Death in Absentia

Maureen led her to the living room and Alycia followed like she didn't know the way. She did of course because she lived there 24 years ago, with Jason and their two children.

"You can wait here. I've got something in the oven."

Alycia looked around the room as she took off her jacket. Nothing about the room was familiar to her. The last time she had seen it the walls were an ugly green and the carpet beige and stained with the usual mementos kids leave behind when they play. The only thing she recognized was one item on the bookcase behind the couch. It was an antique microscope that she and Jason found in a flea market shortly after they got married. It brought back memories of the two of them going around to antique shops and flea markets and yard sales on the weekends to find just the right treasures to fill their house with. That all stopped when the babies were born.

She looked over the bookcase and saw an old 35 mm camera in a glass case sitting next to a stack of photo albums each with a different year printed on the spine starting with 1990 and ending with 2008. Sitting on top of the glass case was a modern digital Canon camera.

Alycia walked over to the fireplace and looked up at the large family portrait over the mantle. It was your typical studio portrait with everyone wearing white and sitting barefooted in an idyllic pasture, smiling and pretending to be having a casual picnic. It was a beautiful picture of six people that she didn't know and Jason. He looked happy and the way his hand touched his wife's spoke volumes about their connection. Alycia remembered that connection with him. She felt it a number of times with other men since then but there was nothing like the first time. Your first was different, more intense, and something that you'll always remember.

"That's Jeremy and Bethany on the left," Maureen said from the doorway. "Robert and Jenni are on the right; they're from my first marriage. The little one in the middle is Rose, she's our daughter, and a whole lot taller now. I'm not supposed to know this but right now she and her father are out shopping for my birthday present."

Maureen walked into the room with two cups of hot tea. She held one out to Alycia.

"Go ahead. I promise there's no poison in it. As much as I would love to, I wouldn't do anything to hurt Jason."

Alycia took the cup and looked up at the portrait again. With a sad tone in her voice she said, "They're all grown up now. Jeremy looks just like his dad and Bethany has my eyes. I didn't know I would feel anything if I saw them again, I wasn't sure, but I do. I'm... I feel... I can't explain how I feel. But it looks like Jason did a good job raising them, and you of course. Are they good people?"

"They're wonderful kids. They're both married now. Jeremy and his wife are in the Marines and Bethany is a school teacher with a little girl of her own, and another on the way."

The two women stood in silence sipping their drinks. Each was looking over the other sizing up their opponent. The atmosphere was still chilly but it wasn't the arctic freeze that it was at the front door.

Maureen saw a tall fifty-something year old woman with long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail that ended in the middle of her back. She wore jeans and a heavy multi-colored ski sweater, looking like she was on her way to a ski lodge. Expensive looking cowboy boots completed the classy outfit. The silver buckle on her belt and the bracelet on one arm had a southwest feel to them, something like a tourist would buy from a Native-American gift shop, but a fancy gift shop. She wore little make up and still had attractive features and bright blue eyes.

Alycia looked at Maureen and saw everything she never wanted to be, a housewife in her mid-forties wearing non-descript slacks and a university sweatshirt with an apron around her waist. Her hair was pretty, blond and cut to flatter her face and striking violet eyes. The tennis shoes she wore had seen better days. She wore no make-up but she didn't seem to need any. Her face had a rosy glow and the smoothest, creamiest skin imaginable.

"How long have you two been married," Alycia asked.

"Fifteen years now."

"And you have the one daughter?"

"Yes, Rose, she's our pride and joy."

"I thought Jason always wanted a large family. I remember him saying he wanted a dozen kids."

"Let's go sit down. If we're going to talk then at least we should be comfortable."

The two women choose opposite sides of the coffee table, Alycia in the lounge chair and Maureen on the couch.

Maureen continued, "He did. When we got married I already had two children that Jason adopted. When Rose was born he said that we should have another but we talked about it and agreed that five was plenty. There was never any more discussion after that. He was never really serious about having a dozen kids."

The two women paused to sip their drinks and to breathe. They were still tense but breathing once in a while helped to make them relax a little.

