To say that we were happy in those first years would be an understatement. We were young and so in love with one another that each day held colors for us that I’m sure others couldn’t see. We were broke but content with where and who we were, and that was more than many of our friends could say for themselves.
In the second year of our marriage Del took a job at the college we’d both graduated from. She started out as an assistant in the admissions department stuffing orientation packets and guiding tours of potential students and their parents who would be paying the tuition. Less than six months later she was promoted to a managerial position after the man who had held it for fourteen years went home one Friday afternoon, loaded the shotgun his wife had given him for their tenth anniversary, and took it into the shower with him before turning the hot water on and ending his life. Del hadn’t wanted to celebrate her promotion and I didn’t push the issue. She spent several of the following nights looking out our kitchen windows and watching the undulations of the sea. I can still see her there now, her slim outline before the sink, so motionless it seemed that she’d become part of the house.
Meanwhile I still hadn’t found work. The days in the boat were long and tiresome but became a routine that I’d forgotten from my youth. One morning, as I splashed hot water on my face in the dim dawn light, I looked into the mirror and saw my father staring back at me. I had his same chin and hadn’t shaved in several days so the stubble bore a resemblance to the short beard he’d worn. I left the bathroom that morning on legs that were partially unstable. Looking back I wonder if somewhere in the sleeping place that resides within everyone’s mind I knew something was coming. It is beyond instinct, that area within our psyche that has never truly awakened after being lulled into a slumber through the centuries since we stepped out of the jungle and began to fashion tools to protect ourselves. I believe at times it opens its eyes as a warning and that’s all we get from it before it submerges again into the depths of the unconscious.
When I came home that night from fishing, Del wasn’t in the house. I called for her after dropping my gear in the entryway, and when she didn’t answer I made my way through the dining room and into the kitchen. At first her absence didn’t alarm me since she sometimes came in late, her new responsibilities keeping her past quitting time. I walked to the fridge and drew out a cold beer from the top shelf where we always kept a six-pack of our favorite brand. I was in the middle of the first lovely swallow when I saw her car keys and cell on the table. Taking the beer with me, I went to the single-stall garage off the right side of the house and popped the door open.