Page 32 of Missing

The day I lost the man I loved, the father of my unborn child.

The day my world turned upside down.

I took a few deep breaths to steady myself and wiped at the tears rolling down my cheek.

I didn’t like how it felt to worry about Doug, or how quickly it had brought back the heartache of that day.

Can I go through that again?

It felt like a boulder had been lifted off my chest when Doug said he was fine, but had to stay with his client.

Then, irrationally, I got mad. Anger was easier to deal with than fear.

He needs to start conversations, regardless of the format, with the fact that he was uninjured.His job was dangerous, so it was never a given.

A reality I understood all too well.

A little while later, Doug called sounding like he was in a wind tunnel.

“Where are you?” I shouted, thinking he probably wouldn’t be able to hear me otherwise.

“Sorry, all my windows are down.” There was a brief pause, while the noise lessened. “Better?”

“Yeah, thanks. How are you?”

“I’m good, but in desperate need of a shower.”

“How’s the client?” I knew he couldn’t give me any details, but he should be able to tell me if the kid was okay.

“He’s home with his parents.”

“Are you on your way home?”

“I am.” Pause. “I’m sorry, can I call you later? I need to roll my windows back down.”

I could only imagine what had happened for his truck to smell so bad. “Of course. Drive safe.”

I didn’t have a chance to give him a piece of my mind for making me worry.I’ll tell him when he calls back.

I looked over at Chase. He was engrossed in an animated dinosaur movie, some of his favorite plastic ones lined up beside him, completely oblivious to the fact his mom’s emotions had gone haywire in the last few minutes.Thank God for that.

“Chase, time to pick up and get ready for bed.”

“But my movie’s not done.”

“You can finish it tomorrow after dinner.” Bedtime was never easy with Chase. “Come on, pick up your crayons.”

“Okay, just let me finish this part.”

I sighed and counted to three so I could find some patience. “You have two minutes.”

Twenty minutes later Chase was asleep. He never wanted to go to bed, but almost always fell asleep before I finished reading his bedtime story.

I poured myself a glass of wine and turned on a rom-com. I didn’t have the emotional capacity for anything else. The opening credits had barely ended before my phone rang.

Doug sounded much better. After apologizing again, he told me he’d taken a long, scalding hot shower, and scheduled a deep clean for his truck’s interior.

“Thankfully, I can drop it off first thing in the morning.” Then he explained why he and his truck were in such desperate need of cleaning.

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