When the Man You Love Disappears

How could a person vanish without a trace?

“Maybe he didn’t want to be committed. Maybe he met somebody else,” my best friend Angela said when I told her about Mike. “Be glad for what you’ve got.”

My other friend, Shelby, didn’t mince words. “He might have died,” she said. “Drug overdose. Hit by a car. But Allen’s a catch. Count your lucky stars you ended up with him.”

I knew I was lucky. Allen and I met three years after Mike vanished.

Allen was hot. He was also smart, funny, kind, and most important of all, he was crazy about me. He still is, after 15 years of marriage.

How many women can say that?

Of course, I love him. He’s the father of my children, we have a great marriage, and he tells me he loves me at least three times a day.

What more could a woman want?

But having a good life doesn’t mean you’ve forgotten your past. Memories aren’t banished so easily. Does it make me a bad wife because I can’t forget?

I grew to love Allen like a tree unfurling its leaves in spring. Tight-fisted at first, a hint of budding green, then full summer foliage beneath the sun’s warming rays. Embraced by the heat of Allen’s love, I blossomed into a better version of myself.

But with Mike it had been love at first sight; instant, all-consuming, and inevitable. When I was twelve years old, he dropped his books on the desk next to mine and said, “This spot taken?”

Heart hammering, face flushing scarlet, I stammered something stupid and incoherent, then pinched myself for being an idiot.

He had a lopsided grin that made his perfect face imperfect, and thus attainable. He was the heartthrob of every girl in school, so I never understood why he chose me.

For the first time, I knew the agony of love. While other girls flirted with him, I looked in the mirror and saw a flat-chested, freckled girl who could never compete with their swinging hair and bold glances. They knew how to make him laugh; how to elicit that lopsided grin.

So I did the only thing I knew to do. I ignored him. If you can’t compete, pretend you’re not interested. But he walked me home from school one day, and when I dropped my notebook, loose papers scattering like confetti, he gathered them up, replaced them in my notebook, and said: “Can I see you?”

In seventh grade we were too young to date, so we climbed the sprawling magnolia tree in my front yard and he kissed me behind a screen of thick, shiny leaves.

In eighth grade, he showed up at my house with a black eye.

“I ran into the door. I crashed my bike. I’m a klutz.” I would come to find out he always had an excuse to explain away his injuries.

My One and Only

In ninth grade, we went to the fair and he tossed balls into a hoop, his arc perfect, balls swooshing through the net while other balls bounced and ricocheted like planets released from the pull of gravity. He picked out a plastic ring from an array of prizes, slid it on my finger and said, “Until I can get you the real thing. You’re my one and only.”

In tenth grade, he played football and started telling me his injuries were football related. He grew tall, his shoulders broadened, and his lopsided grin made me dizzy with love. Other girls still flirted, but it was half-hearted, as if they had long since given up hope of steering his gaze away from me.

In eleventh grade, he didn’t pick me up for the Junior Senior prom. Several of us had agreed to meet at my house, and we clustered on the porch, the girls beautiful in long, satiny gowns and the boys handsome but self-conscious in tuxedos.

My phone calls to him went unanswered. Where was he? Finally the other couples drifted off to the prom and I grabbed the keys to my mother’s Acura. I would drive to his house, although it was the one thing he had asked me never to do.

Don’t come to my place. Ever. We’ll always meet at yours.

His place was on the outskirts of town, far from the historic district of Main Street, beyond the Country Swim and Golf Club my parents belonged to, past factories and row houses and finally down a meandering dirt and gravel road. The Acura bumped and lurched through potholes as I drove deeper into the woods, braking when I saw Mike’s small frame house.

I knew where he lived, but I was still shocked. Crumbling stone steps, a screen door flapping off its hinges, broken beer bottles littering a yard overcome by weeds spoke of more than benign neglect. It was hard to believe someone as beautiful and good as Mike could come from such a sinister place.

Maybe no one lives here, I hoped, but as soon as I thought it, two men hurtled from the house and down the crumbling steps. It took a second for me to realize one of the men was Mike. The other man was his father. Remnants of Mike’s beauty were evident in the old man’s face; a face ruined now by meanness. He swung his fists, but his aim was off, like movement under water.

Mike took advantage, swinging hard, and his father crumpled.

“You will never touch me again, or I’ll kill you.” Mike’s voice, calm and deadly, floated across the yard and into my heart, stabbing me with dread.

But he never again showed up with a black eye or a mark on his face.

Graduation, and the Beginning of the End

In twelfth grade, on the night of my graduation, Mike and I made love. We spread a blanket beside a waterfall far from town, at an isolated place called Jackson’s landing. The glow from a full moon illuminated his features, making me think of a marble statue, chiseled and perfect.

“You’re beautiful,” I said.

He laughed. “Guys aren’t beautiful. You’re too good for me. But you’re my one and only.”

I went to college and Mike, who was working odd jobs and saving for college, visited me on weekends. Once we went for six months without seeing each other. I told myself it was because we were so busy; me with studying and my involvement in a sorority, and Mike with trying to earn enough to go to college.

Then he showed up drunk on my birthday. It was a rainy, dismal February night, and we fought in the parking lot of The Cellar, a popular student pub. “You’re going to end up like your father!” I screamed, rain lashing my face. “You can’t stop drinking!” His eyes darkened, brooding and unfamiliar. Dread surfaced in my heart like some long-forgotten nightmare.

That was the last time I saw him. Three months passed, and I began a frantic search. I went to his house, which was deserted. Somebody said he talked about joining the army. Another person told me he was in Chicago. Someone else said they thought he died.

I waited, and cried, checked my phone constantly and looked for him in crowds, but it was as if he had vanished without a trace.

Weeks turned into months, months turned into years, and one day I forgot to check my phone.

Fifteen Years Later

I pull the letter from my purse, and suddenly I’m dizzy. The words blur, but it doesn’t matter. I already know what the letter says. I’ve read it a dozen times.

Meet me at the magnolia tree. There are things I need to say. You always were my one and only. Love, Mike

I lie to Allen. I tell him I’m visiting my parents, who moved to a retirement community last year. The lie fills me with guilt. Allen, innocent and guileless, says, “Want me to come along?”

“No, you don’t need to,” I murmur.

An hour later, I walk along cracked and buckling sidewalks, past magnolia trees grown so big they obscure the houses slouching behind them. My old house is unoccupied. White paint peels in strips and a For Sale sign tilts sideways in the yard.

My heart jumps to my throat when I see him. His lopsided grin lights up his face; a face still handsome, not at all ruined by life or age or anything else.

He tells me he disappeared because he wasn’t good enough for me. He was afraid my words, that he would be a drunk like his father, would come true. How could he risk it?

But he turned out okay. He’s successful. And he’s never gotten over me. You are my one and only he says, taking me in his arms.

The past rushes back, unbidden and unavoidable, as I lean dizzily into his chest.

What am I supposed to do?

When I pull into the driveway, Allen is raking leaves. He drops the rake and hurries to the car, a grin broadening his still-boyish face. Hugging me, he smells like leaves, and outdoors, and his own familiar scent.

“I love you,” he says, holding me tight, as if I’ve been gone a lifetime instead of a day.

“I love you too,” I reply, tears streaking my face.