by Megan Walker
She’s sick, and she’s lost, and she’s out there somewhere with no one. Can she even call Alec or Gabby without her phone?
I twist her ring around and around. And then I do the only thing I can think of in the state that I’m in.
I call Josh.
Twenty-five
Felix
I’m not on the phone with Josh for long, just enough to tell him that my wife left me, and ask him to come over. He doesn’t ask any questions, and tells me he’ll be right there.
Then I pull out my phone and text Alec. If you hear from Jenna, would you let me know? I ask him. I know that’s a strange request, but I’ll explain later.
Alec responds. Okay. Talked to her last week, but haven’t heard from her since. Because he’s Alec, he doesn’t ask any more questions. That’s why I started with him. I’m not ready to explain what’s going on to anyone else.
Though I do need to tell Gabby before she hears it from Dana.
I pace back and forth in our bedroom, listening for Rachel and making a list of the other people I need to contact. Roxie and Leo, our bandmates, are visiting Leo’s family in Louisiana. They’ve been gone for the last few weeks, taking advantage of our time off by making a road trip out of it. I figure they’re more likely to worry and ask questions, and also less likely to have heard from Jenna if she left her phone behind. I’ll contact them in the morning.
That leaves the more obvious people. I have to tell Jenna’s parents, but I know I’m not going to get away with just a text to them, and probably if she’d gone there she wouldn’t have lied to her mother when she asked her to babysit. And no way in hell did Jenna go to my parents.
So instead I just pace and try to breathe. At the back of my mind, I can feel the pain lurking, waiting to pounce on me as soon as I stop moving. I know what comes with that pain—the cravings, and the despair. I’ve only been on the medication for a few months. I have no idea how much of the pain they’ll hold back, and how much is going to swamp me, render me incapable of taking care of Rachel and Ty.
I have to hold it together for them. It’s more than staying clean. I have to remain functional and positive. I have to be their father, because at this moment, I’m the only parent they have. And while fatherhood hasn’t ever frightened me like it probably should have, being alone definitely does.
There’s a soft knock at the door, and I go downstairs and let Josh in. He’s wearing a suit, like he came straight from work.
“Are you okay?” he asks, though it’s obvious he knows I’m not.
I shake my head and hand him the note. Jenna’s ring is still hooked on my finger, and I’m afraid to take it off, like by holding it for her, I can hold our marriage together.
“What happened?” Josh asks. We walk into the living room and he sits on the couch, but I don’t. I keep pacing back and forth, my hands behind my head.
“I think she has postpartum depression,” I say. “My sister Dana called, and she was asking about Jenna, and I guess Dana had depression after she had my nephew, and she recognized it in Jenna and has been trying to tell me about it, but I haven’t been answering the phone, and—”
“Okay,” Josh says. “So she hasn’t been diagnosed.”
Pain lances through me, like I’ve been stabbed. “No. I told her I wanted her to get treatment, but she said not yet, and I didn’t insist. I should have insisted. I should have—”
“You didn’t know,” Josh says. “We’ve talked about this, and you were doing the best you could for her. You didn’t know.”
“I should have known,” I say. “We both have it, I think. And we both used to go to some really dark places, and we’d be there together, and we’d help each other out of it, but I’ve been on anti-depressants for the sexual side effects, and I’ve been doing so much better, and I didn’t even think that it might have been because of the meds. But she didn’t feel better, and I left her all alone, and—”
“Felix,” Josh says. “I understand that you feel like you failed her, but I can’t imagine any situation where your family is better off if you’re depressed. Surely if you’re healthy, it should be better for Jenna, not worse.”
That seems logical, so that means if I’m also right, what we’d been doing probably isn’t the healthiest thing. I need to sort it out with my therapist. I wonder if she’d return my call if I texted her now.
“Where do you think Jenna went?” Josh asks.
“I don’t know,” I say bleakly.
“I know you don’t know. Where are you afraid she went?”
Thinking about that means examining the pain lurking at the back of my mind. I’m afraid if I examine it, it’ll consume me. I finally understand what Jenna meant about the wave that was going to crash down on her.
If I’m going to be ambushed by it, better now, while I’m not alone.
“I’m afraid she’s going to hurt herself,” I say.
Josh nods. “Has she been suicidal before?”
“No. Not that I know of.”
“So the odds of that are pretty low, yeah?”
Probably. “She’s never left me before, either.”
“Okay,” Josh says. “So clearly this time is worse.”
Much worse. And I know that Jenna and I haven’t been great about talking lately, but I thought we were doing better. I thought we’d both learned something about needing to talk about the dark stuff inside our heads, so it doesn’t gain power over us.
Then again, I know what that head space is like, so I know how hard it is to fight through it in practice, even when you know the answer in theory.
“She’s probably not suicidal,” I say, taking at least some comfort in that—because I really think that’s true. “But there are other ways to hurt yourself.”
“Like drugs?” Josh asks.
It’s a fair question. If it were me, that would be it. “Parties. Alcohol. I’m scared she’s gone to some club or a party to find some guy who will hurt her.”
