In Medias Res (2 page)

“Too young to be senile, but old enough to know better.”

The phrase popped into my head unbidden. The voice reciting it was a woman’s voice, but it wasn’t my voice. My mother’s, perhaps? My grandmother’s? Was I remembering something from my past, my present, or was I going crazy on top of everything else?

I sifted through the photos in the wallet, hoping that one would strike a chord in me and my memory would come rushing back completely instead of a fragment here or there. Then again, if seeing my own face couldn’t bring me around, how could I expect it from someone else’s?

The first photo was a twenty-year-old picture of my parents, my brother, and me. I knew not because I remembered but because of what was written on the back. “The Paulsens—Sidney, Patricia, Sydney, and Patrick—December 1990.” The four of us were decked out in festive Christmas sweaters in front of a roaring fire. The fire was obviously fake, but our smiles seemed genuine.

Brown-haired with a soft chin and round body, my brother looked like my mother; I looked like my father. I guess that explained the names.

I stared at the smiling faces, willing myself to make a connection with one or all of them. For all the kinship I felt for the strangers staring back at me, the photo could have been nothing more than a pre-packaged insert that had come with the wallet.

The second photo was of me and a woman who looked enough like me to be my sister. The back of the picture, however, revealed she was something else. “Jennifer and Sydney, best friends for life,” the handwritten caption proclaimed.

The photo was undated. It looked fairly recent but not new. In it, Jennifer and I wore matching uniforms. Our arms around each other’s shoulders, our index fingers in the air, we were apparently attending or participating in some kind of sporting event. Basketball? Soccer? Softball? The picture was cropped too tightly for me to tell what sport we were dressed for. Our upraised arms prevented me from seeing the name of the team we were so proud of. I could make out a patch of green in the background but, unable to see the lines, I couldn’t tell for what sport the field of play was marked.

In addition to being “best friends for life,” were Jennifer and I sports fans, former teammates, or both? The way I was sucking wind in the airport, whatever athletic career I might have had was a distant memory. In more ways than one.

Then something occurred to me.

I flipped back to the first photo. The one of me and my family. The name on the back of the picture was different from the one on my driver’s license. At twelve, I had been Sydney Paulsen. Nineteen years later, I had become Sydney Stanton. That meant I was married. There on the ring finger of my left hand was the proof—a diamond wedding ring and a matching platinum band. How had I not noticed them before?

I stared at the rings for a long moment but couldn’t force myself to feel like they were a part of me, no matter how deep the indentations they had made in my skin.

I searched the wallet for photos of my missing husband.

Behind another family portrait, one even older than the previous—I was an infant in this one; my brother looked to be about two or three—was a snapshot of me and a handsome man with black hair and shining green eyes. The picture was taken on or for our wedding day. I was wearing a stunning strapless white gown with a mile-long train. He was resplendent in a dark gray tuxedo. Standing next to a four-tier cake, we each held a glass of champagne. Our arms were entwined as we leaned in close to take a sip of the sparkling drink.

I pulled the picture out of its plastic cover so I could read the back. “Dr. and Mrs. Jack Stanton, 6-12-08.”

I flipped the photo over. I was a doctor’s wife, the envy of single women everywhere. I had been married to the man in the picture for nineteen months. Though I had obviously loved him at one time—loved him enough to commit my body and my life to him—I felt nothing for him now. Shouldn’t the love of my life, if that’s what he was, prompt at least a glimmer of recognition?

Where was he? Did he know where I was? Did he even care? What about the rest of my family? Were they tearing their hair out looking for me or were they going about their daily lives blissfully unaware that something was very, very wrong with me?

There was a cell phone in the side pocket of the backpack, but it was of no use to me. As the plane taxied down the runway, the flight attendant who had welcomed me aboard had announced that the use of cell phones was prohibited during the duration of the flight. I would have to wait until the plane landed in Miami before I could scroll through the phone’s menu and search the entries in the directory.

I was supposed to touch down in Key West at four thirty-five p.m. Eastern. I glanced at my left wrist, where a silver Citizen silently kept track of the time. It was only ten thirty a.m. Central. With another five hours to kill, I continued searching through the backpack.

The fact that I was headed to Key West was firmly established. What was uncertain was my reason for going there. Was I on vacation? Abandoning six feet of snow and negative wind chills for eighty-degree temperatures seemed like a good idea. Was I meeting someone? If so, who? And why weren’t we flying together? Where would I stay? A five-star hotel? Too ritzy for the way I was dressed. A roach motel? Too college road trip for someone who had reached the dark side of thirty. Perhaps something in between.

Behind a bag of toiletries was a leather-bound day planner. With the year only twelve days old, the book wasn’t much help. Aside from daily entries at ten a.m. for “gym” and entries on Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon for “spa treatment,” there were precious few additional notes.

On January 1 was “watch bowl games with Team Paulsen.” That had been an all-day affair.

January 4 had seen me running all over town. At eleven a.m. was “get oil changed.” At one p.m. was “meet Mom for lunch at Bob Chinn’s.” At two thirty was “dentist appt.” At four was “p/u dry cleaning—d/o Jack’s tux.” (I translated the shorthand as “pick up” and “drop off.”) At five was “committee meeting @ Gale’s—make sure members stick to agenda or it will turn into a sleepover!!” A squiggly line was drawn from seven thirty to nine. Next to it was written, “call out for dinner—Chinese or Thai?”

The next three days had been relatively quiet, with only one entry on January 7: “pick up steaks for party—marinate overnight.” There were four entries on January 8, however. At nine thirty a.m. was “p/u Jack’s tux.” At five was “get to Athena’s early for last-minute inspection.” From six to eight was “Jen’s party.” And from eight until one a.m., a five-hour block of time had been carved out for “welcome back Rekowski.”