Alycia peered up over her cup and asked, "Do you know everything about me?"

Maureen pondered the many different ways she could tell her just how much she knew but decided to be honest and take a direct approach. "I know everything about you. Jason told me everything."

"Then you know that I didn't want kids."

"No, I didn't know that! And if I didn't know then Jason didn't know either. If you didn't want kids then why did you get married? You had two kids, why did you have them?"

Alycia looked down at the drink in her hands and said, "I loved Jason. We had a lot of fun together. I thought we would be able to do all the things that I've always dreamed about; you know, travel, visit exotic places, climb mountains, ride motorcycles, go to Paris and climb the Eiffel Tower, see the Pyramids, all the things I grew up reading and dreaming about. But when I found out I was pregnant with Jeremy, Jason started in with all his plans for a house, schools, decorating, all that domestic stuff. I knew that we would never be able to do all the things I, well we, dreamt about. We were going to be stuck with kids and jobs and a mortgage and responsibilities and would never see Paris or the Pyramids. Shortly after Jeremy was born I was pregnant again with Bethany. That made Jason the happiest man in the world. But all I could think about was being stuck at home and becoming a baby factory. All I could think about was a house with twelve kids running around in it. I was miserable. "

"Did you tell Jason this?"

"We talked about it, but Jason was so happy all the time playing with the kids and showing them off to the neighbors that I didn't want to disappoint him by telling him that I didn't want more. I knew that it would hurt him if I said that, so I don't think I really said it exactly like that, I just sort of intimated it."

"He never knew that you didn't want to have any more kids? Don't you think that was something he would have liked to know?"

"I said I couldn't tell him. I just couldn't make him unhappy."

"So you just left him? Leaving him wouldn't make him unhappy?"

"No... Yes... No... It wasn't like that. I didn't want to hurt him. I had dreams that were spoiled when the kids were born. I wanted to do all the things I've always dreamt about and I wanted to do them while I was still young enough to enjoy them. I knew he wouldn't be able to do anything as long as we had the kids so I thought it would be best if we separated."

"And you told him this?"

"No, not really. He could see how unhappy I was. He had to know what was coming."

"Jesus Christ! Do you think he could read your mind? You thought he knew? How could you be so stupid? He didn't know a thing! He loved you! He loved the kids! He never saw anything coming!"

Alycia was steadily looking down into the cup of tea as Maureen leaned over the coffee table and lambasted the woman for her stupidity. All of a sudden Maureen realized how close she was to strangling this idiot of a woman. She took in a long, deep breath and sat back on the couch looking into her own cup.

It took a long while for the tension to dissipate enough to talk again.

Maureen asked, "So tell me if you will how you accomplished the impossible, to disappear into thin air. That is one thing that had everyone baffled, even the police."

Alycia actually smiled as if she was proud of what she did. "It was quite simple really. I worked for a company that helped people liquidate the estates of family members who died and left a lot of stuff behind. Most people didn't want to bother with going through all the furnishings and personal items and papers that people tend to accumulate in their lifetime, so we did everything for them. In a pile of papers of one of the estates I was working on I found a birth certificate for a woman that was just a few years younger than me. I asked one of the family members about her and found out that she was a mentally and physically handicapped woman who was living with relatives. They said that she had no chance of living a productive life; she was destined to live with relatives until she died. Her name was Christine Barnett. That gave me what I needed to make it all work. I had a birth certificate so I used it to get a driver's license and after that to apply for a social security number and then a credit card. I even bought a decent used car using my new identity. I cashed in a bunch of bonds no one knew about that I got when my mother died so I had enough money to do everything I needed to do. When I left to go to Charlie's I became Christine Barnett."

"You talk so casually about leaving as though you were going to the grocery store and buying cereal. Your planning must have taken weeks or months. It wasn't some spur of the moment decision; you planned this and executed it with outstanding precision. But you had no clue what you would be leaving behind, did you?"

"I thought about it but I knew that everything would be okay. Jason would be okay. He was a good father and would take good care of the kids. Sure he would miss me for a while but he would move on and looking at you it looks like he did okay."

