1 Addison

The last time Addison McKellar's husband disappeared, it had been the night of the private Hootie and the Blowfish concert at the Overton Park Shell. That was two years ago, back in 2008.

Thinking back on it, Addison knew it wasn't technically Hootie and the Blowfish, just Darius Rucker and his new band doing some alt-country thing in sparkly blue jeans and snakeskin boots, making all the middle-aged couples awkwardly dance and clap off-rhythm, pretending they still had it. A sea of swaying sweaty arms, seersucker, khaki, and sundresses. Darius sang "Only Wanna Be with You" and his new single "Come Back Song" as the closer.

If you didn't notice the hair loss and weight gain, it could've been Ole Miss back in 1992.

Dean had held her tight, chin resting on her shoulder (they were nearly the same height even when he wore his custom-made cowboy boots) as she closed her eyes and moved with the music. Sure, he was a little on the short side, but obsessively fit, with a full head of sandy blond hair and purposeful scruff. Dean had finally relaxed when that third bourbon hit him. Not just any bourbon, but a twenty-three-year-old Pappy Van Winkle poured into red Solo cups that someone brought to celebrate Addison's brother Branch's fortieth birthday.

The idea for the Big 4-0 blowout had been hatched with her sister-in-law Libby over a three-gimlet lunch at the Brooks, not even bothering to catch a glimpse of The Baroque World of Fernando Botero exhibition before ordering their first of many cocktails. When Addison drank, a favorite quote of her father's always came to mind, "Suddenly, the trees had many leaves." Poor Daddy. He hadn't been able to stand up and make the big Hootie show for his son. When she'd asked if he'd like a wheelchair to make things easier, he'd said, "What the fuck is a Hootie?"

Dean had been back in Memphis for an extended period this past year, flying home from London via New York during some big new deal for McKellar Construction. Addison never paid attention to the details. Her husband seemed as happy as she'd ever seen him, although Dean wasn't the kind of man to show much emotion. He was constantly trying to install that stone-faced grit into their son, Preston, big on those father/son hunting trips down at their camp in the Delta. Just last fall, Preston had shot his first deer and she'd framed the photo with the poor deer's blood smeared across her son's nine-year-old face. "Get a grip, Addy," Branch had said, pontificating with one of Dean's fat Cuban cigars by their pool. "Your boy is going to be a man whether you like it or not."

She didn't like it. Addison would've liked to have kept Preston a child forever. She had treasured their trips to the Memphis Zoo and his help taste-testing at Sugar Babies, her now defunct ice cream and candy shop. Now he was ten. Soon, he'd be the same as his older sister, Sara Caroline, who was fourteen going on forty-four, sweet and vindictive, kind and manipulative, and mostly a disapproving presence in their house. Addison knew it was a phase and had bought dozens of books to inoculate her: Decoding Your 21st Century Daughter: An Anxious Parents Guide to Raising a Teenage Girl; Just Us Girls: A Shared Journal for Moms and Daughters; and Why Some Animals Eat Their Young: A Survivor's Guide to Motherhood. But despite collecting a neat half-read library on her bedside table, there had been a lot of slammed doors and enough eye-rolling to generate power for half the Mid-South.

The night of the birthday bash two years ago, before Dean had disappeared without a word for a whole five days, might've been the best her marriage had ever been. She'd been seeing Dr. Larry for at least a year and had started to make peace with her dead mother, her father's terminal illness, and her husband's withholding affection. Short of the obligatory and mechanical sex they'd been having for years (Wow, that was amazing. What's on HBO?), it was all going wonderfully. She realized Dean was an important man. A busy man. By the time he got home from those extended business trips, he was absolutely wiped out. He needed her patience and love. Not dinner conversation. Not sex. Some downtime with the boys at the Club. He seemed to be one of the few developers in the Mid-South not bankrupted by the damn 2008 recession. That took some work.

Dr. Larry had thought Dean might be suffering from PTSD after his time during the first Gulf War, his military service the bedrock of the legend of Dean McKellar.

What was it Dean had said to her, right before he walked off into the parking lot in Overton Park that night? Oh, yeah.Keep those home fires burning.

He'd said pretty much the same thing a week ago today, leather carryall over his shoulder, offering a thumbs-up like a World War II flyer, and she hadn't heard a word since.

