“I’ll keep checking on you then.”
After a little while, I could feel my excitement morph into anxiety.
I tried calling Ben, but it went straight to voicemail. “Maybe he’s stuck in traffic,” I told myself.
“Maybe something came up at work.”
I tried to stay calm, but with every passing minute, my anxiety grew. The clock on the wall seemed to mock me as it moved forward.
Thirty minutes.
Forty-five minutes. An hour. My stomach growled, but I just couldn’t bring myself to eat the fries and garlic bread I had ordered thirty minutes into waiting.
Where was Ben?
Eventually, I called the waitress, paid the bill, and rushed home. Had something happened?
Was it an accident? What if he was hurt somewhere?
Or was… was Ben actually leaving me?
“Stop it, Becca,” I told myself as I drove home. Ben would never leave me. We were happy.
Were we?
Weren’t we? When I got home, the driveway was empty.
The lights were off inside. I glanced at my grandmother’s house across the road, the living room illuminated by the glow of her TV.
“At least someone’s home,” I muttered.
I fumbled with my keys and pushed the door open. “Ben? Sweetheart?” I called.
No answer.
I checked the living room and made my way through the house. It was empty, just a thick and heavy silence.
But then I noticed it—the plain white envelope on the kitchen counter. Inside, there was just one line:
Your grandma made me do this.
Bye forever, Becca.
I read it again. And again. My mind refusing to understand.
What did that even mean?
My grandma? How could she have anything to do with my husband’s disappearance?
I grabbed my phone and dialed Ben again. Straight to voicemail.
Again.
I slammed down the phone, tears stinging my eyes. “No, enough, Becca,” I said, pushing myself out the door and to my grandmother’s house across the road. “What did you say to Ben?” I practically yelled when she opened the door.
“He’s gone, and he left a note saying that you made him do it!”
There was a pause on the other end, and then she sighed, as if she were truly disappointed in me.
“I had to do what’s best for you, Becca. Ben isn’t the right man for you.
You’ve always known that deep down.”
“What the heck are you talking about?” I demanded. “He’s my husband, and I’m pregnant!
How could you do this?”
“Oh, honey,” she said, her tone condescending.
“I’ve always wanted you to end up with someone more suitable. Someone on your level. Someone like Charlie.”
The name sent a wave of nausea through me.
Charlie was my grandmother’s best friend’s grandson.
And she had been trying to set me up with him since we were teenagers. But I never had any interest in that guy.
He was arrogant, self-centered, and definitely not the kind of man I wanted to be with. I thought she had finally accepted that when I married Ben.
“I don’t care about Charlie!
He’s horrible!” I snapped. “I love Ben, and I want to be with him. What did you say to him?”
My grandmother paused and looked at me intently.
The only sound in the room was coming from the game show she had been watching.
“I told Ben that if he truly loved you, if he deeply loved you, that he would leave and give you the best chance at life. Otherwise, he would just ruin your life.
And if he didn’t… well, I told him that there would be no inheritance for you.”
I was speechless. Here stood an old lady who I had loved with everything that I had.
But here she was, betraying me by blackmailing my husband into leaving me.
“Why would you do that?” I asked, feeling faint. “Because I adore you, Becca,” she said. “And I want what’s best for you.
You’ll understand one day.”
“I don’t think I ever will.
And I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you. I hate you,” I said, running out of her house.
I got into my home and collapsed onto the floor, my tears taking over. The next few hours passed in a blur.
I called Ben over and over, praying that he would pick up.
I texted him, begging him to come home or to tell me where he was. But nothing. He was just gone.
Then the weight of it all hit me: I was pregnant and alone in the world.
My husband had vanished. I felt like I was living some kind of sick joke.
And I had no idea how to fix any of it. I dragged myself into my bed, promising myself that things would be okay in the morning.
That I would wake up and Ben would be back.
Maybe there was still a chance to fix this. But as I lay awake that night, staring at the ceiling, one thought kept running through my mind:
What if Ben didn’t want to be found?
