Kimberly Belle - The Marriage Lie

“You should design an app,” I told him once, after he’d helped me chart out an entire semester’s worth of drug and alcohol awareness programs. “You’d make a fortune. You could call it What Will Will Say?”

He’d patted his lap, smiling my favorite smile. “Right now he says you’re adorable and to get over here and give me a kiss.”

Now I press my fingers to my lips and tell myself to calm down, to think. There must be someone I can call, someone who will tell me this is all just one huge misunderstanding.

“Jessica!” I pop off the stool and sprint to the phone, resting on a charger by the microwave. “Jessica will know where he is. She’ll know where the conference was moved.”

“Who’s Jessica?”

“Will’s assistant.” I punch in the number I know by heart, turning my back on Claire so I don’t see her creased brow, her averted gaze, the way she’s chewing her lip. She’s humoring me, just like Ted did.

“AppSec Consulting, Jessica speaking.”

“Jessica, it’s Iris Griffith. Have you—”

“Iris? I thought y’all were on vacation.”

Her comment comes so far out of left field, it takes me a couple of seconds to reboot. Jessica may be a whiz at answering phones and coordinating the schedules of a bunch of disorganized techies, but she’s not got the fastest processor in the cache.

“Um, no. What makes you think that?”

“Because you’re supposed to be on an all-inclusive, baby-making vacation to the Mayan Riviera. Will showed me pictures of the resort, and it looks ama—” She swallows the rest of the word, then sucks in a breath. “Oh, God. Iris, I must be confused. I’m sure I got the weeks mixed up.”

I know what Jessica is thinking. She’s thinking he’s there with another woman, and I don’t even care because what if she’s right? What if Will is alive and well and lounging on a beach in Mexico? Hope hangs inside me for a second or two, then fizzles when I realize that he wouldn’t. Will would never cheat, and even if he did, Mexico would be the very last destination on my heat-hating husband’s list. A cruise to Alaska would be more like it.

“He can’t be in Mexico,” I say, and it’s everything I can do to keep my voice calm, to smother my frustration in a coating of civility. “He’s one of the keynotes for the cyber security conference, remember?”

“What conference?”

My eyes go wide. Why would anyone at AppSec ever hire this woman? “The one in Orlando.”

“Wait. I’m confused. So he’s not in Mexico?”

And Lord help me, this is where I lose it. I suck a breath and scream into the phone loud enough to burn the back of my throat. “I don’t know, Jessica! I don’t fucking know where Will is! That’s the whole fucking problem!”

Shocked silence all around, from Claire behind me and from Jessica on the other end of the line. It’s like silence in stereo, ringing in both ears. I should apologize, I know I should, but a sob steals my breath, and I choke on the awful words that come next. “They—They’re saying Will was on that flight that crashed this morning, but that can’t be right. He was on a plane to Orlando. Tell me he’s in Orlando.”

“Oh, my God. I saw the news, but I had no idea, Iris. I didn’t know.”

“Please. Just help me find Will.”

“Of course.” She falls silent for a moment, and I hear her clicking around a computer keyboard. “I’m positive I didn’t book his flight for today, but I have his log-in credentials for the airline accounts. What airline was the plane that crashed again?”

“Liberty Airlines. Flight 23.”

Another longish pause filled with more clicking. “Okay, I’m in. Let’s see... Flight 23, you said?”

I drop both elbows on the countertop, cradle my head in one hand, squeeze my eyes shut, pray. “Yes.”

I hold my breath, and I hear the answer in the way Jessica sucks in hers.

“Oh, Iris...” she says, and the room spins. “I’m so sorry, but here it is. Flight 23, leaving Atlanta this morning at 8:55 a.m., headed to Seattle and returning on... Huh. Looks like he booked a one-way.”

My legs give out, and I slide onto the floor. “Check Delta.”

“Iris, I’m not sure—”

“Check Delta!”

“Okay, just give me a second or two... It’s loading now... Wait, that’s so weird, he’s here, too. Flight 2069 to Orlando, leaving today at 9:00 a.m., returning Friday at 8:00 p.m. Why would he book two tickets in opposite directions?”

Relief turns my bones to slush, and I sit up ramrod straight. “Where’s the conference? I called the hotel on Universal Boulevard, but it must have been moved.”

“Sorry, Iris. I don’t know anything about a conference.”

“So ask somebody! Surely somebody there knows about the conference your own company planned.”

“No. What I meant was, AppSec doesn’t have any conferences on the books, not until early November.”

It takes me three tries to get my next words out. “And Mexico?”

“The tickets aren’t on Delta or Liberty Air, but I can check the other airlines if you’d like.”

There’s pity in her voice now, and I can’t listen to it for another second. I hang up and Google the phone number for Delta. It takes me nine eternal minutes to make it through the queue, and then I explain my situation to a procession of customer service representatives before I finally land with Carrie, the perky-voiced family assistance representative.

“Hi, Carrie. My name is Iris Griffith. My husband, Will, was booked on this morning’s Flight 2069 from Atlanta to Orlando, and I haven’t heard from him since he landed. Could you maybe check and make sure he made the flight okay?”

“Certainly, ma’am. I’ll just need his ticket locator number.”

Which would mean hanging up and calling Jessica back, and there’s no way I’m giving up my place in the phone line. I need answers now. “Can’t you find him by name? I really need to know if he was on the flight.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible.” Her voice is singsong and chipper, delivering the bad news like I just won a free meal at Denny’s. “Privacy restrictions will not allow us to give out passenger itineraries over the phone.”

“But he’s my husband. I’m his wife.”

“I understand that, ma’am, and if I could verify your marital status over the phone, I would. Perhaps you could drop by your nearest Delta counter with a valid identification, someone there—”

“I don’t have time to go to a Delta counter!” The words erupt from the deepest part of my gut, surprising me with both their suddenness and force, and the woman on the other end of the line goes absolutely still. If it weren’t for the background noises, computer clicks and human chatter, I’d think she hung up on me.

And then there’s a high-pitched squeal like interference on a microphone, and it takes a second or two to identify the sound as my own. I break under the weight of my desperation.

“It’s just that he also had a ticket on Liberty Air Flight 23, you know? But he wasn’t supposed to be on that airplane. He was supposed to be on yours. And now he’s not returning my calls and the hotel doesn’t have any record of him or the conference and neither does his assistant, even though she thought he was in Mexico, which he most definitely is not. And now, with each second that passes, seconds where I don’t know where my husband is, I’m losing more and more of my mind, so please. Take a peek in your computer and tell me if he was on that flight. I’m begging you.”

She clears her throat. “Mrs. Griffith, I...”

“Please.” My voice breaks on the word, and it takes a couple of tries before I find it again. The tears are coming hard and fast now, hogging my air and clogging my throat. “Please, help me find my husband.”