It was past midnight now in their continually renovated old English Tudor in Central Gardens. Addison sat in Dean's office in Dean's big red padded chair, swiveling back and forth and watching brown liquor swish around in a crystal glass. The same chair where he held court with their friends, the men in the Memphi Krewe and on the Ducks Unlimited board who worshipped Dean with such sad devotion. The walls were filled with leatherbound books he pretended he'd read—War and Peace, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Crime and Punishment (Dean didn't read much beyond books on leadership and the occasional thumbed-through war history)—and a gross collection of animal heads from African safaris and hunting trips in Montana.

Addison helped herself to more of Dean's private whiskey stash, the white wine and Xanax not working anymore. She made a face while taking another hard swallow, catching an image of herself in the window's reflection. Late thirties—okay, almost forty—her naturally dark hair carefully bleached, warmly highlighted, and up in a messy bun. She wore an old pair of sweatpants with a tank top she bought in Rosemary Beach. The logo read 30a (the beach highway)with a sparkling sun replacing the 0.

On top of the big desk, the antique one with eagle claws for feet, Addison played with a letter opener shaped like a bayonet, engraved with Operation Desert Storm, wondering just how long she was expected to wait. Son of a bitch. She and Dean had been together for fifteen years, but she'd been told time and again not to ask too many questions. His business was bland and boring, but if she ran the house, paid the bills from the household account Dean filled up monthly, and made sure the kids didn't drown or electrocute themselves, all would be right in the world. Still, Addison couldn't recall her own daddy ever disappearing for days on end. Not to mention, the monthly deposit hadn't been made into her account, and yesterday two of her credit cards had been declined.

She stared at her phone. No missed calls. No messages. Fifty-eight unanswered calls to Dean's cell. Fifty-eight!

Amanda, his secretary, hadn't helped at all, and Addison had been calling her every day since Thursday wanting to know what the hell was going on and when her goddamn husband, not Mr. McKellar, was due back in Memphis. Just tell me where I can find him. What's the name of his hotel? What's his flight number? It was a private flight and she didn't have the details, Amanda said, not knowing jack shit about when he'd return. Yes, she promised, she'd relay the message. No, she promised, everything was absolutely fine. Mr. McKellar had just been busy with attorneys on the Manchester project and the cell phone service in the UK was an absolute mess right now. He promised he'd return her call just as soon as possible. Well, fuck you, Amanda, Addison wanted to say. But she kept that bit to herself. She was, after all, a very polite Southern woman.

Addison heard the big lie in the secretary's voice. And something else, something that sounded a hell of a lot like worry and fear. Amanda had no fucking idea where Dean was, either.

Addison would call again in the morning. And again and again and again.

She could keep calling until she got answers.

Addison looked down at the empty whiskey glass and up at the antique clock ticking away on the mantel. Shit. In four short hours, she'd have to be up and pretending again that everything in the world was A-okay. Little Miss Suzy Sunshine. Life Is Good, right? Just like those T-shirts in Dean's closet promised.

Josefina slid their breakfast plates in front of the children, blueberry pancakes for Preston and dry plain bagel for Sara Caroline, and glanced over at Addison leaning against the counter. She shook her head again. Josefina, a serious and sturdy woman who rarely spoke, knew. She'd let herself in and cleared Dean's study of the Macallan bottle and the Baccarat glass before Addison had even woken up.

The early fall light shone hard and unrelenting through the bank of kitchen windows overlooking the pool littered with dead leaves. Addison stood there, coolly sipping black coffee in her bathrobe, wearing a huge pair of black Fendi sunglasses. When she'd bought them, she'd felt like Holly Golightly, but now she felt more like Evita Perón. Don't cry for me, Central Gardens!

Preston, mouth full of pancakes, studied her face and said, "Do you know you're wearing sunglasses inside?"

"I have a migraine."

Sara Caroline snorted and crunched hard on her bagel, rolling her eyes. Addison recalled Dr. Larry saying that mothers were always the safest rage outlet for adolescent girls. Addison, you might as well have a target painted on your forehead. Don't take it personally.

Addison needed to change into her workout clothes to give a more respectable appearance during drop-off at Hutch and Presbyterian Day. That way, the teachers and worse, other parents, would think she was headed to the gym or Pilates, not planning to go back to bed with the blinds drawn to try to sleep off this terrible week.

"Where's Dad?" Preston asked, as if just noticing.

"I'd love to know," Addison said. "Maybe he'll think enough of us to actually call today." She shouldn't have said it. It was bitchy and rude and the one thing that she had promised herself that she would never do, run down Dean in front of the kids. But by god, right now, she wanted to run him down more than anything. A week. A whole fucking week with not so much as an email or a text. What kind of father doesn't call and ask about Preston's soccer game or how Sara Caroline was doing with math or lacrosse? Or making sure the damn dog—their adorable labradoodle, ChaCha—was okay, as only three weeks before she'd had to rush him to the vet with spastic diarrhea.

