Chapter 2 - the nine days i had misunderstood
Nine days earlier, Elise had left our house in Maplewood, New Jersey, with one overnight bag and no goodbye to me.
At least that was what I thought.
Our marriage had been bad for months.
Not dramatic every day. Worse than that.
Quiet.
Elise and I could unload the dishwasher together, buckle Maisie into her car seat, discuss groceries and daycare tuition, and go twenty minutes without saying anything that mattered.
I was thirty-six and working as a project estimator for a commercial construction company in Newark. That spring, two senior people had left, which meant I was answering emails before sunrise and opening spreadsheets after dinner.
Elise had cut her hours at an occupational therapy clinic after Maisie was born.
We told ourselves we were functioning.
We were mostly trading exhaustion.
Corinne had filled the gaps.
My father married her when I was eleven. He died eighteen months before Maisie was born, and after his death Corinne became more involved in our lives than she had ever been before.
She brought groceries.
Folded laundry without being asked.
Picked Maisie up from daycare when meetings ran late.
She also had opinions about everything.
Maisie’s sleep schedule.
Elise’s work.
My marriage.
Elise hated how often Corinne overruled her.
I hated being trapped between them, so I usually did what I had always done with conflict.
I tried to make it disappear.
That had been my first mistake.
The night Elise left, Corinne had come over after dinner.
Elise and I had argued in the kitchen about my missing another daycare meeting.
I raised my voice.
Elise told me to stop.
I didn’t.
Nothing physical happened. I never threatened her.
But I remember Maisie waking upstairs.
I remember Elise looking toward the ceiling when she heard our daughter cry.
And I remember the expression on her face when she looked back at me.
Not anger.
Weariness.
Corinne walked into the kitchen five minutes later.
She told me to take a drive.
“Give her some space.”
I did.
When I returned, Elise was gone.
Corinne was sitting at our table with Maisie asleep against her shoulder.
“She said she can’t do this anymore,” Corinne told me.
I called Elise repeatedly.
No answer.
The next morning I received one text.
I need some time. Please don’t come looking for me.
After that, nothing.
Corinne told me Elise had contacted her twice.
“She’s safe,” she would say. “Pushing her will only make it worse.”
I had believed her.
Now, standing in the nursery while Corinne stared at me and the cracked speaker sat on the floor, I asked the question I should have asked nine days earlier.
“What exactly did Elise send you?”
Corinne headed toward the door.
“You lost the right to demand answers when you hit me.”
She was right about that.
But before she reached the hallway, her purse tipped from the nursery chair.
A folded piece of paper slid onto the rug.
I recognized Elise’s handwriting before I picked it up.
Across the front were four words.
May you like
RYAN — PLEASE READ ALONE.
The envelope had already been opened.
