by A J Grayson
Finally, she looks up.
‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but I don’t have a file for that name.’
Everything collapses. Inside, all around me. This was my last hope. I now know it’s all been a lie. Our life. Our family. Everything.
‘You don’t have a record of his marriage, then,’ I start, simply for emphasis.
‘No, I’m sorry, ma’am, you misunderstand.’
I blink as she utters the words. My eyelids scrape their way back upwards.
‘It’s not that I don’t have a marriage record for him,’ she continues, ‘I don’t have any record for him at all.’
I can’t react.
‘No marriage licence, no divorces,’ she continues. And then, ‘No birth certificate, no register of death.’ She looks into my uncomprehending eyes. ‘We only keep in-state records, of course, so he’s probably from out of state. But at least from the perspective of the state of California, and according to these files, David Joseph Howell doesn’t exist at all.’
48
Amber
My throat has clenched up almost completely. I can barely breathe, and sight is becoming a challenge.
‘Are you alright, ma’am?’ the clerk asks after a moment. For the first time her tone is something other than automatic and professional, graced with the subtleties of genuine concern.
‘I’m … I’m …’ I have no idea how to answer. According to these files, David Joseph Howell doesn’t exist at all. The statement is impossible. I cannot have heard it correctly.
Suddenly, I slam my palms down on the counter. ‘Would you please do a search on the wife instead?’
‘The wife? I’ve told you, we don’t have any record for a Mr Howell, and so certainly nothing on any wife such a man may have—’
‘Just search her!’ I snap. My words are fiery and she pulls back, so I try to gain control of myself. ‘Search, please, for Amber Howell.’
‘That’s the name of the … wife?’ The woman asks cautiously, her disbelief ripe and her nervousness around me mounting.
‘Search it. Please, just search it.’
‘I’d need her maiden name to pull up her birth certificate,’ she replies, and though the rest of her thoughts go unspoken I can read them across her face. Because she has no married name, at least not the name of a man who doesn’t exist.
‘Of course,’ I answer. ‘Her maiden name is Amber—’
And that damned pit leaps up to my toes.
I’m more than shocked by my sudden silence. Beneath me, the great abyss that shouldn’t be there. My insides are in revolt. The universe is becoming simply impossible.
I cannot remember my maiden name.
‘It’s Amber … Amber …’ Whatever certainty I might have possessed fades with each repetition. ‘I’m, oh God … just a second.’
My hand is in my bag. I’m too frantic to bring any order to my thoughts. I’m Amber … I’m Amber … On impulse I grab for my phone. I’m Amber … Oh God, I need help …
I try for Chloe’s number in the recent calls screen, but in my state I can’t make the listing display itself. I want to scream.
Frantically, I manage to open the contacts listing and scroll to the ‘bookshop’ group. My eyes are glassy, and the screen is hard to read, but the first name in the list is Mitch Tuttle’s, and I hit dial without pausing. I press the phone to my ear so firmly it causes me pain, and it rings and rings.
Answer!
I’m rocking on my heels, an impulse away from hanging up and trying the next number on my list, when finally it connects.
‘Mitch!’ I blurt into the phone before he has the chance to say hello. There is an uncontrollable sob that comes with my words.
‘Amber, is that actually you? Thank God.’ His voice is as warm as always, but drenched in concern.
‘Yes, yes, it’s me.’
‘We’ve been worried sick about you,’ he says. ‘Ever since you called this morning and hung up on Chloe. You’ve had us all rather … concerned.’
I don’t have time to explain. My brain is on fire and I need to put out the blaze.
‘Mitch, I need you to tell me my maiden name.’ He is my employer. Maybe he’ll remember it from my application.
Silence. Thunder inside me, but silence. The line is quiet. I know my request must sound absurd to my boss, but I can’t help it.
My own name! How can you forget your own name?
‘Mitch?’ I finally blurt out, desperate, impatient. ‘Are you there?’ Damn you!
‘I’m here, Amber.’ He hesitates. ‘Why would I know your maiden name? My God, you must be in a really bad way. Worse than ever before.’
It’s possibly the only thing Mitch Tuttle could have said in this moment to distract me from my distress.
‘Than … ever before?’ I try to wrap my head around the statement. ‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I mean, you’ve had your moments in the past, Amber, but you’ve never had lapses like this.’
‘Lapses? What the hell are you talking about? I’ve never had any lapses of anything!’ And for Christ sakes, what’s my name?!
‘No, no, of course you wouldn’t remember,’ he adds, and it sounds suspiciously like he’s being condescending. Talking down to me.
‘Mitch, I don’t know what the fuck you’re on about,’ I all but scream into the phone, ‘but I’m asking you a simple question. What’s my goddamned maiden name?’
The clerk in front of me has risen and taken a step backwards. However professional her personal styling may strive to make her, this scene is something her twenty-something years haven’t prepared her to witness.
‘I don’t think I can …’ Mitch’s voice is halting. ‘David told us we shouldn’t talk about your background unless he was—’
‘David told you!’ I’m screaming now at full bore. The clerk is backing away, but I’m well beyond caring. ‘What the hell has David been telling you?’
