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G is for – Going Home

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“You look like a man who has just seen a ghost.”

Jake had made his usual stop on the way from his office to the front door, on his way home for the day.

It was ritual if he and I were in the office and depending on who was leaving first.

I looked up.  Jack was a man without a care in the world, happily married for twenty-two years to the most adorable and kind woman.

He was lucky, in love, in a career, in everything.  The rest of us had to battle over what was left.

I, on the other hand, thought I had been happily married for twenty years to an equally adorable and kind woman, was reasonably lucky in my career, and worked hard to get where I was.

Except…

Everything I thought I knew about marriage, career, life, was about to be completely undone by a single video clip sent anonymously to me, five minutes before Jack put his head in the door.

“It’s nothing.  I’m just looking at new headlines again, and I shouldn’t.  The world is going to hell in a handbasket, and I think I’d rather not know.”

I switched the phone off and put it face down on the desk.  Even when not looking at it, the scene still played in my head.

“Ellie’s got her track meet this weekend, and I’m counting on you and Jacquie to be in the cheer squad.”

“Of course.  If I remember, if she wins this, it’s the state titles, right?”

“And then nationals, and then…  well, I’ll try not to get too wrapped up in the possibilities.”

“She’ll win, don’t worry.”

His eldest daughter was a sprinter at school, the same school both our children attended. She had shown an early aptitude for running and won everything the school had to throw at her.  Now, she was about to conquer Regionals, then state.

Neither of my two had any aptitude for sports of any sort.  Neither had I, so I guess they got that from me, much to Jaquie’s dismay as she had been a champion swimmer, just shy of competing at the Olympics.

That four one-hundredths of a second would always be, for her, the difference between success and failure.  From her point of view, not mine.

I could see he was going to ask another question, perhaps about Jacquie, but he thought better of it.  He knew something was amiss, but it had happened before and sorted itself out.

“Just make sure you’re there.”

“Promise.”

Another concerned glance, and then he left.

I looked at the phone and went to pick it up, but I could not unsee what I’d just seen.  Jacquie, looking ten years younger, dressed in clothes that, while barely there, would cost more than our house, in a passionate embrace with a devastatingly handsome man who was instantly recognisable as a very well known, very visible, billionaire.

But…

It couldn’t be, because she was at a sales conference in Seattle, verifiable by the location of the calls I received over the last five days, ending with one from her an hour before telling she was on her way home from the airport.

The only explanation was that she had a doppelganger, and someone I knew, or didn’t know, had sent it thinking it was her.

Except…

Jacquie had a small scar in a place that would not normally be seen, and in that clip, in that scanty outfit, it was the first thing I noticed.  Anyone else would miss it because you had to know about it and know where it was.

Which made it all the more confusing because that clip was of the couple in Monaco, Monte Carlo,  two days ago, a long, long way from the rural parts of Kansas where we lived, and Seattle where she was supposed to be.

I sat back in my chair and looked at the ceiling.  I don’t know what I was expecting to see, perhaps a sign that this was all a case of mistaken identity.  I stayed there in the silence after everyone had gone home and the cleaners had moved in.

Enough.

She would be home by now, though I had not received the usual message. Perhaps she had forgotten and was overtired from the flight and drive and had fallen asleep in her favourite chair.

It would not be the first time.

But, for just a moment…

There had always been this thing between us, a moment in the relationship before it became a relationship.  Our eyes had met across a crowded room, and suddenly, there was no one else in it.

I blinked, and she had disappeared.

For the next hour I looked for her, trying to look like I was not looking for her, and just as I was about to give up, thinking my imagination had simply conjured up an apparition, she was standing behind me.

A tap on the shoulder sent a shock wave through me, right after scaring me half to death.

I turned, and she was standing there, head slightly tilted, a smile that could and did light up the room.  It certainly made me feel in a way I had not for a long time.

“Who are you?” I asked.  Not the question, not the blunt manner, not the girl to be trifling with.

“Mimi.”

