Back In Time

Could she really not know?

When she first asks if I am "still seeing that guy with the boat" I think she is referring to Craig. I answer that question (as nebulously as the relationship) and then realize that she is talking about Scott. The horror story is now 9 months old. Where has she been? Where have I been?

Rewind.

I take a deep breath. She needs to hear this, if only to make her feel less crappy about having been dumped on Valentine's Day via text by someone she'd been dating for 4 years. I tell her from the beginning, and Joy interjects little tidbits.

I tell her that everything had been fine, right up until the moment he'd vanished.

The weekend had been fun if not frantic with the approaching hurricane. Scott had even made some calls to see if he could buy me a generator. We had laughed. We had had fun. We'd shopped. We'd prepared. It was not a typical weekend, but a weekend of things you'd typically do with and for your partner in the same situation and when you are in a relationship for two years. No signs of trouble.

"Even when you said goodbye?" Penny asks. "There was no clue?"

"No signs that anything was amiss," I say.

"She'd just put a chicken in the oven for them to eat later!" Joy interjects. Yes, it had been blissfully normal and routine and wonderful.

"Even the last kiss, the last moments in bed? Nothing?" Jill asks. I repeat that there was nothing. And I am the type that goes looking for clues everywhere - especially after that little episode when I caught him Facebook cruising. Flirting with the slutty UPS girl and the Drill Team Ho. No one ever completely relaxes after something like that. No clues at all. Everything had been normal and untroubled.

And then I relive the horror of the next few days. Worrying about the hurricane and my house and the cats and what would happen to me. The scariness of being alone. Worrying about what would happen to Scott and the girls. He had been adamantly refusing to go inland. I had invited him to my house; had implored him to get off the coast. He'd refused, even as the governor had read the residents the riot act on TV, his jowly face flapping in the high winds.

And then the storm had hit, and I had miraculously survived without incident. Never lost electricity. Never got a drop of water in the basement. No trees came crashing down on my house or flying through the windows like javelins.

I had tried to remain calm by staying connected to friends on Facebook the entire time. Craig had checked in on me a few times. He's on the water in another state and I could tell he was trying to cope with the some pretty scary possibilities, but was checking in on me as well. My childhood friend in Virginia checked in on me repeatedly, even as the storm blew up the coast and passed over her on the way. People were looking out for me and I looked out for them. It made the world feel less big and scary for all of us, I think.

I could not say the same for Scott. He hadn't seemed to be able to worry about anyone but himself, even as he voluntarily put himself and his family more or less in harm's way. I gave him a pass, sort of. He had been an idiot to stay and take risks with his family, but if worry consumed him once the roads had closed, then I guess I couldn't blame him for not having enough worry for both of us.

When I had awoken to find the worst of the storm was over and was nothing short of amazed that my little night light was still lit and had remained lit, I had been so relieved and overjoyed. I was safe and so were the cats. I had put out a smoke signal on Facebook that I was OK and asked about all of my friends in the storm's path. And then it was time to look in on Scott.

I had texted him "You awake?"

"No."

Decidedly unfriendly. You are obviously awake enough to reply, and therefore alive, so why be such a piss ant? If your phone is in your hand and functioning, you are obviously not up to your neck in storm water and it is unlikely that your house has floated off its foundation. So save your cranky attitude for someone who doesn't give a shit if you blew off the map.

I had checked in on him a few hours later. I could see on the news that his part of the state, and in some cases, his very neighborhood, was being throttled by the storm. Three, maybe four texts. He'd never answered. Not once.

I had started to worry. But not about me, and not about us, which in hindsight would have been appropriate, given what was surely afoot in those moments. I was worried about him. The kind of worry you have when you think your life might be changing forever.

And it was about to. Just not in the way I'd worried about.