I called our son again later that morning.<\/p>\n
I didn't leave another message.<\/p>\n
I sat at the table, holding the phone, trying to decide what to say if he answered.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to sound angry.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to accuse him of anything.<\/p>\n
I wanted one simple answer.<\/p>\n
Where was Maggie?<\/p>\n
I tried him again.<\/p>\n
No answer.<\/p>\n
I put the phone down and walked into the living room.<\/p>\n
Her chair stood beside mine, with the small cushion she always used resting against the back.<\/p>\n
I straightened it.<\/p>\n
Then I felt foolish for doing so.<\/p>\n
There was nobody sitting there.<\/p>\n
I went back to the kitchen and made another cup of coffee.<\/p>\n
I didn't drink it.<\/p>\n
By then, I had begun to replay our last conversation in my head.<\/p>\n
Maggie had sounded tired, but she had sounded like herself.<\/p>\n
She had said our son needed help.<\/p>\n
She hadn't explained much beyond that.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether I should have asked more questions before she left.<\/p>\n
Maybe I had been too quick to accept her explanation.<\/p>\n
Maybe she had been trying to tell me something without saying it directly.<\/p>\n
I knew I was reaching.<\/p>\n
When someone you love disappears from your daily life without explanation, your mind starts looking for meaning in things that never seemed meaningful before.<\/p>\n
I didn't know what to believe.<\/p>\n
I only knew I couldn't keep sitting at home.<\/p>\n
I began looking for the details I had overlooked.<\/p>\n
Her suitcase was gone.<\/p>\n
Her travel bag was gone.<\/p>\n
The charger she had packed was gone too.<\/p>\n
Everything she had taken with her suggested she had left for an ordinary visit.<\/p>\n
Nothing in the house explained why she had stopped answering.<\/p>\n
I checked the messages between us.<\/p>\n
The last few were short and unremarkable.<\/p>\n
I read them again anyway.<\/p>\n
There was no warning in them.<\/p>\n
No request for help.<\/p>\n
No strange phrase that suddenly revealed itself as a hidden message.<\/p>\n
Just my wife telling me she had arrived and that she was busy.<\/p>\n
I sat with that for a long time.<\/p>\n
Then I called our son one more time.<\/p>\n
This time, I left a message.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt's Dad. I need to know how your mother is doing. Call me as soon as you can.\u201d<\/p>\n
I tried to keep my voice steady.<\/p>\n
I don't know whether I succeeded.<\/p>\n
Afterward, I put the phone on the table and waited.<\/p>\n
I lasted about ten minutes before picking it up again.<\/p>\n
Nothing.<\/p>\n
I considered calling someone who might know whether Maggie had been seen recently.<\/p>\n
But I couldn't think of anyone I wanted to involve without first speaking to our son.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to turn a family problem into something larger.<\/p>\n
That hesitation would stay with me.<\/p>\n
It was the kind of hesitation that seemed sensible right up until the moment you realized you had wasted time.<\/p>\n
I spent the afternoon pacing around the house.<\/p>\n
I checked the front door even though I knew Maggie wasn't going to walk through it.<\/p>\n
I looked outside whenever a vehicle passed.<\/p>\n
Once, I thought I heard her car.<\/p>\n
I went to the window before I could stop myself.<\/p>\n
It was a neighbor.<\/p>\n
I returned to my chair and sat down.<\/p>\n
I felt embarrassed by how much I was waiting.<\/p>\n
Then I felt ashamed of being embarrassed.<\/p>\n
Maggie was my wife.<\/p>\n
Worrying about her was not something I needed to justify.<\/p>\n
By late afternoon, I knew I needed more than another unanswered call.<\/p>\n
I needed to find out what had happened.<\/p>\n
I thought about driving to Knoxville.<\/p>\n
The idea frightened me because it made the situation feel real.<\/p>\n
As long as I stayed home, I could tell myself Maggie was simply busy.<\/p>\n
If I went looking for her, I would have to face the possibility that she wasn't coming back when I expected.<\/p>\n
I packed a few things into a small bag.<\/p>\n
Then I stopped and unpacked them.<\/p>\n
I couldn't even explain to myself why.<\/p>\n
I walked through the house again, turning off lights that were already off and checking windows that were already locked.<\/p>\n
Finally, I sat down and looked at the phone.<\/p>\n
I had been waiting for someone else to tell me what to do.<\/p>\n
Nobody was going to do that for me.<\/p>\n
I picked up the phone and tried our son once more.<\/p>\n
There was no answer.<\/p>\n
That was the moment my patience ended.<\/p>\n
I decided I would go to Knoxville and find out what was happening.<\/p>\n
I didn't know what I would find when I got there.<\/p>\n
I only knew that staying home had become harder than facing the unknown.<\/p>\n
I called our son again later that morning. I didn't leave another message. I sat at the table, holding the phone, trying to decide what to say if he answered. … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37909,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37893\/revisions\/37909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}