Have You Seen Me?(10)

“Ally, please sit down,” he insists.

But I can’t, and instead pace in front of the coffee table, trying to grapple with what he’s just revealed.

“So what was the fight about?” I ask. That’s the million-dollar question, after all.

He rises from the couch himself and heads to the island, where he pours another glass of wine.

“It was my fault,” he says, avoiding my gaze momentarily. “It was a discussion I was hoping to keep positive, but it ended up spiraling in the wrong direction.”

“A discussion about what?”

“Kids. I pressed you again.”

“Well, how bad did it get?”

“We weren’t screaming, if that’s what you mean.”

No, we wouldn’t have screamed. We’re both controlled and averse to messiness, and that’s how I prefer it.

“But it did get a little heated,” he adds. “And you seemed really upset.”

Mostly I’ve tried to be understanding of Hugh’s position. I mean, let’s face it, I pulled a bait and switch on the guy, leading him to believe when we married that I was enthusiastic about parenthood but then developing cold feet. That said, the sudden pressure from him was unexpected. It was as if “have a kid” was the next box he wanted to tick off after “make partner” and “buy a dream apartment.” But as I’d told Dr. Agarwal, Hugh had promised to table the issue for a while. I must have been really pissed when he raised it again the other night.

And yet, how could a fight on well-trodden terrain be enough to make me disassociate, lose track of my identity?

“Do you think I was at Gabby’s all this time?” That would be some kind of relief—meaning (1) at least I was safe and (2) she’ll have a few answers for me.

“No. I called her Wednesday morning, hoping to make contact with you, and it was clear you hadn’t gone there.”

“Did you ask her directly?”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t want to let on what had happened in case you weren’t there. So I told her I needed a few ideas for your birthday, and she ended up giving me a bunch of suggestions. It was clear from her tone that you weren’t at her place, and that she probably had no clue about our argument.”

I throw up my hands, more confused than ever. “If I wasn’t with Gabby, where was I?”

“At another friend’s, I guess.”

It’s hard to imagine who that could be. My other two closest friends aren’t in New York at the moment: Diane recently accepted a job in Chicago, and John is freelance writing from Dallas while his partner handles a two-month project there.

“Maybe I stayed in a hotel. Do you know if I took a bag?”

“I assumed you did, but I haven’t taken a look in your closet. But I don’t think you were at a hotel. I checked the credit card statement on Wednesday afternoon. Like I said, I wasn’t worried at that point, but of course I wanted to know where you were. The only charge was for around fifteen dollars for food on Wednesday. It must have been for lunch.”

“Where was it?”

“A place called Eastside Eats. I googled it and it’s on Fifty-First Street between Third and Lex.”

I can’t imagine what I would be doing in Midtown East. I’m rarely in that part of the city.

“According to the website,” Hugh adds, “it looks like it’s your standard-issue gourmet café.”

That tells me nothing other than the fact that at some point while I was missing, I went hunting for a cup of coffee and maybe my usual tuna salad and sprouts on multigrain.

“What about my bank card? Did I ever take cash from an ATM?”

“Nope.”

I glance around the room, hoping again for a prompt, for a hint of any kind.

“Was the fight in here?”

He shakes his head. “It started in the den, right after we turned off the TV.”

“What did we watch?”

“A documentary. About the financial meltdown in 2008.”

“Okay,” I say, as images from that day pop up in my memory, “I do remember Monday.” I spent a chunk of the day at WorkSpace with my assistant/researcher, Nicole. Then Hugh and I had dinner and watched the documentary. “But nothing after that.”

Nothing. I grab my head in my hands. “This is crazy.”

“Ally, as Dr. Agarwal said, it’s important not to stress yourself out.”

“I’d be much less stressed if I could figure out where I was all this time. . . . I wonder if I managed to show up for my appointment with Dr. Erling on Wednesday.”

“If you missed it, Erling will clearly understand. You’re going to get ahold of her, right?”

“I already left her a message. God, she has to help me remember.”

“Is it really the end of the world if you don’t end up remembering everything? The key thing is that it doesn’t happen again, and that means getting the best medical help.”

It does feel catastrophic to me; there’s a sense of fear creeping up my back, spreading over me. Fear about the missing days and what happened to me during that time. I grip my head again, as if the pressure could somehow force the memories to the surface.

“I also think you should see a neurologist for a second opinion,” Hugh adds. “Maybe you did sustain a concussion.”