Mitch mumbles, like he’s trying for an answer. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Oh, damn. It’s just that he was in here this afternoon, looking for you, telling us things might have got bad, and …’
With a powerful impulse I realize I don’t want to hear another word from him. Not from anyone, not any more. I’ve had enough of second-hand reports and bursts of impossible information.
I click the red button on the screen and throw the phone into my bag. I’m already moving towards the exit, even as sounds of ‘Excuse me, miss, could we have a word?’ emerge from the window behind me. It’s a male voice, now. The clerk’s supervisor has apparently been called in.
No, you cannot have a word, asshole.
I’m done with being circumspect. This has gone too far. I want to talk to David, face to face. I want the truth, and from his lips. Whatever it is.
It’s time to confront the man who isn’t there.
49
Amber
I have no memory of the bus ride back to Lombard, only a stop-and-start blur of colours and faces that weave a trail between City Hall and my car. My emotions are simply overpowering, a crowd so brash and noisy I hear nothing besides them.
I’m in my car now, and the familiarity of it calms me fractionally. The plastic dashboard, with its remnants of old tea in paper teacups in the holders, has something reassuring about it. I’ve pushed buttons on this dashboard before, and those buttons are all still here. They haven’t morphed into something different, or told stories about doing one thing while secretly doing another – the air-con subversively turning on the windscreen wipers or the handbrake ejecting the wheels. They all do what they’re supposed to do. I remember drinking the tea in all these cups. I remember.
Things are supposed to remain real even when you’re not looking at them, just like this dash in this car. Reality is constant and predictable. Until today, I would have thought it was true of everything; but apparently it’s one in a series of dimensions of real life that I’ve got disastrously wrong for y
ears.
I point the car north towards Santa Rosa and Windsor, and thoughts of what’s to come start to fill my mind.
David’s face lights up in my vision. Every contour of his skin is bright and vivid. Three days ago my lips were wrapped around his earlobe and my hands wondering across the familiar terrain of his body. We were in love. We are in love. And in my mind I gaze into his eyes, peaceful and strong and …
And different. The whole image starts to turn cloudy and ominous. There is a different man in that body, a different face that houses those eyes.
I’m shuddering, and I try to shake it off.
I focus on the catalogue of things I need to lay out before David when I see him. There’s an overwhelming amount, and some semblance of order is going to be the difference between a conversation that goes somewhere and one that doesn’t.
I try not to permit it, but my mind impulsively walks through the scenario of a bad encounter. The worst. I walk into the kitchen at the end of this drive, finger wagging and accusatory.
‘You killed her, didn’t you?’ I demand, storming through the doorway, though I never storm. ‘The woman in the river. You killed her, and the man! Just admit it!’ David is at the table with a beer in his hand. He tries to answer without getting up, but I don’t let him.
‘And you’ve been lying to me since we met, haven’t you? About who you are? What, so you could concoct some shield of a loving marriage to guard you from suspicion for what you’ve really been up to?’
‘How dare you!’ David shouts back. His normally tender voice is rock hard and he slams his bottle down on the table. It rattles under the force, and in an instant David is on his feet. He’s got a knife in his hand, the same knife that was in my duffel bag. It’s still caked in dried blood, and he points it in my direction.
‘You just had to go nosing around, didn’t you?’ he demands, spittle coming out his lips and falling onto his chin. The words aren’t really a question. He takes a step towards me, the knife at chest height, his eyes a tired, diseased red. ‘Couldn’t keep yourself to yourself. And now, now you’ve brought me to this.’
And he lunges at me, the tarnished blade aimed at my stomach as he extends his arm, and I feel a cold sensation bite through my blouse and …
‘No!’ I shout the word as I drive. It’s not an exclamation made from fright: it’s a cry of sheer disbelief. The scenario I’ve imagined is absurd. David isn’t like that, whatever else I may think of him. He doesn’t use phrases like ‘nosing around’ or ‘keep yourself to yourself’. I’m drawing images from films and poorly voiced radio plays, not anything of realistic substance.
None of that is going to happen.
But I need to be measured. It won’t do simply to barge through the door with a wagging finger and an accusation.
I could go directly to the police. This isn’t the first moment that option has occurred to me. I still might. Eventually, I’ll have to. But when I do, it has to be with more than just scents of carpet cleaner in my nostrils and memories of a dirty leash I can’t produce. I’ll need evidence, something hard and concrete. The curious blanks in the record of our life together will help, but won’t be enough. I’ll need that knife. And the police will ask questions, of course. What could I possibly say right now? I need answers as much as I need the weapon. A confrontation is the only way.
I sense my fears spiralling dangerously close to out of control, and try to combat them with logic. I won’t rush at David. I’ll stay near the door, near an exit, so I can turn and run if I need to.
Maybe I should have some kind of protection.
I’ve never held a gun before, and wouldn’t have any idea how to get my hands on one if I wanted to. But there are other means of self-defence. Maybe it should be me who goes into the conversation wielding a knife. I don’t have to hold it menacingly. Just have it in my handbag, easy to grab. I could gather it from the kitchen before I face David, just in case. As a backup.
