Chapter 1.
Ettie pottered about in the garden planting the seeds that her younger friends, Silvie and Maureen, had given her the night before. At just over eighty and no longer spritely, getting down on her knees was both time-consuming and painful, but the promise of new flowers in the summer powered her through. Besides, she always loved the smell of spring; it told a story of rebirth, which at her age was always reassuring.
Ettie often wondered if her life had grown too comfortable, raised as she was to believe boredom inspired sin in the young and led to the first rung on the journey to dementia in the old. But surrounded by her friends, young and old, Ettie enjoyed comfort. Having just conquered a bad case of pneumonia she was determined to enjoy whatever time God had blessed her with.
After putting her gardening tools away, Ettie prepared herself a cup of hot tea.
She settled down in her couch to enjoy a quiet moment before her sister, Elsa-May, came back from town. A loud knock on the door sounded, which made her jolt and spill a little tea into her saucer. "Ach nee." She wasn't expecting any visitors or mail this late in the day. “Give an old girl a minute,” she called out, pushing herself out of her comfortable spot.
When she opened the door and faced her caller, she was glad she'd set her cup on the table on her way to the door.
“It's you. Is it really you?” Late afternoon sunlight shone through the woman's blonde hair, giving her a golden halo. “Myra.”
“Mamm, you'll catch flies if you don't close your mouth.” Myra’s mouth formed a smile, but no hint of a smile touched her eyes. “Any chance I can come in or should I stand here on the porch all day?”
Ettie's heart pounded in her chest. “You wouldn’t get away with being so cheeky if your vadder were still alive.” She gulped on the lump forming in her throat. “Come in.”
Myra passed her mother and entered the house, carrying a suitcase close to her side.
Ettie looked down at the suitcase. “How long's it been?” She stood back, palms on cheeks, still gaping.
“I know.” Myra lowered her head before looking at her mother. “Too long. I’m sorry, Mamm. It never seemed the right time to contact you.”
Once Myra set her suitcase on the floor, Ettie put both hands on her daughter’s shoulders. “I think it was at your vadder’s funeral, and I haven’t seen you since.”
“Oh, Mamm, it’s so good to see you.” Myra wrapped her arms around Ettie, and Ettie gave her daughter the first hug in decades.
Once the emotional reunion ended, Ettie stepped back, now practical and curious. She glanced again at Myra’s suitcase. “You’ve come to stay?”
“For a while if that’s okay.”
Ettie bit her lip. She had only half the say in the household since she shared with her sister, Elsa-May. “We’ve only two bedrooms in this small haus. You’ll have to share with me.”
Myra's hands shook, and her eyes were a swollen, ruddy mess, as though she'd been crying for some time.
“Sit down on the couch.” Ettie waved her through into the living room. “Let me get you something to drink and eat. Did you drive far?”
“Mamm, don’t fuss. You still have the compulsive need to feed people. I need to tell you something.” When they sat, Myra said, “I need to talk to you before we do anything else. It's important, and I want to get it out of me and tell someone who won't patronize me.”
Ettie could sense fear; Myra’s presence had made the room sizzle with tension. “You're worrying me. How bad is it? Are you ill?”
“No, no. Well, recent events haven’t helped my well being.” Myra’s eyes glazed over after giving a large sigh. “I don’t know if I should have come, but I’ve nowhere else to turn.”
They sat together in silence for a few more moments before Ettie said, “Just tell me what happened and start at the beginning.”
Myra remained silent.
The tense atmosphere weighed heavily on Ettie as the seconds passed like hours. “Whatever it is, I'm sure I can help you.”
“Oh.” Myra's tears fell down her cheeks. “I thought you could help, but now I'm not sure it was a good idea. I shouldn't show up like this and expect you to help me after I haven’t spoken to you in years.”
Ettie reached onto her coffee table and plucked out several tissues from a box. “Here.” Ettie handed her the tissues. “Of course, you should. Now tell me, let me help you. Blow your nose, take a deep breath, and when you're ready, put this old woman out of her misery.”
Myra cleaned herself up and inhaled deeply. “Peter, my husband of ten years, has vanished.”
Ettie frowned; she hadn’t known that her daughter had married. The rift between them had been great. The tragedy to bring her back must have been greater. “What do you mean by vanished?”
“He’s gone; he’s disappeared,” Myra said.
Ettie saw her daughter's heart break before her eyes, and every instinct in her body hummed, like plucked strings on a guitar, urging her to do something, to fix things. All she could do was hold Myra's hand. “What did the police say?”
“They think I'm a sad, stupid middle aged woman. They think Peter’s found a younger woman and run off with her.”
Ettie wiped the tears from Myra's cheek. “Did they do anything useful? Like, check into his friends or extended family? His work colleagues?”
Myra rubbed her face. “Peter maintained that he was estranged from his family. He never asked me about my family and I never asked him about his.” Myra dragged her fingers back through her hair.
Ettie nodded. “What have the police done?”
“Oh, I don't know, Mamm. And they washed their hands of the investigation, so I'm unlikely to find out."
“How could they? He's still missing.”
“Oh, Mamm, it's so much worse than that.”
“Worse, how?”
“They said his birth certificate, the one he used for our marriage, is fake.” Myra stood and paced up and down, her tears relentless. “Who the hell did I marry?”
“People don't just up and vanish, Myra. He's out there somewhere.” Ettie’s mouth was suddenly dry. She thought of what Detective Crowley would do. “Did they track his cell phone, his credit cards, that sort of thing?”
“He didn’t like to use credit cards. We had one that was in my name, and he used a pre-paid cell, which they couldn’t track for some reasons. He committed no real crime according to them, so they said there are no more leads for them to follow. Without a real identity, they have nothing to go on.”
Ettie didn't want to ask her next question, but had to broach the subject. “Do you think Peter had anything to do with his own disappearance?”
Myra snapped her head around. “No! I can't believe anything bad about him, I won't.”
Ettie stood, grabbing her daughter's hands to stop her from pacing, “I had to ask you.”
Myra rested her head on Ettie's shoulder. “I want him back.”
Ettie patted Myra’s back while she thought things through.
Myra stepped away from Ettie and plucked more tissues from the box.
“Fake birth certificate, you say?” Ettie didn't like the sound of that. What kind of man uses a fake birth certificate to get married? A bigamist? A criminal on the run? “What about his passport or his driver’s license? Surely one of those would turn up something.”
“No, he had no passport, and his driver’s license had been secured with his fake birth certificate.” Myra shrugged. “There's no record of a Peter Davis. Well, there are loads of men named Peter Davis, it's a common name, but none is my Peter. My husband simply doesn't exist anymore.” She frowned at her mother. “I've been married for ten years to someone who does not exist, and I don't know what to do about it. And worse, I don’t know where he is or what’s happened to him. Did I tell you most of his things are gone from the house?”
Ettie shook her head.
