It wasn’t an actual snake, though. It was the person who had been sleeping next to me for almost 15 years. I had begun to suspect something was wrong when money came up missing from our shared accounts without a good reason, when he was constantly changing plans, when his social media said he was in Chicago when he was actually in LA. He had gotten smarter-he blocked me on social media, and started using a phone not on our shared plan. Or at least he thinks he did. After all, in his ignorance, he failed to realize that everything leaves a trace. So I decided to do the only thing that I could do: deal the death blow to our moribund marriage. I called a lawyer, and served his pathetic ass with papers about a week after I fully and finally figured it out. What a pathetic SOB. I may be sleeping alone now, but it’s better than being with someone who didn’t want to be with me.

Could it be? How could the woman next to me on the bus really be that happy? She was sunshine incarnate, her joy spilling over onto everyone around her. It was magical-no other word for it. She got off at the next intersection, leaving behind a sparkle that I took with me into my joy-sucking 9-5 in a grimy office building a few blocks down. I didn’t see her again for several weeks, and by that time, I wasn’t sure I would recognize her. I need not have worried; Sister Sunshine, as she was becoming affectionately known, was standing at the intersection I normally got off at. I said hello, and she lit up. “Talia!”, she said, her face glowing. “I’ve been hoping to run into you again. You see, you really don’t belong here”, she said, gesturing at the office building I worked in. “Crap”, I said, looking at my phone. “I’m late”, knowing I wasn’t-Sister Sunshine had me dead to rights and I didn’t like it. I made my way up the stairs and into my cubicle. I put my headphones on, trying to put some distance between myself and the unnerving encounter with the mysteriously joyful woman who knew my name, and knew that I was stuck in a job that was killing me slowly. All day long, I puzzled over it: was she an angel? Outlandish, I thought. Maybe she was just unusually observant, picking up clues no one else could see. Either way, I wanted to see her again, find out the answer to the joy that pervaded her entire being. Several days later, I was sitting in a coffee shop on a quiet residential street, trying to look through help-wanted ads. Finding nothing, I wandered over to the counter to order a cappuccino. As I did, I heard the bells of a nearby church toll 3 pm. The woman two tables down from the cash register crossed herself, as if being reminded to pray by the bells. She seemed oddly familiar, but I just couldn’t place her. This was 3 years ago. I have since moved to another job, another town, another life. But before I left, I ran into her one last time. She told me, “Always follow your joy, and the rest will follow”. She left me with one souvenir-the sunshine yellow strand of prayer beads that now hang over my mirror. Wherever you are, Sister Sunshine, you were right: I followed my joy, and the rest did follow.

His last text haunted me: 41st and Vincennes! Help! I knew it as a decent neighborhood in a formerly gritty part of town. So I drove down in a pouring rain, cursing the drivers who kept trying to cut me off. Once I arrived, I got out of the car to look around. That’s when I got my first clue to his possible whereabouts: a pathfinder’s sign in a vacant lot “pointing due north, and a souvenir coin labeled “Navy Pier, Chicago” on its face. I thought, “If he’s being followed, he’s leaving an unassuming trail to follow; you’d have to know him to really get these clues. But how does he have time to leave them if he thinks he has a tail?” Stumped, I headed to Navy Pier. I paid an outrageous sum of money for a parking spot, and got lost in a crowd of oblivious Saturday evening tourists. As I raked my eyes back and forth, looking for him, I thought, “Jory, why the hell did you bring me here?” The frantic energy that had propelled me down to this godforsaken city had been replaced by anger and fear: what if I couldn’t find him? What if this was all a wild goose chase, and I was the real target? Was he (or they) simply using Jory as bait? The thought rattled me to the core. Forcing down a wave of panic, I pulled out my phone. I dialed Sarah Alphonso, a sometime friend and Chicago Police detective who worked missing persons cases. The inside line she gave me rang about 10 times, and with each ring, my frustration mounted. “Dammit”! I murmured, and just as I did, someone picked up. It wasn’t Sarah, but Jimmy Tobeth, her partner. Turns out this was Sarah’s night off; Jimmy asked a few pertinent questions, then agreed to patch me through to Sarah’s cell, and the three of us could confer on her line. “This is Sarah Alphonso”, an irritated voice said. “Sarah”, I began, trying to fight panic, “my brother is missing and thinks he’s being followed”. A dead silence rang in my ears for a few moment, then Sarah came back on the line. “Holy hell, it’s Jory, isn’t it? I knew it, I warned him, but he didn’t listen-I told him before he left Chicago to not come back for at least 3 years; those assholes don’t give up! Thought I was buying him time, so they would presume him dead!” Suddenly, nausea surged up: was this about the party that we’d had back in summer 2018, the one that ended in a brawl in our parent’s driveway? Was there more to this story than the scraps of clues I had been given by the text and the pathfinder’s sign in that vacant lot? “Hey, Tobeth”, Sarah snapped. “I’m hanging up; get Alyssa’s twenty and text me; meet her there and I’ll catch up with you guys”. She rang off, and Tobeth talked me through where I was, and what might happen next. His manner was terse, but not unpleasant. I had interviewed him in my work as a city beat reporter, so I was familiar with his style and cadence. He said he would meet me on the pier in half an hour. Shit, I thought. “Every moment we waste is another mile farther from me”, I mumbled as I splashed water on my face in a busy ladies’ bathroom. I headed toward the main entrance to make myself obvious to my cop friend and her partner when they arrived. I damn near wore a hole in the floor as I paced in a circle, waiting. Once she arrived, we went to a tiny Mexican place three blocks from the pier. It was quiet; there were the three of us, a young couple and an elderly woman in the dining room. Over some of the best enchiladas I’ve ever had, we started to hatch a plan to find him, hopefully unharmed. As we paid the check, my phone rang. It was Jory. He was right: he was being followed. The birds of his past had come home to roost. Sarah, Tobeth and I all exchanged a look, then headed out on an uncertain course, taking the biggest gamble of our lives.

The familiar places we once loved Are alien, otherworldly The things we knew most deeply Are weird shadows of themselves Our favorite song echoes in an off key The food we loved tastes dry and bland All of this world seems to have changed, even though it somehow seems the same— You are missing from my world,