For a moment I ponder the possibility of how a knife would feel in my hand, wielded as a weapon. I’ve held all our knives a hundred times, but always as a utensil. Something to watch one’s fingertips around. I can’t imagine how I would wrap my fingers around a handle in reverse, or what it would be like to point a blade at another person.
I imagine it, and I can feel the knife in my grip. I suppose it wouldn’t be wholly foreign. A handle is a handle, whichever way it’s facing.
No, this is nonsense. I’m not wielding a knife at my husband. I’ll stand in the doorway. I’ll leave my keys in the ignition of the car and leave the driver’s door unlocked. If I need to run, I’ll be able to do it without faltering at the last step. That’s sensible.
And I’ll, I’ll …
Fuck it, I finally scold myself. Enough of this. You’ll drive yourself mad before you have a chance to do anything at all.
I realize I’m fumbling through the little indentation in the seat divider, home to the odds and bobs of my daily commute, and I grab hold of the Bluetooth earpiece for my phone. With a few button presses it’s paired to my phone and I press it into my ear. I key in the voice recognition with an extended press on its sole button.
‘Call David,’ I command, and the order is confirmed with a verbal reply in my ear. A few seconds later, I hear the line ringing.
Let the chips fall where they will. I’m not shying out of this.
The line connects.
‘Amber! Oh God, finally! I’ve been trying to—’
I don’t let David say another word. For an instant my nerves collapse, and I wonder if I should change my plan, here and on the spot. Suggest to meet him in some open, public place – a shopping centre or a mall. But momentum is a powerful force, and despite it all, my fear melts away. I refuse to be made to feel afraid.
‘I’m driving to the apartment,’ I announce. My words are emotionless and hard. ‘I’ll be there in an hour. I expect to see you.’
And for the third time in my life, and the third time that day, I hang up the phone on another human being.
50
David
It doesn’t take an utter genius to figure out you’re being avoided. When a person doesn’t want to be found, who normally wants nothing more than to be close to you, you sense it. Even before the circumstances make it obvious.
Amber has been hiding from me. She doesn’t want me to know where she is or what she’s doing. And she’s trying to be sneaky about it all.
For a brief moment, there was the worry that something had happened to her. Given the fluctuation in the amount of drugs I’d been giving her, there was a chance she’d blacked out somewhere. Fallen, injured herself, maybe broken her phone. God forbid, she could have had a spell in the car. That thought ran through me too late. It may be necessary to concoct a reason for her not to drive any more. I couldn’t bear to see her go that way.
I phoned the emergency services, twice, seeking any accident reports for Highway 101 that involved the plates on her car. None had been called in; and the same was true when I searched the surrounding regions. That particular fear was assuaged.
But she didn’t answer her phone, and I haven’t stopped calling. Even when it was clear I wasn’t getting through to her, and even once I’d figured out she was avoiding me intentionally.
Calling the bookshop was the natural next step. Not only do I need to play the doting husband, but I actually am one. One of her colleagues might have known where Amber had gone. The calls weren’t only for show.
I called yesterday, and got stories. She was ‘out meeting with suppliers’. She was ‘ill’. I knew the second excuse wasn’t true. The first sounded implausible. The whole point of her working there is that she doesn’t have to do that sort of thing. She can stay in a comfortable place. Familiar.
I couldn’t call the police, of course, despite the fact that something was very wrong. So I started my own search.
The next day I called the shop again, got the same stories again, just as inconsistent
ly delivered. Amber had obviously spoken with her friends there, at least the woman. She’d made known she wasn’t feeling well and would be out all day – that was it. I even went in and visited in person, but it didn’t yield anything more.
They took my visit well. I’d introduced myself to them years ago, when everything with Amber began. The benefit of a small place, locally owned, not a big chain. She needed employment, and they were willing to help me in helping her get it – part of their community-minded ethos and the ‘we’re not big-business’ attitude they tried to foster. Caring for those others didn’t want to care about, even as they sold something that modern techno-centrism didn’t seem to want. Might not be the best business model, but they were committed to it as a point of principle.
I knew the drugs would occasionally bring about mood shifts and different degrees of highs and lows, so it was useful to concoct a story with her colleagues to help fend off any suspicions. Amber had a hard childhood, and went through a lot of trauma. Her past sometimes catches up with her, and if it does, it can cause real health concerns. But the doctors say there’s nothing preventing her from working and leading a normal life, as long as we leave those things alone. So I’d be tremendously grateful if you might be willing, as her colleagues, not talk with her about her background. Not at all. She may seem inquisitive or gentle about it at first if you do, but it will torment her, and her meds can go off balance if that happens. I’d even provided a few medical documents, forged of course, to back it all up. And they listened, and were agreeable. Said they were like a family in their little shop, and as I was a caring husband with a wife in pitiable mental straits, they seemed eager to help.
Why wouldn’t they listen to me about such tender things?
But the stories she’s told them, the stories they’ve told me about her whereabouts now, they simply aren’t true. Amber isn’t ill. And she isn’t simply ‘out’.
What is a man supposed to do, in a situation like this?