Those were the days when you thank god for Josefina.

Addison marched upstairs and changed into her black lululemon leggings and oversize Ole Miss hoodie. "Five minutes," she said. "Five minutes or you miserable kids can walk to school."

It was an old lie. But a good one. The kids never called her on her bluff.

She wandered outside to warm up the big-ass white Escalade, then leaned against it and pulled a pack of Marlboro Lights from the pocket of her hoodie.

She checked her watch, furtively smoking a cigarette, as the exhaust chugged into the air and scattered into the wind.

After the Hootie incident, Dean had sworn to never disappear without warning again. Never, ever, sweetheart. You're my one and only. Together forever. Dean and Addison.

Addison dropped Sara Caroline first and was in line to drop Preston at Presbyterian Day—PDS to parents—when the CD player shuffled to an old Hootie and the Blowfish album, blaring "Let Her Cry" directly into her hangover. Jesus Fucking Christ. She turned off the song and switched it to 91.1 for the morning news, hoping maybe it would let her know where her husband had gone. Dean McKellar, wealthy Memphis businessman, perished on a flight over the Atlantic this morning, leaving behind an indifferent wife and two bratty children. Or maybe, Semiknown socialiteAddison McKellar, twice vice president of the annual PDS Book Fest, has been caught with her head up her ass for nearly fifteen years, accepting hundreds of excuses and seldom asking questions.

"Mom?" She peered into her rearview mirror.

"Yeah, Pres."

"Is Granddad going to die?"

"No," she said, lying through her goddamn teeth. "Not now. Well, not today anyway."

One problem at a time, kid. One problem at a time.

"But he is sick?" Preston said. "Really sick."

"He has cancer," she said. "But he has really, really good doctors. He's taking medicine. Getting the best treatment."

"You do know cancer can kill you."

"Yes, Preston," she said. "I have heard that."

Preston seemed satisfied with the answer, turning to look out the window at the car rider line stretching out of the Presbyterian parking lot and down along Poplar Avenue. An endless snake of Mercedes wagons, Tahoes, and BMW SUVs. The parents, mostly women living in this never-ending loop, just waited for their turn and their slice of freedom, before circling back in a few hours and starting it all again. Everything was going to be all right. Everything was going to turn out great. Big smile, everyone.

Positivity can sometimes be about the convenient lies we tell ourselves. Or that's at least what Dr. Larry always said.

Instead of going home, Addison decided to keep driving west on Poplar toward downtown where Dean kept an office in the Cotton Exchange Building. She knew Amanda would continue to evade her calls and give her bullshit replies on the phone, but it would be different in person. A whole week without one word and she was supposed to be cool with this? If she asked her brother, Branch, he would say, "Yes, of course, Addison. Do you have any idea of the money we're talking here? Give poor Dean a break. While other companies are going under, he's thriving in this market." But her brother, God love him, had always been such a kiss ass and Dean devotee. The fact that Branch really wanted out from under their daddy's thumb and the barbecue business to join Dean's firm wasn't lost on her one damn bit. She was pretty sure that Branch had a crush on Dean, that he'd always been secretly gay, or at least curious, but never had the dignity or courage to admit it. Poor Libby. No wonder she was always drunk.

Addison found a place to park, right down the street from the Front Street Deli, and made sure that her Escalade was locked up tight. Downtown Memphis didn't get many blue ribbons for safety; all you had to do is watch the local news every morning and get the rundown of various carjackings, robberies, and murders. Welcome to Memphis. America's Runner-Up Murder Capital! She furtively dug into her purse for some change, but couldn't find any, and even if her credit card worked, the reader and display on the meter was broken. Oh, well. This wouldn't take long.

The daylight made her feel a little better, but she couldn't walk five feet without glancing over her shoulder, noting three homeless men gathered at a park bench. One of them broke off from the others and began to follow her, calling out, "Hey, Momma. How about a little love? Just need something to eat."

She clutched her Lanvin hobo bag tight and walked straight for the tall marble building.

Looking back over her shoulder, she could see the rolling brown water of the Mississippi and the M humpback of the Hernando de Soto Bridge. She took leggy strides toward the Cotton Exchange Building, more than well equipped for trouble. Addison had taken two years of kickboxing classes with the best instructor in East Memphis. He'd once said she had a hell of a roundhouse kick.

