Not Perfect(57)

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and suddenly he didn’t sound so gruff at all.

She didn’t say anything.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for a patient,” she said. She didn’t want to blow this chance, now that she had finally reached someone. On the spot like that, she could think of only one person to ask for. “His name is Stuart Brewer. I’m not sure where he is. Has he been brought to your hospital?”

“One minute, ma’am,” he said. “Let me just check the computer. Did you say ‘Brewer,’ as in B-r-e-w-e-r?”

“Yes,” she said, breathless again. Was he finding something?

“Sorry, ma’am,” he said. “There is no patient by the name of Brewer here.”

“Oh, okay, thank you,” Tabitha said slowly. She didn’t want to let him go.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Can you, um, can you see if he was a patient there at one time?”

The man hesitated. “I can see, yes,” he said slowly. “But I’m really only supposed to give out information about current patients.”

“My husband has been missing for over two months,” she blurted out. She couldn’t believe she was saying this. “He left, and he hasn’t come home or called. I am at my wit’s end. My daughter is sick. My son wants to cancel his bar mitzvah. Please, can you just look?”

She wasn’t even sure what she would do with the information. It would be one thing if he were in the hospital now, if he had fallen over a cliff and hit his head while he was looking at the Pictured Rocks, maybe during a romantic hike with Abigail, and been in a coma all this time. But if he had been there and was now gone, that wouldn’t really help her much.

“I looked quickly, ma’am,” the man said, bringing her back to the phone call. She sensed a slight hesitation in his voice. “And there is no record that a Mr. Stuart Brewer was a patient here at any time in the last two years. That’s as far as these records go back—after that we have to check a whole other database.”

“Thank you,” Tabitha said. “Thank you so much.”

“I’m sorry your husband is missing, ma’am,” he said, and the words felt so strange to her ears, since she had tried so hard to not let a single other human being know what was going on, except, of course, for Marlon at the grocery store. “Have you tried calling the police?”

“That’s my next call,” she lied. “Thank you again. Um, can I ask you about another possible patient?”

There was no response, and she worried she had lost him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said after a long pause.

“Is there a patient there named Abigail Golding?”

She heard a click-click-click of computer keys.

“Not at the moment, ma’am,” he said in such a way that she knew.

“Was she a patient there? At one time?”

“Again, ma’am, I’m not supposed to disclose anything but the current patient list,” he said.

“Please?” she said.

“There was a Miss Abigail Golding here. I can see she had numerous hospital stays over the last two years. I count seven. The last one was the third week in September.”

“And?” Tabitha prompted. Her heart was beating so fast that it was uncomfortable.

“That is the last stay I have on record.”

“And she was discharged?” Tabitha asked. She was finally getting her answer. Stuart was with Abigail, which was really not a surprise, not after everything, not after their fight the night before he left. Hadn’t she known it all along?

“No, ma’am,” the man said. “She died.”

Tabitha had been sitting up straight on the edge of the bed, but now she stood.

“Died?’ she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “And since I could lose my job for this, I might as well tell you everything I know. The other name you gave me—your husband’s name, I assume—it came up on her visitor list.”

“For September?” Tabitha asked, but her voice sounded strangled. “Was he on the list in late August and September?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the man said. “And before that. As far as I can tell, he was always on it.”

“Always?” Tabitha asked. She could hear another phone ringing.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Well, for as long as this record goes back. I’m so sorry, but I have to take this.”

“Thank you,” Tabitha said, so quietly it was possible he didn’t hear her. She thought about calling back to say good-bye again, and to say she hoped he wouldn’t lose his job, and to ask if she had heard that right, but she couldn’t move.



After they had eaten the cherry chicken that August night, Stuart offered to help clean up, something that was so out of their normal way of doing things that Tabitha started to wonder if he was sick. Was he trying to do things for her while he still could? She had said, “No, thank you,” and he had gone into his study.

She cleaned up, got the kids to sleep, and went to bed. She was reading a Liane Moriarty book about a woman who had lost her memory and didn’t know herself in the present—she thought it was ten years before and that she was newly married and pregnant with her first child, when in fact, she had three children and her marriage was unraveling. Tabitha was thinking about that—what it would be like to go back ten years—who was she then? Who were they as a couple? Levi would have been two, and Fern was just on the way. It was a time when happiness still seemed possible, when she still hoped she would settle in and stop feeling like she was getting into bed with a near stranger each night.