Josh pauses, looking hesitant. “Do you think you could get past that if she did?”
I startle. “Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, for sure. It’s not like . . . cheating.”
Josh’s brow furrows. “Then what is it like?”
I fumble for the words. “Jenna used to party. You know that.”
He nods.
“But it wasn’t, like, fun for her. She was miserable, but she just kept going back to it, again and again.”
Josh nods again, slowly. “Anna-Marie’s dad has a sex addiction. He kept having affairs, even though it was ruining his life. Is it like that?”
I’d never thought of it in those terms before. I guess it’s possible, but something about that doesn’t strike me quite right. “It’s not like Jenna struggles with the temptation to cheat, not like I fight the urge to use. Not even when we’re having problems, or when she hasn’t had sex in a long time. It’s more like . . . she wants to hurt herself. Like she used to find guys who would hurt her, because it’s what she feels like she deserves.”
“Hurt her physically,” Josh says.
“Yeah,” I say. “Grant was really into asphyxiation. He’d choke her until she thought she was going to die. And he called her all sorts of names, during sex and after.”
These aren’t usually things I would share about Jenna, except in vague terms. But I can’t sort out right now what’s important and what isn’t, and obviously I haven’t been a great judge of what I need to talk about.
“Does she want you to do things like that to her?” Josh asks. There’s no judgment in his tone, just an interest in helping me sort it out.
“No,” I say. “Never. She feels safe with me. If she’s looking to punish herself, she wouldn’t have come to me for that.”
Josh nods like this is reasonable, which it isn’t.
“I know it’s messed up,
” I say.
“Yeah,” Josh says. “Issues like that always are. But you think you’d be okay, if she did go off and find someone to hurt her.”
I close my eyes. The idea of someone hurting Jenna like that, that she might be in danger or in pain, it makes me want to go walk the streets blindly, looking for her. “I’d get over it,” I say. “Because I know it’s not really cheating, it’s not really what she wants. But I don’t know that she could ever get over it. I don’t know that she’d ever be able to forgive herself. She might never give me a chance to forgive her.”
“God,” Josh says, rubbing his forehead. “Yeah, that sucks.”
I nod. The truth is, I’d be willing to fight through it, no matter how painful or difficult. I’d fight through anything—I just want Jenna to be safe.
“Have you called family?” Josh asks. “Did she go to her parents?”
“She had her mom babysitting when she left, and she lied about where she was going. I can’t handle their worry right now, but I’ll call them in the morning.” I wish Jenna was there, even if she couldn’t be here, even if she didn’t want to see me.
“Have you checked your credit card? Might give you an idea of where she went, if she used it.”
“That’s a good idea,” I say, and sit down to look our accounts up on my phone.
There’s a withdrawal from an ATM. Five hundred dollars, the maximum possible cash withdrawal, about an hour ago, at an ATM downtown. In the meantime, she could have gone anywhere.
“She’s using cash,” I say.
“What about her car? Can you report her missing?”
“I have no idea,” I say. “Can you do that with adults? Are people going to think I’m crazy if I report her car missing? She had every right to take it.”
“She might be sick.”
That’s true. “But without a diagnosis, will they really do anything?” I honestly don’t know.
“Hang on,” Josh says. “Let me call and find out.” I sit with my head in my hands while he calls the police station and starts asking questions about missing adults. I can’t believe this is happening. Jenna is gone, not just because she left me, but because she ran off, and she could be hurt, could be suffering, could be anywhere.
And if they find her, then what? Will we have any power to help her, if she doesn’t want it? Is she ever going to come home?
The pressure is building behind my chest.
“Hey,” Josh says to me. “Can you get me the license plate number and make of her car?”
I find the information for him, and he gives it to the cops. “They took a report,” he says. “They say they’ll keep an eye out for her, but I don’t imagine they’re going to do much beyond alert you if she gets arrested for something, unless you’re worried about foul play.” Josh is quiet for a minute. “Are you?”
I hadn’t even thought about that. She could have been forced to write that note. She’s been so scared of someone coming out of her past and hurting Rachel. Could she have been right?
“No,” I finally say. “She told her mom she was leaving. She called her in to watch the kids, and her mom didn’t suspect anything. I don’t think anyone forced her.”
A tear runs down my face, and I feel the darkness pressing in closer and closer. I know there are more tears, and more pain, and a hell of a lot more fear waiting to bombard me.
“What can I do?” Josh asks.
He called the police for me, and thought to check the credit cards, so he’s already done a lot. “Could you call Gabby? She needs to know what’s going on, and I don’t want her to hear it from Dana. I’ll call Jenna’s parents myself in the morning, but if you could just tell her what’s going on. And tell her—tell her that I can’t talk about it any more tonight. We can talk tomorrow, but not tonight.”
Josh nods. “Do you want me to stay here tonight?”
“No,” I say. “I’ll be okay. Tell Gabby I’ll be okay, but if she wants to call in the morning, I want to talk to her.”
“Will do.” He hesitates, and then he gets up and gives me a hug, like we’ve been friends for years. And I guess given all I’ve just told him, we’re well past the new friends stage.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Hey,” Josh says. “You’d have done the same for me.”
