“You’re being foolish.”
I let her say it because I knew she didn’t understand.
***
Two weeks before the wedding, I tried on my dress in the bedroom mirror. Amanda zipped the back while Sophie clapped, and the boys peeked around the doorframe, pretending to gag. I was so excited for that day!
Then I saw Robert in the mirror.
“You’re being foolish.”
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My fiancé stood in the doorway, watching me with an expression I didn’t understand then. Not happiness exactly, but not sadness either. Like he was trying to memorize me.
“You look beautiful,” he said softly.
“You’re not supposed to see the dress.”
“I know,” he replied. “I just wanted to remember.”
Looking back, I think part of him already knew something was wrong. He’d been tired for months, losing weight, hiding headaches behind small smiles.
He was trying to memorize me.
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***
The morning Robert vanished, the house was too quiet. It was a week before our wedding.
There was no sound of him moving around before the children woke. His side of the bed was cold.
“Robert?” I called.
No answer.
Amanda was standing barefoot at the top of the stairs, hugging herself, when I left our bedroom.
“Mama Margaret,” she whispered, “Daddy’s truck is gone.”
I told her he’d probably gone out to run an errand, but she looked at me with those serious eyes and knew I was lying.
There was no sound of him moving around.
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***
After trying to call my fiancé and finding his phone off, I waited for an hour, tried him again, panicked, and called everyone I could think of: his brother, his foreman, his oldest friend, and my mother.
No one had seen him.
I was reaching for the phone again, ready to call the police for help, when I noticed the folded note on the kitchen table, held down by the sugar bowl.
My hands shook as I opened it.
“I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore.”
That was all.
No one had seen him.
