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Let’s start at the beginning. I was in the kitchen washing dishes when you and I heard that crazy noise, and the girls disappeared from the swing set, right? Denny was upstairs, brooding over our lovely squabble.
After seeing no calls or texts on my cell phone, I put it back in my pocket. At the staircase, I grab the banister and head upward. Each step is hardwood like the downstairs flooring, and a turning landing is at the halfway mark. On the second floor, the wood continues to flow down the hall.
His stark white office door remains closed. Do you think he never left?
Well, time for confrontation. Let’s get this over with.
Come with me—you can be the middleman in our marital discord.
Whatever I don’t want to deal with, now is the time, Sarah. Time to get it over with and get answers. I’ll concede that he was right if he’s behind this closed door. Anything to restore peace between us amid this chaos.
I put my hand on the door handle. He hates interruptions, but the guy had to have heard all the commotion, even if he happened to be wearing those noise-cancellation headphones he’s gaga over.
Turning the doorknob and opening the door, I do a cursory check of the room as I call out his name one more time. The computer screen on his corner desk is blackened, but I can see by the green light that it’s powered up. The desk light shines down brightly, and the window is half-open, with blinds flittering every few seconds in the mild breeze.
As I had somehow known in my heart: There is no Denny.
Did you expect the same?
The back of his oversized executive leather chair faces me, and the headphone cord hangs from it to the nearby sound system.
Odd. Denny would never leave his headphones all catty-rumpled like that. Not at five hundred dollars a pop dealer cost. He’d protect those babies during any calamity.
I approach the chair and swivel it around.
No!
No.
No, I cry. This can’t be!
Oh, my. No!
Denny’s long-sleeved dress shirt slips off the chair to the floor. I notice his gray slacks are on the rug with his shoes and argyle socks sticking out under them. His striped boxer shorts are placed perfectly inside the pants.
No. Denny can’t be one of them. He can’t be missing!
His watch is visible halfway under the desk’s file cabinet where he keeps his commission reports. It is still latched.
The business phone rests on the edge of the desk with a red light blinking.
A highlight marker lies on the floor, pointing to the flow charts scattered a couple of feet away.
The headphones remain lodged between one of the chair’s armrests and its seat cushion.
No, this can’t be happening!
I fall to my knees near his chair. Where did he go? Why did he go? Did the sound affect him, also? Did he get this virus? Will he ever return?
Tears are running down my face as I stretch my hands out on a small rug that rests under the office chair. I wail.
No!
Not my Denny!
Then I spot an opaque object. I rub my fingers through the rug’s fibers; I retrieve it, examining it carefully. It looks like part of a porcelain dental crown. Could it be Denny’s?
While I’m on my knees, I notice something else on the floor under the green wing chair—over there—near the bookcase where he keeps his factory price books.
Crawling on all fours to the spot, I lie down flat on my stomach and reach around a side table to the chair’s back leg that’s against the wall.
There.
His ring, Denny’s wedding ring. Our ring.
It must have bounced or rolled over here.
The beautiful ring he designed with engravings to match mine.
The white gold band is placed on my first finger, and I fall into one of the wing chairs.
I cry. My Denny, my Denny, why?
This can’t be real—it must be a dream. Wake me up from this nightmare. I don’t want to be here anymore. Please help me.
From across the room, I survey his desk. My eyes go back and forth from the connector of the headphones into the sound system, down the coiled cord to their landing on the chair.
A green button is on the headphones. It must be in the “Play” mode.
Dennis was listening to something while he worked. Probably that new digitally remastered John Lennon album he downloaded last night.
The music must still be playing. A nice feature on some sound equipment—unlimited music until one hits the “Off” button.
I bet the song “Imagine” will be on; it’s Denny’s all-time favorite.
Swiveling the chair around, I don the headphones and sit down.
A contact lens, face-up on the keyboard’s letter “J,” catches my attention as noise starts to flow into my head.
There’s talking.
Talking?
What? Not music? Not Lennon’s view of universal peace?
The sound is clear and calm. A man is talking in a quiet voice.
. . . the Bible says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved . . .
What, Denny was listening to God-talk? No way. I am so astonished that I don’t hear the guy at first.
. . . for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Right, Denny? Sure, he must have called on God and was saved all right—ha. So saved he no longer exists here on earth and was taken away, “raptured,” as Amy would declare.
No more, no more of this stupid religion!
Standing up, I rip off Denny’s prized possession, one he can no longer enjoy now that he’s vanished. I throw the phones violently against the wall. They hit the framed photo of John and him standing at the eighteenth tee box at Pebble Beach. The picture’s glass shatters and falls to the floor.
I scream profanities at the walls as anger seethes inside me.
“Denny!” I cuss as I fall to my knees, repeatedly pounding the rug with closed fists.
I pull myself into the fetal position. I am out of my mind. I don’t care what you are thinking or who you are right now as you see my meltdown. I’m not ashamed of my actions or my words. I’m past the point of being rational. I let out the loudest scream I can, hurting my ears and my brain—no doubt the vicious roar pains you, also.
I search my soul, wondering why Denny is gone and I am not.
Denny was taken away, yet here I am, alone and brokenhearted. Was there something about him that the sound affected? Was he a weak person who didn’t have some anti-disintegration survival gene that I have?
Or could Aunt Amy possibly be right? Was he raptured?
I feel out of control. There’s nowhere to turn.