sleep after making the early morning call? Had she gotten sick? If so, why hadn’t she called? Colleen left a message and continued to phone her throughout the day, but there was no response.
Cari’s devices left a trail of digital footprints that morning. Her laptop logged onto Facebook early and logged off at 6:42 A.M. At 9:54, her phone logged onto Facebook, and an odd action was taken. David Kroupa was unfriended. In other words, he was deleted from Cari’s Facebook friends’ list.
About twenty minutes later, he received a text. He recognized Cari’s number and was startled by the message. “She was asking if we should move in with each other. She already knew I didn’t want that! I said, ‘No.’ Within twenty seconds, I got a text back that said, ‘Fine. Fuck you. I’m seeing somebody else. Don’t contact me again. I hate you. Go away.’ That sort of thing. I had no idea how to feel about it at the time. It was out of left field, and I was very busy at work, so I didn’t have time to contemplate it. I put my phone down.”
When Dave returned to his apartment that night, he was apprehensive. Would Cari be there? He glanced around. It was so quiet. The only sound was the faint hum of the refrigerator, and the rooms felt emptier than ever. There was no trace of her. It was almost as if she had never been there, almost as if she had been nothing more than a pleasant daydream.
He wasn’t really surprised to find no sign of her because she wasn’t in the habit of leaving things behind even when she planned to return. Unlike Liz who left her toothbrush next to his, her clothes hanging in his closet, and her pots and pans in his cupboards, Cari always carefully packed everything up and took it away with her in her rolling luggage. “When she left, everything went with her. She didn’t leave a bobby pin.”
Cari’s abrupt breakup with him was disturbing. How could she have changed so completely? How could she be so mellow, so reasonable, and so optimistic when he went out the door that morning and then turn so crazy and hostile four hours later? Determined not to let it bring him down, he decided to be philosophical about it. “I thought, ‘Whew! I dodged a bullet. I exchanged stories with guys at work about similar situations that they’ve had. So, I was just happy it didn’t drag on any longer.”
“Happy” was probably too cheerful of a word for how he felt. More accurately, he was relieved that he hadn’t been swept up into unwelcome drama. The fact that this promising relationship had imploded so quickly proved to him that he had been right to swear off commitment and the big stinking mess that often came with it. Though he tried not to show it, the breakup stung. He forced himself to consider the bright side. It was over, and it kind of hurt, but he would never have to think about her again.
If only it were that simple.
Someone else was becoming increasingly concerned about Cari’s seemingly erratic behavior. Her mother. Nancy Raney knew her better than anyone in the world. Though she normally talked to her every day, two days had gone by with no word from her except for a puzzling text. On the same day that Cari’s supervisor was bewildered by her absence and Dave had received the weird breakup message, Nancy also got a text. She glanced at her phone and saw it had come from Cari’s number. “It said she was going to take a new job. That shocked me, because I thought she was happy with the job she had.” When Cari had last discussed her job with her mother, she’d told her she loved it but was extremely busy with a work project she was racing to finish, so she could enjoy her brother John’s wedding in the upcoming weekend.
John was actually Cari’s half-brother, the son of Nancy’s first husband, Dennis Farver, but none of them thought in terms of half or full. They were all family. Even Dennis and Nancy, both remarried, got along splendidly and sometimes celebrated holidays together. Everyone was looking forward to the wedding. Maxwell had been invited to be an usher, and Cari was so proud her handsome son was going to be in his uncle’s wedding. But she knew it would be bittersweet. Her father was dying of