He leaves, and I take a deep breath. The cravings are there, but right now they’re a dull ache. I know they’re going to pierce through. I may be on anti-depressants, but the addiction is still real, still waiting to jump on me when I least expect it.
But I have people I can count on—lots of them, now. I’ll text my therapist in the morning; I’ll talk to Gabby and call Jenna’s parents. I’ll hold Rachel, and figure out how the hell I’m going to explain all this to Ty.
I’ll do that because I have to. Because I’m Ty’s father, and Rachel’s father, because I have to be responsible for them, because I can’t solve this problem by putting a needle in my arm.
And hopefully, hopefully, I won’t actually have to do any of those things. Because by the time Ty wakes up in the morning, hopefully Jenna will be home.
Twenty-six
Anna-Marie
It’s been about six months since Gabby and I had one of our trademark Wine and Doritos nights, so I had to make sure we were well-stocked in both of those for tonight—a feat which required a shopping trip after Ben cleaned us out of snacks. A Google search a couple years ago, when Gabby and I were well into the bottle of Riesling I normally love, informed us that the best wine to pair with Doritos was a Cotes Du Rhone, which we immediately had to try—sending Will out that very night for a wine run.
The recommendation was spot on, further supporting my tendency to base way too many decisions on Buzzfeed articles, but it’s worked out all right for me so far.
Tonight felt like a good night to re-start the tradition, especially as Josh was going to stay at work late to make up for coming home earlier in the day. And, I suppose, one advantage of taking a break on the fertility stuff is that I can go from the “occasional drink” to “whenever I damn well please.”
So I have the Cotes Du Rhone sitting out, as well as a selection of Doritos, when Gabby arrives. She’s got her blond hair up in a messy bun and is wearing her fuzzy Garfield pajama pants—I don’t know how those things are still around after all these years, but I’m glad they are—and she greets me with a huge smile. We hug and squeal and settle in on the couch in the den, which has been put back together after The Attack of the Baby Rattlesnake.
God, it’s good to see her. Even if I can’t help but be nervous, now knowing that she thinks I’ve been avoiding her. Especially since I actually kind of have been.
“How’s Will? How’s work? How’s the wedding planning?” The questions tumble out of me with barely a breath in between. Geez, you’d think we hadn’t talked at all for those six months, which isn’t true. We’ve gotten together for a few lunches, and talked on the phone, and some texts, and . . . wow. Having to think about it all like that—just a handful of lunches and rushed phone calls and late-night texts about which Skarsgård brother is hotter, compared to how it used to be—
I take a big, guilty swig of wine.
Gabby grins, jamming her hand into the bag of Cool Ranch. “Will is fantastic. He’s still so happy with his new job. And they really value his writing, which, you know, they’d better. He’s amazing. In my unbiased opinion, of course.”
“Of course,” I say, grinning back. She’s practically glowing as she talks about him, which makes me so happy to see. Gabby sucks at faking anything, so clearly she and Will are in a really good place.
“And the wedding . . .” She trails off with a shrug. “My mom and Dana teamed up to drag me to look at venues, none of which we can afford or even particularly like.”
I laugh. “I can see it. But it is going to happen, right? You di
dn’t just decide that now you have the ring, you can kick back and deprive the rest of us of witnessing the long and judgmental toast Dana will give at the reception?”
Gabby groans good-naturedly. “Yes, it’s going to happen. You know Will and me, though. We’re not in a rush.” She smiles fondly down at the ring on her hand, the diamond catching the light. It’s not a huge rock, which Gabby probably wouldn’t have wanted even if they hadn’t been so financially pressed at the time. But it’s a gorgeous ring, and suits her perfectly. Will did good—mainly by getting together with her to begin with.
“Excellent.” I tip my wine glass towards her. “Because I’m eager to one day actually get to do my maid of honor duties.”
There’s a moment where I almost ask if she still wants me to be her maid of honor, with us not being as close lately. But I take a long drink instead. That’s a stupid thought, and probably partially coming from how weird things have been with Josh and me lately—I’m becoming insecure about everything, which is so not like me.
But Gabby would tell me if she’d changed her mind about that. If she’d been so hurt that she’d rather have Jenna do it, or—god help us all—Dana.
Wouldn’t she? Gabby can be pretty conflict avoidant and hates hurting people’s feelings, and—
Gabby clears her throat. “So enough about me. How’s that new pilot? Did you start filming yet?”
“Not yet. Early next month.” Another pause. Because as excited as I am about the pilot, I’ve barely been thinking about it lately with all the stuff going on with Josh. Stuff I’m both dying to talk to Gabby about, and also weirdly reluctant to.
So I talk about the pilot instead. I gush about the script and the characters and the fact that I’m getting to do legit comedy and I think I’m going to be pretty good at it—which Gabby, of course, completely agrees with.
“And if it continues the way the first few episodes are going, I think there’s going to be some really sweet romance stuff—with ex number one, at least. He’s obviously the best for her.”