I've dreamed of the perfect marriage ever since I was a little girl: a marriage complete with a hardworking husband while I tended to the home and our children, preferably four little rugrats to call my own. I dreamed of a life filled with laughter...
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"Find her!" I shout, hanging up my office phone and effectively ending the conversation with the so-called "Best Private Investigator in the City". It's been over a week since hiring him, and he's not any closer to discovering Charlotte's whereabouts than the day I hired him, so I beg to differ on the validity of that slogan.
Two weeks, it's been two whole weeks since I last saw Charlotte.
She hasn't contacted her parents.
She hasn't contacted me.
She hasn't contacted anyone . . .
. . . at least, anyone who I can find.
The last moments of Charlotte's and my time together repeat in my mind as I search for clues, hoping something will stick out and give me an idea as to where she's run off to: her stepping out of the car, avoiding eye contact; her walking up our stairs, refusing to speak; her slamming the door in my face, shutting me out for good.
But, I keep coming up with nothing.
"Then we'll talk when you get back!"
Only we haven't talked now have we, little bird. You left before we ever could.
I had known she was upset that night, rightly so. Fool of me for thinking it was only fleeting, nothing more than a blip in our otherwise calm, agreeable marriage that simply needed to be worked out.
It turns out, however, that our marriage wasn't so agreeable now, was it?
For four years, I've been married, believing it was under one capacity, while Charlotte, it turns out, has been believing it to be under a different one. That thought makes me ill.
"I have so much hope that we can make a beautiful life together, Daniel. I'll see you at the altar."
All these years, I've made sure to keep my distance emotionally from Charlotte. It wasn't because I didn't care for her, because I do. She's sweet and understands the importance of working within an elite society where everything is about appearances and position. Charlotte has been an incredible wife who has dotted the i's and crossed the t's as far as our marriage is concerned. But, I never felt any passion or true connection, or that she ever really had any skin in the game. All it felt like was she was doing what she was supposed to do because she was supposed to be doing it, which is the opposite of what she wrote in her letter, a letter full of passion, risk, and hope, everything opposite of our marriage.
After obsessively combing through her letter, I'm left with only one conclusion: the woman I've spent four years married to and the woman in that letter are not the same person. One is a front and the other is true. So, which one is Charlotte?
Without her here to ask, I have no way of knowing. But, I'm going to find out one way or another.
