Monday Mourning

How could I have been so selfish?

Anger. She’d just packed and split for home without telling me? How could she be so insensitive?

Then fear barreled in like a locomotive.

Had she gone home? Wrap what up? For doing what this way? What way?

I remembered Anne’s book and our dinner conversation the night before. She hadn’t mentioned leaving.

What had she said? Something about cycles and changing in substance. I’d blown her off.

Sweet Jesus! Was she talking about death? Surely not. Depressed or not, Anne was not the suicidal type.

Memory collage. Another friend who’d stayed in that room. Left. Turned up dead in a shallow grave. Could Anne have undertaken some risky odyssey?

I tried calling her cell. No answer.

I dialed Tom.

“Hello.”

“Is Anne there?”

“Tempe?”

“Has Anne come home?”

“I thought she was with you.”

“She left.” I read Tom the note.

“What’s she talking about?”

“I’m not sure.”

“She was pretty upset with me.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t think she’d do something crazy, do you?”

The same question had been winging through my skull.

“She hasn’t phoned?”

“No.”

“Call the airlines. See if she’s booked on a flight to Charlotte.”

“I don’t think they’ll tell me.”

“Fake it, Tom!” I was almost crying. “Lie! Think of something.”

“OK.”

“Call me the instant you know anything.”

“You, too.”

Standing with the phone in one hand, I caught a snapshot of myself in the newly replaced dining room mirror.

Body tense, face a frightened white oval.

Like Anne in my corridor the night of the break-in.

Dear God! Let her be all right.

What to do? Phone the airlines? Tom was doing that. Car rental companies? Cab companies? The police?

Was I overreacting? Had Anne simply taken off to be by herself? Should I do nothing and wait?

But Anne left a note. She had some plan in mind. But what plan?

I jumped when the phone shrilled in my hand.

“Anne?”

“It’s me.” Ryan must have picked up on the tension in my voice. “What’s wrong?”

I told him about Anne’s abrupt departure.

“Does the note say she’s going home?”

“Not in so many words.”

“Did she phone anyone?”

“This phone doesn’t record outgoing calls.”

“Or incoming. Or have caller ID. You really need to upgrade.”

“Thanks for the technical advice.”

“I’ll make some inquiries.”

“Thanks. Ryan?”

“Yeah.”

“She was very down.”

“She took her things. That’s a good sign.”

“Yes.” I hadn’t thought of that.

Pause.

“Do you want me to come over there?”

I did. “I’ll be all right.