McKellar Construction kept offices on the third floor in a big open space for Dean and his dozen or so employees. Amanda was the gatekeeper of the whole operation, working not only the reception desk but also as Dean's personal assistant. Although Addison had never met Amanda in person, Dean was always bragging about her incredible organizational skills. She'd heard so much about Amanda that at some point, she'd grown a little jealous. Amanda got us front row tickets to the Mumford and Sons show even though it was sold out. Or, I would've never gotten out of Heathrow if it hadn't been for Amanda. What a lifesaver.

The elevator opened and Addison marched toward Dean's office. She came for answers and would leave with answers. She would not stop until Amanda got her husband on the phone. She wouldn't cause a scene. But goddamn it, there were limits to how much a woman could accept. A week. A whole fucking week, woman. If Amanda wouldn't help, she'd go to the police. And if that embarrassed Dean, so much the better. Maybe it was time he learned a lesson. Maybe it would stop him from being so cocky, taking Addison and the kids for granted. She stopped at the big plate glass wall with the glass door and reached for the handle. The etching caught her eye and she stood back for a moment, stunned, dropping her right hand to her side and looking back and forth along the corridor. Townsend Interiors, the door said.

Addison walked back to the elevator. Her head was so far up her ass this morning, she must've gotten off on the wrong floor. She pushed the elevator's up button and stepped back, glancing at her reflection. A mess. She looked a goddamn mess this morning. No makeup, blond hair scattered across her eyes, and coffee spilled across her sloppy Ole Miss hoodie.

She shook her head and got onto the elevator. A heavyset white woman in a wrinkled navy business dress smiled at her as she got on. Addison smiled back and pressed the third floor again. The button wouldn't work.

"I think you've already arrived."

"Excuse me?"

"Third floor?"

"This can't be the third floor."

She continued to mash the button over and over and each time the light failed to hold.

The woman took a patient breath and pointed to the number above the doors. Addison felt her face flush and walked back out in the corridor. What was happening? Was this how you go absolutely batshit insane? Maybe Dean hadn't been gone a week. Maybe she'd gone into the wrong office building? Maybe this was like one of those shows where she'd walked into a parallel universe and everything had been turned upside down. This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife.

"This is the Cotton Exchange?" she asked, not even sure about her own name now.

The woman offered a polite smile and nodded and quickly pressed the button to close the door between them. Addison walked back to Dean's office, or what she thought was McKellar Construction, unless either (a) they'd moved or (b) he'd gone into the interior decorating business without telling her.

Inside the office, there was no secretary, just cubicles spaced around the open floor plan. Addison flagged down the first person she saw, a hip-looking Black woman wearing jeans and a man's button-down over a tank top. "Excuse me," Addison said. "I'm looking for McKellar Construction. This used to be their office?"

The woman shrugged. "Never heard of it. Hey, Rob. You know about some construction company?"

A skinny little white guy with a wispy beard shook his head.

"Maybe ask down in the lobby?" the woman said. "Are you sure you have the right address? We've been in this space for two years."

"My husband's company," she said. "It used to be right here."

"You sure?" the woman said.

"Positive."

"And he didn't tell you they'd moved?" The woman's eyes grew wide as she cocked her head. "That's pretty messed up."

"I'm not leaving until I get some goddamn answers."

"Ma'am, are you okay?" the woman asked.

"No," Addison said. "I'm fucking pissed."

Addison found a grouping of plushy purple chairs by the glass door, sat down, and crossed her arms over her chest. She was so damn mad she could hear nothing but the blood rushing in her ears. A few more employees walked over and told her that she needed to leave, that she was causing a commotion. She told them they hadn't seen any goddamn commotion unless they told her where the fuck her husband had gone. "Who the hell are all you people?" Addison said, her voice rising louder every second. "Where is my goddamn husband?"

Twenty minutes later, two Memphis cops walked into the office and arrested her. Addison tried to explain everything, but they wouldn't answer her back, one of them asking her if she'd been drinking—the scotch from last night maybe wafting through her pores—while the other cop said something about getting a doctor's evaluation at 201 Poplar. Good god. This had to be the worst, most humiliating experience of her life, until she looked back as the cops were pressing her into a squad car, and she saw a big blue tow truck backing up to her white Escalade and hooking up the cable.

"You're making a huge mistake," she said. "I just want some answers. Goddamn it. Why won't anyone talk to me?"