“Can we table this for the night? Maybe talk about it when I get back from my conference?”
In the morning, Mickie was to leave for a College of Optometry conference in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on advances in the treatment of keratoconus, a degenerative disorder of the eye. I had intended on going with her, but we had turned our practice into a free eye clinic for the disadvantaged, and I needed to be there.
“Okay,” I said, knowing it best not to push her. “We’ll just enjoy Mexican Night.”
“Gracias, se?or.”
“De nada, se?orita.”
We ate our tacos and drank margaritas while listening to the guitar riffs of Carlos Santana. “A toast,” Ernie said. “To good friends.”
We raised our glasses. “Is that the best you can do?” I asked. “Thank God you didn’t give the valedictorian speech.”
“Don’t start with me, you red-eyed son of the devil.”
“Here’s to life,” I said. “And the three people in mine who helped to make it extraordinary. I love you all.”
“You’re not going to kiss me, are you?” Ernie asked.
Michelle hit him with a piece of tomato.
At just after ten, Michelle nodded to Ernie, who was falling asleep on my couch. “Well, I better get Romeo here home before he passes out on me. Our first weekend without kids, and he’ll be snoring before his head hits the pillow.”
Ernie perked up suddenly. “Did someone mention sex?”
Michelle looked at Mickie. “Ah, the romance,” she said.
After Ernie and Michelle left, Mickie and I snuggled on the couch under a blanket to watch Tom Hanks in The Green Mile. Douglas and Blue curled up beside us. I didn’t regret asking Mickie to marry me, but it troubled me when she put herself down and discounted who she was as a person. I knew it had to be an old and deep scar, one I was sure was inflicted in childhood, too deep, perhaps, for me to reach. I resigned myself to our arrangement and promised I would not ask the question again.
That night we made love with a passion ferocious even for Mickie, and afterward she clung to me as never before, as if she might lose me if she let go.
14
Wednesday afternoon I took Blue and Douglas for an afternoon walk, and I realized that I had not heard from Mickie in nearly twenty-four hours, though I was uncertain of the time change, if any, in Puerto Vallarta. I was consciously trying to give her some space, mindful of my mistake of asking her to marry me, but I couldn’t get out of my mind the way Mickie had clung to me that night, or the memories of the other times in my life when Mickie had spooked and left.
When I returned home, I got the dogs water. Then I called her. The call went straight to voice mail. I took to the task of making dinner, listening to jazz with the doors open, enjoying a gentle, cool cross breeze, and waiting anxiously for my phone to buzz or ring. Three hours later there had been no call from Mickie.
I tried calling her again but got no answer. I started to worry that something could be wrong and went to the fridge and retrieved the piece of paper detailing the conference and the hotel. I dialed the number. “Mickie Kennedy’s room, please.”
I heard the desk clerk’s fingers striking keys. “I’m sorry, sir—we do not have a registration for anyone under that name.”
My heart started to sink. “Could you check Michaela Kennedy?”
After another beat, this one shorter, the clerk said, “I’m sorry, sir. There is no Kennedy registered.”
“Could she have checked out early?”
“I can’t give out that information, sir.”
“Please. This is her husband. I’m worried about her. She was to check in Monday night, and I haven’t heard from her, which is unlike her. I haven’t been able to contact her on her cell phone.”