The sole entry on January 9 was at eight p.m.: “dinner w/Jack at Ambria—talk to him!!” The word “talk” was underlined four times. Underscored with such force that the pen had bitten into the page. That was the last entry until June 12, which was marked with a tentative “anniversary in Paris?”

With no mention of work, I had no idea what I did for a living—if anything. My monthly allowance seemed generous enough to cover all my expenses—the gym membership and trips to the spa, among other frivolous things. My schedule made me sound like a glorified errand girl. Perhaps being a doctor’s wife was my only identity. With the constant trips to the body shop for toning and buffing, I apparently worked hard to maintain that identity.

Had the pressure to remain perfect gotten to be too much?

The address book in the back of the day planner contained a string of names with complete contact information for each—snail and e-mail addresses, accompanied by home, work, and cell phone numbers. Apparently, I was Miss Popular.

I flipped to the back of the address book. Muscle memory directed me to the
V
tab. I slid my finger down the lined page. Under the entry for Vacation House was an address on United Street in Key West, Florida.

Aside from a tube of ChapStick and an unopened pack of Trident, my pockets were empty. I searched the backpack for a set of keys. I found them stowed in a side pocket next to the one that held the cell phone. I slipped the keys into the front pocket of my jeans. I felt more secure having them near me.

I had figured out my destination, thanks to some Sherlock Holmes–style deduction, but the reason for my trip still eluded me. Not quite as elementary, my dear Watson.

I turned back to the entry for January 9. The one for dinner with Jack at Ambria. The “talk to him” concerned me, as did the deeply etched lines under the word. Had I talked to him and the conversation had ended badly? If that were the case, why hadn’t I scratched out the June entry for anniversary in Paris? And why had I waited three days to leave or chase after him, or whatever I was doing?

Every time I answered one question, I seemed to come up with ten more. Instead of alleviating my frustration, I was multiplying it.

My passport was tucked into the back cover of the day planner. I pulled it out and flipped it open.

The passport photo was marginally better than the one on my driver’s license. The passport itself had been through the wringer. It was stamped by customs officials in at least seven countries. I had taken four trips to Mexico, three to Canada, two to England, and one each to Jamaica, Spain, Kenya, and the Bahamas. Based on the dates on the stamps, my most recent trips out of the country had been the year before to Kenya and the jaunt to Jamaica the year before that. That trip had probably been for my honeymoon.

The most important two weeks of my life and I couldn’t remember a single detail about them.

I returned the passport to its hiding place, zipped up the day planner, and shoved it back into the pack. Three items remained in the main compartment: a portable DVD player, a DVD of
The Usual Suspects
, and a dog-eared copy of the collected short stories of Ernest Hemingway.

I flipped the DVD box over to read the description of the movie. The plot sounded serpentine, one I wouldn’t be able to follow with one eye on the screen and the other in the backpack. I decided to save the movie for later—when I could watch it on a larger screen and with a clearer head. I put it away, along with the portable player.

I turned to the book. A business card was stuck between the end of “In Another Country” and the beginning of “Hills Like White Elephants.” I seized the card, thinking (hoping?) it might offer me another clue to my identity.

“Larry’s Lube” the card read. “Keeping You Wet Since 1936.”

Not much help there.

I replaced the makeshift bookmark and flipped through the pages. I—or someone else—had highlighted vast sections of the collection and made copious notes in the margins as if the stories were something to be analyzed and deconstructed and not merely enjoyed.

“A writer should be a person on whom nothing is lost.”

The voice was my own; the words felt like someone else’s. Like something that had been drummed into me in high school English class.

Like the day planner, the back cover of the book contained its own hidden treasure. A piece of cream-colored stationery was folded in half and tucked behind the last page. I unfolded the note. The paper was plain, devoid of logos or personalization—depriving me of any obvious clues to its origin.

The body of the note was brief, written in a scrawling, hurried script that was barely legible. A doctor’s handwriting. Cryptic but shattering, the note said simply, “I won’t be the lie you tell.” It was signed not with a name but an initial—J.

J for Jack.

I didn’t have any samples of his handwriting, but I didn’t need physical proof to support what my heart knew to be true: Jack had written the note. The evidence leading me to that conclusion was overwhelming. The single ticket. His absence. The tentative “anniversary in June?” The desperate “talk to him!!”

We were having problems and the stress had…The stress had…

Turning my face toward the window, I fought to regain control. If I cried now, I might not stop.

I told myself not to jump to conclusions. There were a hundred possible explanations for the note—and probably as many suspects. The correct one might not be the most obvious.

Cloud cover obstructed my view of the ground. Somewhere below me, people were living their lives while I was trying to pick up the shattered pieces of mine.

“Take your own advice,” I told myself. “
Talk
to him.”

I stood in front of the luggage carousel watching the baggage go around in circles. According to the claim ticket affixed to the back of my boarding pass, I had checked two pieces of luggage. Without examining every bag, how would I know which two were mine? I would have to wait it out. If I let the other passengers go first, whatever they left behind would most likely be mine.

I stepped away from the carousel, allowing the people who knew what they were looking for to grab their bags and head outside to find ground transportation. I moved to a bench a few feet away and waited for the crowd to thin out.

I tried to figure out how the high-tech cell phone worked. Fortunately, the Powerand Menu buttons were clearly marked. Otherwise, I might have spent all afternoon watching music videos on an endless loop.

I called the number listed for the vacation house but got the answering machine. “Hello,” a computer-generated voice intoned, “we’re unable to take your call right now. Please leave a message and—”