Absence and Missing

Absence

The first few days after he left felt surreal, like life had been paused mid-scene.
The silence was both a relief and a discomfort. The tension that had filled the house started to lift, like air being let out of a balloon. I found myself humming while working, feeling productive again, and then catching a lump in my throat when I remembered the way he’d stretch out the word “entonnnces” when telling a story.

He called that first night to say he was safe. He wasn’t angry, he said, he just needed to be alone for a while. He didn’t like the way he had been taking his frustration out on me. I told him it was okay and meant it. The call ended kindly.

During that time, I reflected a lot on everything - including our relationship and found myself happy in some ways, but really stressed and feeling like I was being held hostage in others. I thought of our very enjoyable sex life, but the rather distant intimate one. Putting whatever fledgling emotional; connection I had, I had to acknowledge the relationship was imbalanced - it really cant be successful for one person to depend so wholly on another - in addition to the obstacles of communication.

I remembered standing at the door the night he left, looking as his Uber vanished into the night and feeling the oddest sense of relief, and annoyance and dread. By the next day, I felt lighter. By the third, I was dancing around the kitchen while cooking dinner. By the fourth, I started to wonder. By the fifth, I caved and sent a message.

The first few days, I developed a strange habit without even realizing I was doing it.  Usually around 11pm, I'd walk to the door and look out. Pondering what had happened and how things had shifted so quickly - on the third night I heard a car pull out front and the opening and closing of doors immediately outside. I was surprised I felt rather ambivalent as I went to the door for the inevitable confrontation, relief that he was okay, but also something akin to not wanting him to come back. I saw it had been for the house next to me, and felt a sense of relief, yet also a small tinge of disappointment. 

As though knowing I had been thinking of him at that moment, he responded to the text I sent earlier. He knew he we had to talk, he planned on calling me  - but needed time to put together what he wanted to say. Before he could continue, I asked the one question I already knew the answer to. The answer of which I knew had somehow determined the fate we would have. "You have left Charlotte, right?"

He confirmed that he had arrived in Miami the night before. He had been realizing that this wasn't happy and decided Charlotte wasn’t for him. Miami had family, friends, community, work possibilities, and more of his rhythm. I couldn’t fault the logic, but I could fault  the way it happened and the suddenness and unilateral element to the decision without any notice. 

He apologized and explained he had almost come back twice as he knew we got along and he really liked the house -  but didn’t want to fake being happy just to get to the same conclusion in a few months. He was also clear that he didn’t want to be unfair to me either and recognized he was becoming difficult. He wanted to focus on a new adventure, check out a new place, settle, reset, and reconnect later in whatever way life has given us. I thanked him and told him that I was grateful we had what we did and that I hoped he had the best time in Miami.

A few hours later, I went into his room for the first time since he left and I started to clean.

His absence was everywhere. Empty drawers, a half-used bottle of vitamins, an ashtray on the nightstand, a few socks in the closet, a rolled cigar tube with a tiny joint inside, the only 3 pairs of underwear he had left when he had on him when he crossed into the US. How fast 3 months of cohabitation disappeared in eight minutes.

I boxed everything up and put it in the closet - and noticed in a plastic bag was that speaker again, the totem and physical representation of his journey to the U.S, shaped like a lock in blue and brown camouflage. I smiled, connected it and played that damn song he used to blast while getting ready, and within moments I had cried harder than I expected. I decided to put the lock back in the box.

We talked once or twice after and at one point he left me a voice message saying it had been really difficult and he might need to come back. That was the last communication I received from him. I wonder if he had somehow sensed or realized that it wouldn't be possible and that while I hoped he was happy and found success - I was ,much happier and peaceful having the house and my time to myself. 

For the first time in months, I didn’t have to think in two languages and ensure I translated everything for him using a variety of translators, or worry about someone else’s process and try to explain 10 things at the same time.  I didn’t have to be the translator, the helper, the provider or the fixer or even the strain that comes with simply being a friend or boyfriend to someone. Now I was only responsible for me - and that was a huge relief and that was the night I stopped looking out the doors at night. 

Missing

Enrique had designed the layout of the house - and when I realized it was impacting me, I changed everything. I moved pictures, rearranged furniture, and filled the rooms with new colors and light. It helped a great deal and the house felt comfortably "mine"

Months passed. My business grew, I made local friends, and I spent more time with family. I dated a little. Then an old friend, Christian, came to town for work and needed a place to stay. The guest room was empty, and the company felt good. A month later and I was formally inviting him to move in - I had so much unused space and we both shared how happy we were that life brought a series of events that led us to this amazing arrangement. Within a few weeks the house felt alive again, full of warmth and noise instead of silence.

Sometimes I would find something of Enrique’s. A mug, the Bluetooth lock, a small notebook. I would smile, remember him fondly, and put it back. One night in June I found the box again - I assorted through the items, marveling at how it didnt cause any emotional reaction anymore - the bright pastel green briefs, the socks, the ashtray, the notebook, the lock. I stared at it for a while, then threw it all away. Not out of anger. Just to make space for the present. 

An hour later Christian and I were finishing dinner and he brought up Enrique, curious as to how I was feeling and if I had spoken to him. I observed it had almost been 3 months since had spoken and that it felt like a very long time ago. 

The phone rang not long after. Unknown number. I ignored it. It rang again. Then again.
By the fifth time, I answered. 

A woman was speaking Spanish so fast I couldn’t follow. Her voice was shaking. I caught bits and pieces: madre, no llamadas, desaparecido. I asked her to slow down. A man took the phone and introduced himself as Francisco in a light spanish accent. He said he lived with María Bella, Enrique’s mother, who was in Spain and didn’t speak English. She was worried. Her son called her every other morning, without fail. But now it had been a week, she was getting nervous and wanted to know if I had seen him or spoken to him, did I know someone she could call if not, she mentioned that he had been indicating to her that he would be returning to my place soon (this was news to me)

I affirmed I hadn't spoken to him in months but that Id ask around and I assured her that he was smart and hard-working, he waas fine. I tried to sound calm and reassuring, but when the call ended, I felt my stomach twist.

I messaged Pipe and another mutual friend, Gustavo. Neither had heard from him. We were about to file a missing-person report when we learned we didn't have to. 

One of Enrique’s cousins had posted in a Missing Persons” Facebook group, sharing his photo and last known location. Within an hour someone commented with a link.

It was a mugshot. He was in jail.

It had been eighteen days since his arrest. His eye was red and bloodshot. He looked lost and terrified. The charge read “attempted conveyance.” Later we would learn it meant trying to open the back door of a broken-down car. His backpack had been stolen days before, and he had no ID or phone.

He hadn’t gone missing. He’d been there for the better half of a month, isolated. 

His mother couldn’t call nor he call her. Only US numbers were accepted and nobody would tell her anything. Pipe asked a cousin named Félix to visit. When Félix finally did, he said Enrique looked awful. Limping, quiet, bruised. His left eye still red, his voice flat. He said the guards mostly ignored him because he didn’t speak English.

Félix convinced one of the guards to let him pay for a call home. Within seconds, Enrique and his mother were crying on the line. Félix overheard parts of it. The way he was arrested at gunpoint. How the guards mocked him for being poor. How the medical exam was invasive and humiliating. How he had been attacked twice. No clean water, no soap, no change of clothes wearing the same underwear and socks for almost 10 days.

His public defender hadn’t visited since the arraignment. He told his mother that a bond existed, but his lawyer warned him not to post it. There was an immigration flag on his record. If he tried to bail out, ICE might pick him up.

I sat in the dark, staring at my phone, realizing this wasn’t just another chapter of distance. This was the start of something much, much worse.