I’ll Be Right Back

My wife stepped out for ice cream three years ago and never came home.

People hear that and assume there must be more to it. A fight. A secret. A reason.

They want the story to make sense.

It doesn’t.

Rachel said she wanted mint chocolate chip. She grabbed her keys from the little ceramic bowl by the door—the one shaped like a seashell because she said someday we’d live by the ocean.

She leaned over the couch and kissed my forehead while I was answering emails.

“Back in ten,” she said.

I remember thinking it was strange she wanted ice cream that late. Rachel usually preferred staying in once the sun went down.

I almost asked if she wanted company.

But she was already halfway out the door.

That was the last time I saw her.

Three years later, I still haven’t moved the seashell bowl.

The house is quiet most mornings.

Not silent—never silent—but quiet in the way a place becomes after it learns how to live around one missing person.

My black lab, Sasha, greets me every morning when I come downstairs.

She isn’t just a dog.

She’s a black lab.

There’s a difference.

Labs have opinions about things.

Sasha has decided I am not allowed to sit too long in one place. If I linger at the kitchen table more than a few minutes she nudges my elbow with her nose until I move.

“Okay,” I tell her. “Okay, I’m up.”

Her tail thumps once against the cabinet, satisfied.

Outside, the late spring sun is already warming the yard. The detached garage sits at the edge of the property, and above it is the small apartment I had renovated a few years back.

It was meant to be a writing studio.

Now it belongs to Samantha and Jessica.

They’re college students at the university across town. I rented the place to them after Rachel disappeared because the house felt too large and too quiet.

Also because they asked.

And sometimes being asked to help someone is the only thing that keeps a person moving.

Sasha and I cross the yard just as the garage door opens.

Jessica comes down first, backpack slung over one shoulder, hair still damp from a rushed shower. She moves through the world like someone who expects it to notice her.

“Morning, landlord,” she says.

“Morning, tenant.”

She eyes the coffee mug in my hand.

“Is that your third cup already?”

“It’s research.”

“For a children’s book?”

“You’d be surprised how many creative breakthroughs happen after caffeine.”

Jessica laughs and hops the last step.

Samantha appears a moment later behind her.

Sam moves differently—quieter, like she’s always aware of the space around her. Where Jessica fills a room, Sam studies it first.

“Morning, Bodhi,” she says.

“Morning.”

Sasha trots forward, tail wagging now. Samantha crouches immediately to scratch behind her ears.

“You’re spoiling her,” I say.

“Impossible,” Sam says. “She deserves it.”

Sasha leans into the attention like she agrees.

Jessica watches the exchange.

“She likes you better.”

“Dogs know things,” Sam replies.

“Great,” Jessica mutters. “Now the dog is judging me.”

Most people know me because of my books.

If you’ve been in a bookstore in the last five years you’ve probably seen Princess and Mr. Sullivan somewhere. A little girl with wild hair and a very serious black lab solving problems adults somehow manage to create.

The princess has Rachel’s stubbornness and most of her better ideas.

Mr. Sullivan is a black lab who solves problems by knocking things over and occasionally eating evidence.

Sasha hates that she’s a boy in the books.

Kids love them.

Teachers like them.

Parents tolerate them.

The books pay for the house, the garage apartment, and the endless supply of tennis balls Sasha insists on destroying.

People assume writing children’s books means I’m good with kids.

I’m not sure that’s true.

I’m just good at remembering what it felt like to believe the world still had answers.

Jessica checks her phone.

“We’re going to be late.”

“You say that every morning,” Sam says.

“And every morning we are late.”

Jessica turns back to me.

“You writing today?”

“That’s the plan.”

“What’s Princess doing this time?”

“She’s trying to stop Mr. Sullivan from eating a birthday cake meant for twelve six-year-olds.”

Jessica nods thoughtfully.

“High stakes.”

“Extremely.”

Sam smiles slightly.

“Let me guess,” she says. “Mr. Sullivan wins.”

“Mr. Sullivan always wins.”

They head toward Jessica’s car parked along the curb.

Before getting in, Sam pauses.

“You doing okay today?” she asks.

It’s a simple question, but it hangs in the air a moment longer than it should.

People stopped asking that about two years ago.

“I’m fine,” I say.

She studies me for half a second, like she’s deciding whether she believes that.

Then she nods.

“See you tonight.”

Jessica starts the car and the two of them pull away down the street.

The yard goes quiet again.

Sasha sits beside me, watching the empty road long after the car disappears.

Then she does something strange.

She turns toward the house.

Her ears lift.

A low growl rumbles in her throat.

I follow her gaze.

Nothing is there.

After a moment she relaxes and presses her head against my leg.

I look back at the house.

Sometimes I picture Rachel opening the front door the way she always did—keys in one hand, apologizing for being late about something small.

Other times I wonder if she’s somewhere else entirely, living a life that no longer has room for me.

Sasha nudges my hand.

“Yeah,” I tell her.

“I don’t know either.”