Everything blurred. To avoid being busted by her son, she dashed into the bathroom, locked the door, yanked a towel off the rod, buried her face in it, and sobbed. What was happening? Isaac fired? Why? Had he done something horrible, or was he downsized? And why didn’t he come home after it happened? Did he think she would be mad at him? Certainly he knew her better than that. Or did he? And did she know him? Maybe not as well as she thought she did.
She pressed the towel hard into her face in an attempt to stop the tears and rein in her thoughts. This was getting her nowhere. At the moment, she had a five-year-old boy and a nine-month-old girl to care for. She allowed herself a few moments to center herself, and then she emerged from the bathroom to check on the kids with false confidence and enthusiasm.
All day she felt as though she was merely going through the motions. Her thoughts and emotions were nowhere near Dominic and Elise, and those thoughts and emotions ricocheted wildly in her mind and in her heart, zinging like a pinball and lighting up the bells of worry and anger and confusion and hurt and love and hate, again and again ad nauseam. She didn’t want the high score in this twisted pinball game. When Max came to pick up Elise at the end of the day and offered to stay, she was both too numb and too upset to take him up on his offer. Besides, while the majority of her being was focused on Isaac at the moment, she was still very much aware of and in love with her son, and he needed her undivided attention, especially now.
Later that night, as she read Dominic a story and tucked him tightly into his cozy little bed, her heart ached for him and the fact that his beloved daddy had disappeared. When, in a voice already fading into slumber, he asked, “Mommy, where’s Daddy, and when is he coming home?” Reese had to struggle to stay steady. As horrible as it felt to lie to her innocent son, the idea of telling him the truth felt even worse. She was relieved, in an agonized sort of way, when he accepted her story that Daddy was on a business trip for the team and didn’t know how long he had to be gone but he loved his Tiger very much and couldn’t wait to come home. Then she tiptoed out of his room, rushed to her own, dove under the covers without bothering to shed her clothes, and cried herself to sleep.
She woke up to the worst headache of her entire life. As she groaned and rolled onto her back, she brought her fingers to her head and massaged her temples. Eyes closed, she muttered, “God, Isaac, how do you deal with your headaches? I think I’m going to die, and I don’t even want to get up. I see why you need to sleep them off.” The response, nothing but silence, screamed loudly in the room. She twisted over and, with a grunt of frustration, punched Isaac’s pillow. It was cool from lack of use. She picked it up and flung it at the wall. The muted thud as it hit was nothing like the champagne-bubble-like sounds of morning she was used to. She covered her face with her hands and moaned. “Oh, Isaac! Where the hell are you?”
When Max arrived for his morning drop-off, Reese looked more presentable on the outside than she felt on the inside. She thought she could fool Max, but unfortunately he saw right through her. After setting Elise down on the blanket already waiting with toys, he stood and said, “That bad, huh?”
She nodded. “I thought I did a good job of covering it up.”
“You did. If anyone else were to see you right now, they wouldn’t have a clue.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t see that I was a mess, either.”
Max shrugged. “You don’t look like a mess, Reese. It’s just that when I look at you, I see the same thing I see when I look in the mirror.”
“Oh, Max.” It was when they embraced that she realized that he was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. She pulled back. “Casual Thursday at work today?”
He smiled. “No. I took today and tomorrow off. I’ve got tons of vacation time built up because Gretchen never wanted to take time off or go on a vacation.” He looked down and slowly shook his head. “I guess I should have seen the signs, huh?” He looked back up at Reese. “Anyway, I’m not just dumping my baby on you and fleeing the scene. I hope you haven’t fed Dominic yet because I’m taking him to Waffle Weirdos for breakfast. It’ll give you some space to think and maybe discover a clue as to Isaac’s whereabouts.”
Reese opened her mouth to protest, but on their way out the words contorted themselves into a consent. “Thanks, Max. I think I’d like that.”
Dominic went beyond liking the idea. He went wild, and he was outside standing by Max’s car before Reese could give him his sandals. Max laughed. “Here, give them to me. We’ll see you later.” He hesitated and seemed to be considering something. Then he leaned down, kissed Reese on the head, and walked out, baby in one hand and sandals in the other.
The instant the door shut, Reese’s emotions returned with a vengeance. Yes, the possibility existed that Isaac had pulled a Gretchen, but it seemed so remote. She just couldn’t let herself believe that, at least not yet. Max’s comment about seeing signs had made her realize something. Yes, there were multiple signs, indicators that in hindsight seemed so glaringly obvious, that Gretchen was unhappy with motherhood, marriage in general, and Max in particular. But Isaac didn’t display any of those signs. He had those episodes, but that wasn’t the same thing at all. They involved strange, out-of-character behavior that he claimed not to remember, but even those didn’t smack of marital discontent. Okay, Sunday night in the garage was extreme and had the potential to be problematic, but it was an isolated event. But what was up with it? Was there a connection between that and his disappearance?
Disappearance. The word hit her as hard as Dominic hit his baseball off his tee. What if, somehow, foul play was involved in this? As outlandish as that seemed, it actually made more sense than the idea of him intentionally leaving her. She felt sick. She had to sit down with her head in her hands while the wave of nausea passed. She sat up straight. Why was she just sitting here? Time was ticking. She hadn’t seen him since Tuesday, when he was fired. Two whole days had gone by. What if he needed help? What was the threshold for the police having a good chance of finding a victim? Twelve hours? Twenty-four, maybe? It didn’t matter because Isaac was at forty-eight.
She grabbed the phone and called the police. Her shaking fingers couldn’t handle more than the three short numbers of 9-1-1. After explaining the nature of her call to the dispatcher, she was irritated to learn that this type of call wasn’t an “emergency,” and she had to dial the police main number, which the dispatcher gave her. “Not an emergency, my ass,” Reese muttered as she labored to dial the longer number. Her irritation grew as she had to be transferred to a different department. After they took their sweet time coming to the phone, Reese’s anger had risen to meet her panic. In this agitated state, she launched into her plea for help.
“Wait. Ma’am, please slow down. I need you to tell me the story slowly enough that I can understand the details.”
She took a deep breath and tried again. At the end of her description, the detective calmly informed her, “Mrs. Bittman, I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do at the moment.”
“What? Why not?”
“Do you know how many calls like this we get in a month? It’s like this. Your husband is an adult. He has both the power and the right to go anywhere he wants to. You said he was fired from his job. Maybe he’s just on a bender.”
“He doesn’t drink like that,” she replied.
“Maybe he does now. Or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he just took a little trip. Maybe he didn’t want you to know the truth about what happened. Or…by any chance, is he mentally ill?”
“What? No! And what the hell does that have to do with Isaac’s disappearance?”
“It
