It was four-thirty in the afternoon when Sean discovered that Kathryn was gone. He had noticed that her car was not in the driveway when he came home from work, which was unusual. That was at about ten minutes after four. The note was in the bedroom, so he didn’t see it for nearly 20 minutes. Curiously, to Sean it was not what most people would call a “shock.”
Sean’s normal routine was to hang his coat in the closet, drop his briefcase by the sofa, head into the kitchen to fix a snack, then have a seat on the couch for a little decompression time. He spent a lot of time on his feat at the office, and it always felt good to take a short break before relaxing. That’s what Kathryn called it: “A break before relaxing.” How would he get along without her?
Sitting alone in the bedroom, Sean played back the previous day’s events in his head. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, even in hindsight. Sure, there was a little bickering. But it was nothing beyond the normal playful banter that they had always shared. What was so different about it that she would decide to leave now? It just didn’t make sense.
Sean stood up off the bed, the note still in his hand, and picked up the phone. A quick call to Kathryn’s mother to see if she was there. Kat and her mother had always been best friends. Maybe she was there. He punched the numbers into the phone. In his gut were not butterflies, but some kind of larger creature with sharp talons. He briefly thought that he should get a glass of milk. Too much stress in the office had given him an ulcer.
Kathryn’s mother, Maggie, answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Maggie? It’s Sean,” he said. He got right to the point. “Kat’s not here. She left me a note that said she was unhappy and was leaving. Is she there?”
“What. . ?” Maggie was stunned. “Leaving? She’s not. . . No, I’m sorry. She’s not here, Sean.”
“Have you seen her at all, today?”
“Not once.” There was a slight trembling in Maggie’s voice. Sean wasn’t sure what to make of it. “No phone call or anything.”
It was strange that Kathryn had not spoken to her mother. There was a very strict tradition of a morning telephone call. Coffee, Montel on the television, and a call to mom. That was Kat’s morning ritual. In three years together, Sean had not seen her miss that call even once.
“Where did she go?” Maggie asked, sounding just a little hopeful.
“She didn’t say. . .” Sean was having a hard time accepting that his wife had just got sick of him and left. There were no signs that she was unhappy. None he could remember, anyway. “Maggie. . . Did she ever say anything to you about being unhappy? Anything at all?”
“Not a word. Are you. . .” Maggie sounded choked up. She was more emotional than Sean. He thought she would cry soon. “Are you sure she’s gone? What does the note say? Maybe she’s going to come back soon. . .”
“I don’t think so, Mag. It says: ‘Dear Sean: After yesterday, I realize what a mistake it was for us to get married. Things in my life just aren’t what I had hoped they would be. I don’t want this. And don’t worry. I don’t want anything from you. I just want to go away. I hope you will be okay. I hope I will be, too. Enjoy the rest of your life, Sean. I’m going to try to enjoy mine.’ Then she signs it, and that’s it.” He added, “Sounds pretty final, to me.”
Maggie was crying now. Her voice was rough and Sean could hear her sniffling as her nose ran a little. “I can’t believe that she would do that. . . I’m so sorry, Sean.” More sobbing, then, “I don’t know where she would go.”
Sean was not sure what else he could say. “Thanks, Mag. I’ll track her down.” He put the phone down and stared at Kathryn’s note for what must have been an hour.
As he looked at the paper in his hand, it occurred to Sean that he could not summon any tears for his departed wife. He wondered about that. He had never been an emotional person. In fact, he prided himself on keeping a cool head at all times. But now, it seemed perverse to him that he could not cry. He had lost the woman whom he thought to be the love of his life, and he couldn’t cry for her. This made him feel. . . nothing, really.
For an hour, Sean sat alone in the bedroom. Every few minutes he would look at the clock, just to make a note of the time. Strangely, he thought that there must be a protocol to follow in this situation. When would it be appropriate to be over the shock and to get back into action? Will an hour be enough? He decided that an hour was a good, long bit of sitting and staring, and he rose from the bed when the clock showed five thirty-five.
The strange thing was that Sean did want to find his wife. But he felt no emotional involvement in searching. It was something that should be done. There would perhaps be divorce papers to file and possessions to divide. Or, in the best case, he supposed that some sort of couple’s therapy would be in order. Sean despised that sort of thing, but he would do what he had to.
In the moments after he got up from the bed, a few thoughts passed through Sean’s head. First, he thought how strange it was that not one item in the house made him think about his wife. None of them. He could see her face in his mind, clear as day, but he made no connection between her and the things that she owned. Other than the acknowledgement that those particular items were catalogued as “hers,” there was nothing.
Secondly, Sean thought that he should be immersed in some sort of grieving process. How was it that he was so preoccupied with his own lack of emotion over the disappearance of his wife? He should feel sad, angry, afraid. . . something. But instead, there was a blankness that he couldn’t really describe as “calm.” It was nothing. A completely non-emotive practicality had compelled him to call his mother-in-law, and now it set him about finding Kathryn.