“I’m…”

“William, yes, I know.  You fascinate me.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Not as well as I’d like.  What are you doing tomorrow morning?”

It was a trick question.  I was working.  I debated whether to tell her I had a job to go to, and then didn’t.  “Where and when?”

She smiled.  “Do you like playing games?”

I did not.  Normally, this sort of behaviour would have ended this conversation, but I was intrigued.  Someone was playing with me, and I wanted to know who.

“Yes.”

“Good.  I’ll send you a text message.”

There was a commotion behind me, and I turned.  When I turned back, she was gone.

Fun over.  I believed then I would not see her again.  There were only two people who could pull this off.  I’d wait, and when she didn’t call, I would give them a piece of my mind.

I was wrong.

It was the beginning of an odyssey, one that was going to take an emotional and physical toll, one that took me on what she eventually called a journey of discovery.

It did not require me to get her approval. It would tell me if I considered myself worthy.

Worthy of what?

I danced to her tune for three months.  There were highs, there were disappointments, and in the end, I got on a plane and went home.

That last meeting was meant to be in the foyer of a plush hotel in Hong Kong, a place I’d always wanted to visit, but with someone special, she had not turned up.

Three months after that, after no contact, no explanation, nothing, she arrived on my doorstep.

I had spent those three months honing the speech I would give her, a speech that had been through many drafts, a speech that was fed by an ever-increasing anger.

And then, there she was.

Her appearance was that of someone who looked as though they had been held captive in a dusty, odorous basement, tied to a chair, and beaten.

She collapsed in my arms, the faintest of a smile, or was it simply utter relief, and the two words that I didn’t quite hear, but what I thought was, “I’m safe.”

She never told me what had happened, other than she had been on her way to the hotel to meet me, and the next thing she knew, she was in a prison cell.  From there, it was as if she had stepped through a portal into hell.

She could not remember how she got to my doorstep, just that it was the only place she could remember when asked by a rather alarmed cabbie.

I had a thousand questions, and in the end, I didn’t ask.  She said she had no memory of where she came from or who she was, other than a name on a passport in her pocket, Jacquie Wilson.

I put her name and address into Google, and it came back with a house belonging to James and Anna Wilson on the other side of town.

Beyond that, there was very little.

Three months after that, we were married, I got the job I spent the next seventeen years in, and we had our ups and downs.

She became a writer, produced several novels of moderate success, went off to writing conferences every year, some I went with her, more recently not, and before her latest conference, in Seattle, we had an argument which I still didn’t understand what precipitated it, and now had the added bonus of a receiving a certain video.

And wondering why, in the car, that whole encapsulated life decided to pop back into my mind after I’d so determinedly tried to forget it.

I was approaching the last intersection before turning into my street, and in the semi-darkness of late evening, it was ablaze with flashing lights when my phone buzzed.

Police, ambulance, fire trucks.  A major incident.  Then I could see a car, or what was left of it after being hit very hard by a truck, which a heavy tow truck was in the process of dragging away.

There was something familiar about the car, but there wasn’t time to keep looking.  An incoming message flashed up on my phone screen.

“Don’t go home.  Mimi!”

I hit the brake, and the car skewed towards the side of the road in a half slide.

Mimi.

OMG.

Ordinarily, it would mean nothing.  I’d only heard that name used once.

A name belonging to the mysterious girl who had turned up on my doorstep.

Another message appeared.  “Appearances are deceptive.  Girls are safe.  See you in heaven!”

Then, a few more seconds, while the confusion danced in my head before another message, clearly being sent in real time by someone nearby.

“Now!!!”

I could see ahead a man in a suit peering in my direction, then talking into his phone as he started walking towards my car.

Damn.

No time or way to leave quietly.  Screaming tyres, fish tailing turn, but I was out of there, leaving a running man fast outpaced by the car.

I had just enough time before turning a corner to see a car pull up beside the running man.

It was not the Friday evening I was looking for.

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©  Charles Heath  2025