I smiled at first. I actually smiled.
I imagined her downstairs, ordering coffee and pancakes, maybe trying to surprise me. Nina loved small surprises. Once, when we were dating, she drove 40 minutes just to leave a paper bag of warm muffins on my porch before work.
I checked my phone.
No message.
I called her.
It rang from somewhere inside the room.
Her phone was in her purse.
That was when the smile left my face.
"Nina?" I called, though I knew she was not there.
I checked the bathroom. The hallway. The vending area near the elevator. Then the lobby.
The woman at the front desk looked up from her computer. "Can I help you?"
"My wife," I said, still not understanding how strange those words were about to become. "Did you see my wife come through here? Dark hair, white cardigan, maybe still in a dress?"
The woman frowned. "I came on shift at 6 a.m. I don't remember anyone like that."
"She must have come down for breakfast."
"We don't serve breakfast, sir."
I stood there barefoot in yesterday's dress pants, my shirt wrinkled, my heart starting to pound.
By noon, her parents were calling hospitals. By evening, police officers were standing in our honeymoon suite, asking me questions that felt insulting only because I was terrified.
"Did you two argue last night?"
"No."
"Any history of depression?"
"No."
"Could she have wanted to leave?"
"No," I snapped. "She married me yesterday."
Nina's mother, Aileen, sobbed into a tissue until her husband, Frank, had to guide her into a chair. Her friends had not heard from her. Her parents had no idea where she was. Her purse was still in the room. Her phone was still there. Her wedding ring was not.
The police searched for months.
They checked traffic cameras, hospitals, bus stations, airports, and empty roads. Volunteers walked fields with flashlights. Flyers with Nina's smiling face appeared in grocery stores, laundromats, churches, and gas stations.
I gave interviews I barely remembered afterward. I stood beside Aileen and Frank while reporters asked if Nina had enemies, secrets, or reasons to run.
I always answered the same way.
"No. She was happy."
Eventually, everyone told me to move on, but I never truly could.
How do you bury someone when there is no body? How do you grieve a woman who might still be somewhere under the same sky?
