idea what I would say, what I could say, other than the truth. But she had to listen.
“Okay, Scott. Okay. I’ll play along. But you have to explain this to Lyle, because I’m—I’m struggling here.”
“I know. Okay. Are you home?”
“Yes. I—I took the day. Another day. Lyle’s here. He stayed home from school.”
“I’m on my way.” Someone honked behind me, making me jump. The light was green. I pushed down on the accelerator.
“All right.” She hung up.
I put the phone in the cupholder and drove.
I started shaking. I knew what was coming, what my body was doing.
My palms were wet against the steering wheel, and my heart pounded as the muscles in my arms shook.
Pain radiated from my neck, from all the scrapes and bruises across my body.
I looked in the mirror and away again. I had to breathe.
“Stop,” I whispered. “Okay. It’s okay. Stop. Calm down.”
I used the breathing exercises my grandmother had taught me, that I had honed over the years. They helped. The attack subsided, for the moment.
I drove straight through town as fast as I dared.
At every red light I sat and tapped the wheel with my thumbs and tried not to look at myself in the mirror.
My phone rang twice during the twenty-or-so-minute drive.
Both times the caller ID showed my office, no doubt Melissa, calling.
I let them go to voicemail. It was a liberating experience, ignoring my boss like that.
The job, which seemed so important a few days earlier, just … wasn’t.
I pulled into the driveway next to Amy’s minivan. When I pushed through the front door, I found Amy sitting on the couch next to Lyle in the family room. There was a cup of coffee and a cup of hot chocolate on the coffee table in front of them. The hot chocolate was in an oversized polar bear mug.
Amy didn’t get up. Her arm was around Lyle. Her lips were pressed tight. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy.
Lyle gazed at me with an unreadable expression. “Hi, Dad.”
“Hey, bud, you okay?”
“You left again.”
The vise clamped down on my heart again. The strength of it hunched my shoulders. I glanced at Amy. She met my eyes. I looked back at Lyle and crouched before him. “I know, bud. And I know I promised I wouldn’t leave. But I don’t know what happened.”
“Was it the same as the last time?” he asked.
“Yes. Just … longer.”
I could almost see Lyle’s brain at work, trying to piece things together, trying to figure out if I was telling the truth and, if I was, what the truth meant.
Amy wore a sweater I’d given her years ago.
I wondered if she’d remembered it was a gift from me when she’d put it on that morning.
The corners of her eyes were tight as she watched me.
“Scott. I called the police. I filed a missing person report. I told them you’d been in an accident the day before.
That maybe you had a bad concussion after all, that it hadn’t shown up at the doctor’s. ”
I rocked back on my heels and rubbed at the bridge of my nose. “Okay. Okay. I wish you hadn’t.”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“I imagined you out there. Wandering around. Maybe not even knowing who you…” She trailed off, her chin quivering, and she hugged Lyle tighter to her. “You were gone two days, Scott.”
“I…” I couldn’t think of what to say.
Lyle peered at me. “Dad?”
“Lyle. Bud. I don’t know what’s going on.”
He waited.
“I’m—I’m scared, bud,” I said. “I’m scared it might happen again.”
Lyle pushed himself off the couch and put his arms around me. “It’s okay, Dad.”
I felt his small arms tremble. I picked him up. He buried his head against my shoulder. Tears welled in my eyes. For a long moment I only stood there.
“Scott,” Amy said. “Sit down, okay?”
I set Lyle down. Lyle clambered back up next to Amy. I sat across from them.
No one said anything. Amy gazed at me, and I looked alternately at her and at Lyle.
Lyle’s expression was again unreadable. I didn’t know what to say.
I didn’t want to just repeat myself. I wanted to do better, to explain, to give her and Lyle what they needed.
But I had no idea what the hell was going on.
Amy licked her lips. “So.”
“So.”
“Let’s start over. It happened again.”
“That’s right.”
“You skipped over two days.”
“Yes.”
“And you were at work when it happened?”
“It was the same time as last time. Exactly the same. Seven fifty-two.”
“It sounds crazy.”
“I know.”
“Do you have any idea…” She trailed off, glancing at Lyle. “Two days, Scott.”
“I know.”
“Do you really?” She shook her head. “I don’t think you do. I don’t think you can.”
“I’m so sorry, Amy. I really am. I wish I knew what this was.
” I pushed my hair back with both hands.
Gripped my head with my arms. Leaned against the plush back of recliner.
“I—I looked it up yester … I mean, Tuesday. There’re reports of other people losing track of time, missing time. Not exactly like this, but…”
I saw a flicker in her eyes. The need for an explanation. “Like what? What happened to them?”
“The crazier ones talk about UFOs.” Her eyes narrowed, and I hurried on. “But websites talk about multiple personality, schizophrenia.”
“You think you might have some kind of mental disorder? Should we get you an MRI? Some other tests?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? But a mental break doesn’t explain everything. Like how, both times, I was in the same spot, even traveling the same speed, when it happened, when I—when I came back.”
“Came back.”
I nodded.
“Your bandages are all the same. You haven’t changed them. Since Wednesday. And your clothes.”
“I—yes. I mean, no.”
“You don’t really think it’s something wrong with your head, do you?”
I hesitated. “No. No, I don’t.”
“Then what’s going on, Scott?”
“I don’t know.” I glanced at Lyle. He watched me, his eyes rendered small by the lenses of his glasses.
“You have to give me more than that,” Amy said. “We need more than that.”
The walls were coming up. I could see it, feel the shape of what was coming.
It was in the way she sat, the rigid posture, the hard eyes.
She was laying the foundations for what she needed to protect herself.
If I didn’t get my act together, those walls could stand for days.
She didn’t often get mad at me, even when I was being an idiot.
More than once she’d forgiven me for things I would have been low-key angry about for days had our roles been reversed.
But when she did get mad, she went all in.
All that went through my head in a shot.
As they stared at me, I put my hands together.
My palms were clammy with sweat again. My heart pounded, booming against my chest like I was running for my life.
I made myself take two long, deep breaths.
Forcing myself calm for the second time that morning.
The last time I’d had a severe panic attack I’d been in a hospital hallway outside my grandmother’s room after she’d died.
My lifeline, my anchor and bulwark against my father’s disapproval for years—gone.
I let out the last breath slow, conscious of Amy’s eyes on me.
Lyle’s eyes. Taking in everything, as always.
A panic attack would not help right now.
I looked up, still taking even, deliberate breaths. “I know. I know, Amy. I wish I had more. I wish I had an explanation.”
“Because right now, Scott, right now this sounds crazy. It sounds like you’re lying. This can’t—it has to be an act.”
“Well, I’m not. Lying, I mean, or performing. The crazy part … well, I’m not so sure on that.” It was a pitiful attempt at humor, but it came out too bitter, too dark, to be funny.
Silence stretched.
“So,” Amy said. “This, whatever it is. Is it going to happen again?”
I almost said, No, absolutely not, I’m not going anywhere. Then I looked at Lyle. “I hope not. But it already happened twice.”
“What do you want us to do, Scott?”
How things must look to her. I had a hard time even imagining what I would do if she up and disappeared for a day, came back, then vanished again for two days. I probably wouldn’t handle things as well as she was.
I swallowed hard. “Help me.”
“How?”
“Stay with me. Stay with me tomorrow morning. At seven fifty-two.”
Seconds ticked by. Lyle gripped his mother’s hand and gave her a brief, reassuring smile. She smiled back, her lips trembling. “All right,” she said. “All right, Scott.”
I let out a breath I wasn’t aware I was holding. “Thank you.”