the long story

Journal Entry 3 min read

March 31, 2023 (long personal one)

TW suicide, abuse, growth

This is the story about my husband going missing. You don't have to read it

Today’s the day.

Today’s the day he walked out the door and never came back.

Two years ago, Erica had a very interesting day. So what happened?

Well, I asked him for a divorce.

He said no.

I told him I wanted to see other people, explore polyamory, learn more about myself and what I really needed.

He asked me to give him time and to not date yet.

I said okay—because I was a coward. That part's a longer story.

For 12 weeks, we lived in a strange, stressful limbo. That could be its own story. He was at his best during those weeks. The kindest, calmest version of himself I’d ever seen. Maybe he sensed the end. We talked a lot. I told him about the ways he had hurt me, how scared I was of him sometimes, and how scared his kids were too.

Then spring break came. We had a decent week. We even went and got a puppy—almost like we were celebrating that he was trying to be good to another living thing.

But after the break, we argued.

We argued because I told him I was never going to be monogamous again.

We argued because I said I wanted to start doing overnights—I was falling in love with someone else.

Then he walked out the door—the one I can see from where I’m sitting right now—through the garage, with his insulin.

He walked into the woods.

(Actually not in the direction I thought he would, but anyway.)

And then, like it was part of some horrible script, the new puppy we had gotten three days earlier started violently throwing up and convulsing.

Part of me wondered if he had done something to the dog. Or if he had spilled my pills, the ones he dumped in the trash so I wouldn't take them. (I wasn’t going to.)

I didn’t follow him. He had walked out before and always came back.

Honestly—and this is a terrible thing to say—I had never been lucky all those other times he came back.

So I left. I took the puppy to an emergency vet, then went to my partner’s house to hide. I didn’t come home until 3:00 AM. When I opened the door and he wasn’t back, I knew.

He was gone for good.

The next morning, I called the police.

Of course they were suspicious—because I’m the wife.

“Could he be at a friend’s?”

“He has no friends.”

“Could he be at a hotel?”

“He can’t really see well, but maybe. He has been walking to my work a lot lately.”

But I knew. I told them he was dead.

Eventually, the police understood what I meant. He was kind of a hermit. They started searching. There was a helicopter circling overhead for hours. That sound still haunts me.

The Facebook missing person post went up.

People started asking about the helicopter.

I messaged my family: “He’s missing. I don’t expect him back.”

It rained and rained.

They called off the search at dark.

They said they’d bring a bloodhound in the morning.

That night, I went back to my partner’s. I couldn’t be alone in our room.

The vet told me the puppy needed $1,500 surgery. I didn’t have that kind of money. And I’d only known the dog for three days. I signed him over to someone else who could care for him. Someone would love him.

The next morning, the bloodhound came. It was strangely fascinating.

Then the police came again. A female officer was with me, piecing things together. She stepped out to take a call. I could hear it:

“Did you find him?”

“DOA?”

Yes.

She came back inside like I hadn’t just heard all of that.

She gently told me he was gone. I cried, but I wasn’t surprised.

After that, everything’s a blur. Funeral homes. Decisions. Papers.

They gave me his ring, I think?

I never saw his body. He was cremated.

A small part of me regrets that—I wonder if maybe I’d dream of him less if I had.

They told me he likely walked a while after taking his insulin, and eventually just collapsed in the woods.

He was found on someone’s property. I’m grateful the police found him—not a stranger.

Then, in some bizarre twist of fate, the vet called.

“He passed whatever it was he swallowed. Would you like to come get him?”

No. That was the last thing Mark and I did together—get that dog. I didn’t want something that would remind me of him every day. I couldn’t take care of a puppy alone. I didn’t want to be home.

I asked my mom what to do. She offered to help care for the puppy.

We renamed him.

Over the next weeks, my kids spent a lot of time with that dog.

Their feelings—about their dad, about all of this—that’s their story to tell. But I think they’re freer now too.

Their relationships with him were complicated. Unique.

As for me—I’m happier.

I’ve worked through the guilt.

I’m still working through the trauma.

So if I seem a little off these next few days—if I’m a bit more emotional than usual—it’s because I’m replaying those three days in my head.

The three days that changed everything.