I Thought You Left the Dance Floor

I Thought You Left the Dance Floor

By Heather Ann Martinez

Lilly had not been in good health since her mid-thirties. She hid the pain as best she could while raising Matt. The pain never left her. It had been the uninvited guest that became a constant companion. Lilly spent much of her time dreaming of a day when she didn’t have to think about it. She never thought it would be around her seventieth birthday. Where others might curse at the thought of reaching seventy, Lilly embraced it. She did not feel pain or stiffness as others her age did. She kept up exercise and stayed on the diet her doctor gave her twenty years earlier. She never cheated and eventually lost all taste for sugar. She would tell you that she had all the sweetness she could ever need or want in her husband Wyatt. He brought her flowers almost every other day. He wrote her silly romantic poems and pinned them to her pillow. He sang to her while dancing whenever they cared to cut the rug.

Wyatt was happy being at Lilly’s side. He spent as much time as possible getting to know their son Matt and sharing advice his father had given to him as a young man. He felt that Lilly betrayed him by not telling him he had a son for so many years. He was quick to forgive her knowing that he did not stay in Lilly’s arms after prom night. He continued to pursue Jane and he married her. He moved on with his life and did not think about Lilly very much until they danced in their doctor’s office in their fifties. He knew she had every right to be a somewhat distant friend throughout college. Wyatt was always concerned about the next story. He didn’t care if the story was in a war zone, a burning power plant or at the epicenter of a natural disaster. It was Jane that understood his passion better than anyone. She was always eager to hear Wyatt tell her all the details of what being in the middle of it was like. Lilly did not share the same enthusiasm. She brought Wyatt back to the simple things in life.

There was always something special about being on Lilly’s family estate. Wyatt and Lilly intended to spend the rest of their years in Lilly’s family home. They had additions built on for a photography studio and pottery that they both tried to do. They also had a room put in for dancing with a few potted plants and long hanging drapes. It was peaceful and quiet until it was too quiet one morning. Lilly woke up startled to hear birds chirping on a branch outside the window. It was nine o’clock in the morning. She had not opened her eyes and was touching the bed under the covers looking for Wyatt’s arm. She opened her eyes and realized his side of the bed was cold. He had not been there for hours, she thought. She called his name and remembered that that would not do much good. Wyatt did not hear very well. She got out of bed and started looking for him. She was only wearing her night dress and ignored the fact that it was not warm in the house.

Every room had not been disturbed. Every book, every dish, every coat and shoe was where they had been left the night before. Lilly tried calling Wyatt’s cell phone. It went to voicemail. She looked out the back window and thought maybe he was out walking by their garden. She grabbed a coat and slippers and walked all over the property. His car was still in the driveway. Lilly touched the hood of the car. It was still warm. She went back in the house and got dressed. She then walked down the street. She flagged down the postman and asked if he had seen Wyatt that morning. He told her he had not. He said it was unusual too. He said he always saw Wyatt around seven. The postman told Lilly Wyatt had started writing again. He was researching something and carried a little notebook around with him when he was on his morning walk. This was the first time Lilly heard of this. She didn’t know Wyatt was writing again. The postman told her it had something to do with bucket lists and what you want to do before you leave this dance floor meaning this life. Wyatt had been interviewing lots of friends and neighbors about what they wanted to do before they died and what was stopping them from doing just that.

Heart sinking, Lilly thanked the postman. She continued walking. She called friends and neighbors. She called their son Matt. No one had seen or talked to Wyatt that day. Lilly called the police the next morning and reported Wyatt missing. His cell phone continued to go to voicemail. She called Matt and asked him to help her search for Wyatt. She did not always have the best sense of direction driving and Wyatt could be anywhere. She didn’t know when he had left going on two days. Matt agreed to help her search. He said it would be a couple more days before he could leave though. Matt didn’t feel right leaving his wife to tend to their business by herself. Lilly kept looking into the room that she and Wyatt often danced in. One of the potted plants looked like it had been disturbed and she walked over to look at it more closely. It looked as if something had been taken out of the pot. She knew Wyatt buried extra keys in the potted plants to their cars, the house and his storage rental. Lilly didn’t know where the storage rental was. It was where Wyatt kept everything from his life with Jane including some of her clothing, jewelry, and hard copies of stories they had written together. Could he have gone there? She thought a lot about what the postman had said. She grew more concerned that Wyatt was blindly following a story he may never finish. She grew more discouraged that he may not return at all. Matt arrived three days later. The police reported in and said there was no trace of Wyatt.

Of course, Matt was also worried. He thought for certain he would be wasting his time going to their house in Georgia from Colorado. Matt drove Lilly around town. They put up flyers and continually asked the police for updates. A week passed. Then a month passed. Lilly continued looking. Matt tried to convince her there was a possibility that he got hurt or even died. If he had gone into the woods or wandered by the creek, he might not return. Matt knew Wyatt could be careless at times especially if he was passionate about a story. Wyatt told Matt about a time he was covering a natural disaster in Nepal and he neglected to eat for two days. He didn’t even notice he was hungry until the helicopter came to take him to his next assignment. Lilly did no know about his visit to Nepal. Matt mailed Lilly the article Wyatt wrote several years earlier when Matt got home. Lilly read the article. She felt as if she did not know the man who wrote it. The words he used in the article were not familiar to her. Wyatt wrote the piece when he was in his thirties. It was part of the twenty years she did not speak to Wyatt. She read the article over and over again. She remembered there was a book about Nepal in the bookshop in town. She wanted to put up more flyers and talk to more people about Wyatt’s activities before he disappeared.

The phone rang. It was Matt. He suggested to Lilly that Wyatt was dead and she should accept it and move on. It had been more than a month. There had not been a peep from Wyatt. There wasn’t any activity on his credit cards. Lilly saw all the same evidence Matt did. Wyatt also had not been in the greatest health over the past twenty years. Anything could have happened to him. Lilly hung up the phone and drove into the downtown area. She parked her car and decided to take down the flyers she and Matt put up weeks earlier. In her heart, she did not want it to be true. She wanted to believe Wyatt was alive and would be coming home to her any second, but he had not called. He could have easily gone somewhere, gotten hurt and not been given medical attention in time.

As Lilly took down a flyer from a telephone pole, she looked in front of her. She thought to herself, I thought you were dead, but here you are standing on the street in front of me, smiling at me.