Third, he wondered how it could be that there were no displayed photographs of him and Kathryn together. There were some incidental shots of them together at family get-togethers. And of course, there were pictures from their wedding in a photo album. But, other than that, there were no pictures of the two of them, together. In fact, Sean could not remember any time when he had held a camera and taken his wife’s picture. He had never taken a picture of anything, to his recollection. Was it this quality in him that caused him to overlook his wife’s unhappiness?
Sean had never been a sentimental person. It just wasn’t in his nature. He had moved through his life with no zeal for much. He didn’t focus on anything. He was a man of varied experiences, but nothing excited him. It was common to hear him say things like “I think dogs are great pets” or “Music has always interested me.” He was never nostalgic, and he rarely talked about his childhood. It was difficult to find any evidence to prove that he had lived at all.
Sean’s friends described him as “unaffected” and “aloof.” It was deeper than that. He didn’t feel anything. As he stood in the living room, staring into one of Kathryn’s mirrors—it turned out that they really did seem to add space and the room looked huge—Sean questioned himself. “Do I love my wife? Do I want to find her?” he said aloud. He reasoned that if she wanted him to find her, she would have told him where she was going. It turned out that Sean would never see Kathryn again.
When Kathryn woke up that morning, she was still troubled by something that her husband, Sean, had said to her on the previous afternoon. She was bringing him a beer from the refrigerator. It was their normal Monday evening. They were sitting down with a few beers to watch the football game. Kathryn had brought only one beer this time, though. Sean had noted it, but didn’t say anything. He wasn’t the type to make an issue of anything. Kathryn had always known him to be very even tempered.
Kathryn sat down next to Sean and took his hand. They sat there, silently watching the game for a while. She checked her watch. “I have to get dressed. The girls and I are all going out to a movie. Jen’s coming to pick me up in a few minutes.”
Sean turned his head. He was a little puzzled. He always seemed a little confused when things disrupted his routine. “You’re going out? What are you going to see?”
Kathryn thought he asked the question a little flatly. But that was the way he usually sounded. She had always thought that Sean was a little detached. “I’m not sure. That new Richard Gere flick, I think,” she replied. “Some chick-flick.”
Sean turned back to the game. “I see.”
Kathryn laid her head on his shoulder. “Will you miss me?”
“Nah,” Sean said. “You can do what you want. I’ll manage without you, I’m sure.” He didn’t chuckle after his response, and Kathryn was a little disturbed by that. After a minute, she changed and left for the movie. When she returned, Sean was already in bed and asleep.
Kathryn rubbed her eyes, trying to wake herself up. It was seven-thirty. She woke up at this time, every morning. She could hear Sean in the kitchen fixing himself a light breakfast. He usually took his breakfast with him and ate on the train. He had an hour commute and liked the extra sleep-time, so he never ate breakfast at home. Kathryn was still thinking about the night before.
She had asked him “Will you miss me?” She was being playful. It was a small thing, really. But the way he had responded to her with so little care was disconcerting. The answer to that question had brought to the surface something that Kathryn had buried inside her for several years. The fact was that Sean would probably not miss her and he would, in fact, manage without her. She knew that. She had always known that. Kathryn understood that Sean—even if he was not looking to get rid of her—would adapt to her absence. Maybe he’d replace her. Maybe not. But he would manage. That was a difficult pill to swallow.
She listened to Sean, still milling around in the kitchen. It was nearly seven-fifty now, and he would be sticking his head in the bedroom door soon, to say goodbye for the day. He was so stuck in his routines. She often wondered if she, too, were just a habit. Another bit of life that he had become accustomed to. Is that really how he saw her?
Seven-fifty. Sean stuck his head in the door. “I’m leaving, hon,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”
“Mmmmm,” Kat stretched a bit. “G’bye, baby. Have a good day.”
“I will. See ya’.” With that, Sean headed out the front door.
Kathryn listened to the soft sound of the car pulling out of the driveway and moving off down the street, to the train station. As Sean drove away, it occurred to Kat for the first time that she was in a loveless marriage. Sean didn’t feel anything, it seemed. He had not one sentimental bone in his body. Just a cold logic and a status quo to maintain. She had not known him to shed a tear over anything. Never caught him getting misty during a movie. Never saw him get excited about a ball game. Even when his mother passed away the year prior, his reaction was purely practical. “Mom lived with her illness for a long time. It’s better for her, this way.” Kat felt sad for him, then. What must it be like to be that bottled up? That unfeeling? She supposed that Sean didn’t know the difference.
At eight o’clock, Kathryn got out of bed. She went into the bathroom and started the shower, letting it run while she brushed her teeth. She thought about the wedding album. It was the only place in their home where you could find pictures of her and Sean together. What does that mean? It had always bothered her, but she never said anything about it. It just seemed odd that a married couple would never be photographed together. But their relationship had always been that way, she mused. Sean had quoted that Chicago song, Hard Habit to Break, in his wedding vows. A hard habit to break. Like smoking or biting his fingernails. She rinsed her mouth out and climbed into the shower.