Everything stopped and Maureen just sat there looking amazed. Then her expression changed to one of curiosity. Her brow furrowed and her mouth puckered and her violet eyes looked daggers at the woman.

"I think I almost missed something here," Maureen almost hissed the words she spoke. "Who was Charlie?"

"Oh, I guess I skipped that part. Charlie was one of the family members of another estate I was working on. We became close while working on his aunt's paperwork. He lived in Texas and when I left I went to be with him."

"Just how close were you two?"

"Uh, well, let's just say we were good friends and leave it at that."

"No, we're not going to leave it at that! Either you tell me everything about you and Charlie or I'm going to come over this table and beat it out of you!"

"Okay, okay, you don't have to threaten me. It was a long time ago so it won't matter what you know. Charlie and I were lovers for a few months before I left. We saw each other a couple times a month, usually at the Holiday Inn over in Ellicott City. We had a good time together and he promised to take me to see the world and climb mountains and explore Fiji when I left Jason and we were together. About that time I found Christine's birth certificate. A couple months later I had everything I needed so I went to Texas to be with him. The only problem was that he already had a wife and family so I just kept on driving. I ended up outside Phoenix, and... well..."

"YOU CHEATED ON JASON?"

"I guess you could say that. I had already made up my mind to leave him anyway it's just that Charlie sped things up a bit and gave me somewhere to go. It didn't work out exactly as I planned but it was too late to go back."

"AND YOU NEVER LOOKED BACK?"

"I felt bad about leaving two kids with Jason but I knew that he could handle it. He was a strong man and raising kids would be easy. Sometimes I did feel guilty about the whole thing but I just looked forward and tried not to let the past interfere."

"AND THEN?"

"Well, eventually I married a man who owned a motorcycle shop in Phoenix. We had a lot of fun traveling all over the southwest and Mexico and even up into Canada. He died while driving in Texas when his Harley hit an armadillo that threw him in oncoming traffic. I sold the motorcycle shop and moved to Sacramento. A few years later I met and married a man who owned a small vineyard in the Napa valley. I learned all about making wine from him. We traveled extensively in Asia and the South Pacific and Alaska when he went around promoting his wines. He developed a particularly bad type of cancer and committed suicide when everything got really bad for him. We were together for eight years. I sold the vineyard and moved to Seattle where I met Tom. Tom was a long haul truck driver. I used to go with him on some of his deliveries. We had a lot of fun until a welding tank blew up in his face. The police thought that I was some kind of 'black widow' because my husbands died tragically. It was all just some kind of bureaucratic mix-up. But they found out about my real identity and Jason. At first I didn't want to see him but they persisted and eventually I agreed. When I knew that he was outside the door I got cold feet and said I didn't want to see him. I heard his screams outside the door when it closed. I'm sorry I did that to him. I don't understand why he would say those things and go all crazy like that."

Maureen was boiling mad inside. The only outward sign was a steely eyed gaze and the flexing of her jaw as she gnashed her teeth. She couldn't believe what she just heard. Here was a woman that was once married to the man she loved more than anything in the world and she talked about men and love like it was food passed around at dinner; take a scoop, enjoy it while you have it, and go on to the next course. Get what you want and move on. Maureen couldn't think straight she was so mad. The only thing she could think to say was...

"So I guess you never saw Paris?" The question was quite sarcastic in its tone.

"Oh, I went to Paris with Gordon, or was it Gary? Anyway he was just a friend. I went to Fiji with Elroy and Egypt with someone else whose name I can't remember at the moment. I've been a lot of places and seen a lot, but not as much as I dreamt about when I was a kid. I want to see everything and do everything before I die. The place I loved the most was a little village in Italy just outside Florence called San Gimignano. I spent a month there with Pablo. That's where I'm going now. I have a flight that leaves from New York in two days for Florence. I'm going to try to find a little villa in Tuscany to live. After that, who knows?"

"Quite the little slut weren't you? So how many men did you sleep with while you were married to Jason?"

"I never even looked at another man, except Charlie, until after I left. I was a good wife."

Maureen's mind was still swirling and she was still mad enough to squeeze a lump of coal into a diamond. If there had been a gun handy then there would now be a corpse sitting in the chair on the other side of the room. But, no gun, no weapon within reach of any kind. She thought about what to do and say when the light bulb flashed on over her head.

"Excuse me; let me get us some more to drink."

Maureen picked up the two cups and walked into the kitchen. She was tempted to throw the cup Alycia was drinking from out the window but it's been stuck shut for the last few months, something Jason has been promising to get around to fixing. Instead she just set the cups in the sink and got out a clean pair. When she returned to the living room with fresh tea she retook her seat on the couch and started talking.

"Well you've been gracious enough to tell me all about your exciting life since leaving Baltimore so I think it only fitting that I tell you about ours," Maureen said with the slightest sneer on her face.

"Well, let me start on the day you left. That was a Wednesday, May 20^th to be exact. The sitter called Jason all worried when you didn't come pick up Jeremy and Bethany so Jason went and picked them up. He waited for you to come home but you never showed. He called everyone he could think of and nobody had seen you all day. They found your car in the parking lot at work and it looked like you just vanished. Your friends at work were looking for you, Jason was out riding around looking for you, and the police got involved when Jason insisted and pestered them about you. For the first few days he was frantic. He kept imagining that you were lying in a ditch hurt and unable to communicate. He imagined that someone kidnapped you and this pervert was sexually assaulting you in a garage somewhere. He even imagined that you had run away with a traveling salesman and left him and the kids behind. Boy, he was pretty close on that one. But anyway he was a mess. The newspapers printed a story about you and intimated that Jason may have done away with you and hidden the body. For a while the police thought that too. His mother moved in here to take care of the kids and to help with whatever he needed. What he needed was you. But there wasn't a trace of anything to say where you were. Jason said that you had disappeared like a fart in the wind.

"Eventually he went back to work. That helped to bring some sense of normality to his life again. But he was never the same. He would go out on searching expeditions on the weekends, he called everybody you two ever knew, he pestered the police in every county in Maryland, and he even put missing person ads in the local newspapers. Nothing! Not a clue.

"Christmas time that year was particularly hard for him. He was seeing a therapist by then but it wasn't helping much and he was very depressed. So much so that he planned to commit suicide. His mother found out before he did anything drastic and talked him out of it. You should know that at no time did she ever say a negative word about you. She and Jason both hoped that one day you would come home again.

"Everywhere he went he thought he saw you. Then one day he just gave up. Everybody had done everything possible to try to find you. But you were gone. His life was empty. He felt that his life was over. He had to explain to Jeremy and Bethany that you were gone and not coming back. They thought you were dead but he told them that you weren't in heaven; he didn't know where you were. He asked them to pray that you would come home someday. You didn't.

"On the anniversary of your disappearance, on May 20^th one year later, your old boss Barbara found Jason in the parking lot where you worked crying and talking to himself. He was beside himself and Barbara helped to get him inside the building. She tried to talk to him and even gave him something to drink but all he did was sit on the floor and sob. He kept saying 'please don't leave me' over and over and over again. They couldn't get him to stop crying and finally had to call the paramedics. They took him to the hospital where he spent THE NEXT THREE MONTHS IN A PSYCHIATRIC WARD. HE HAD A GODDAMN NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. Today its called post traumatic stress disorder, just a fancy name for losing his mind; same problem, different name. Whatever you call it Jason flipped out and lost his grip on reality. All because of you. ALL BECAUSE YOU UP AND DISAPPEARED LIKE A FART IN THE WIND.

"When you left him you did it in the most devastating way possible. You couldn't have found a more rotten or despicable way. If you had blown your brains all over the living room walls with a shotgun then at least he would have had a body to mourn over and to bury. If you had slutted yourself all over town, screwing every man you could find, and laughing in his face about it, he would have been humiliated and devastated, but at least he would have a good reason to let you go. Either way would have been a hell of a lot easier than just vanishing. You ripped a giant hole in his life and there was nothing to patch it up with. He went crazy for a while. And the only people that stood by him were his family and his boss at work. Everybody else wrote him off as a nut case.