Chapter 29

For Max, being alone was not a new experience.  After all, the life of a psychiatrist and a film and stage director is bereft of company, at least the kind that lets you relax and doesn’t make demands on your supposed special gifts.  But being apart from Sam, even though she too was demanding of his professional time, was without comparison.  Dealing with the dilemma of searching for her or letting her just be wherever she needed to be without him was the greatest tug a war he had ever encountered.  What if something terrible had happened?  The thoughts of kidnap and rape and murder… all the worst thoughts had run through his brain over and over.  Then again, he knew it was just as likely she had felt compelled to pursue something with one of her personalities.  For a man who had been known for dealing with some of the most studied neurotics and psychotics in the urban world of medicine, being stressed out over his wife’s behavior was unsettling to say the least.  Many a night during the past few weeks had been spent challenging himself and his decision to wait it out. 

Only after numerous sleepless nights had he made the decision to finally fly to London and engage Interpol.

***

He had just come back to his hotel from a grueling four hours of Interpol questioning.  Their unwilling attitude to give any urgency to finding Sam until they were convinced that Max’s four-week delay in coming to them was justified, left him exhausted.  He had been forced to give a detailed account of the delay time and all the efforts he had made to find her.  After explaining his first feeble attempt with Zermatt’s local police to find her, it hadn’t been easy to explain his hesitancy to contact Interpol.  What could he tell them, that because his wife, his patient, had a history of disappearing for days at a time, he didn’t want to panic, that she was a multiple personality?  To his professional credit, Max felt satisfied that only the surface details were necessary to divulge. 

Once he left Interpol, he checked his cell phone for messages.  He had not expected to hear her voice, especially uttering the shortest of messages: “I love you.  Coming home.”   And no call-back number, just “Unknown caller” ID.  What phone had she used?  The message came in at 3AM, LA time, the time zone set in his phone, but what he didn’t know was where her call had actually come from.  Was she still in Europe?  He looked at his cell phone again.  Given the 3 AM reference for the call, she might also be any number of places, including an adjoining western state, or... hell, anywhere in Europe.

 Now, as he stood in his London hotel room, packing his bags, he felt unsure of himself, unsure of his take on the message and thus found himself unable to call Interpol and tell them to forget it… that she was going to be home when he arrived… that as he thought, she had just needed time alone.  He hoped it had been Sam that needed the time away, for there was a gnawing reminder playing over and over again in his mind that “Samantha” was the personality hard to trust. 

As Max closed his suitcase, he took a deep breath, reminding himself that the voice on the phone was Samantha.  If only he had heard the voice of Sam.  But it had been the familiar voice of the woman that chose to be whatever she chose, whenever she chose.  It had been Samantha the diva… the professional… the actress personality that never let her fans down, that was fastidious in her behavior patterns, never missing an appointment, never creating any kind of disappointment with her adoring public; even her closest professional friends in the business, people she could take for granted, even those people never had to second guess her because Samantha would never think of being dishonest about Samantha… except with Max. 

Actually, he checked himself. She is not trying to be dishonest; it is just her way of feeling free when something overwhelms her, something smothering her, confining her.  I guess that is what my value is to her, he thought.  Freedom.  Free to be whatever personality she wants to be at any time.  Free to use his professional ability whenever she feels the need.  Free to assume that he will always stay calm, understanding, professional.  Free to assume that whatever she does or says, he will always be there when she returns to once again share their warm, and yet complex, arrangement.  But right now, he hoped Sam, the woman he married, might be the one coming back.  Then again?  After all, had she not given a lot of years to perfect her imperfections?  Had she not allowed only one man to know the woman behind the mask?  And hadn’t Samantha been just as fastidious in showing Sam to this man as she had been with her careful character revealing and manipulation of the public?  Yes.  Yes, of course she had.  Except, right now, he only knew he wasn’t succeeding in convincing himself that he was Okay with everything. 

No, as he picked up his suitcase and hurriedly exited the hotel room, there wasn’t the calm, the understanding or the professional she was expecting to greet her at home.  No, this was the part of Max that was usually boxed up.  Crated for storage.  The Max that rarely had time to be as free as Samantha, the Max that knew he wanted to be vulnerable, to be reckless and abandon his safe haven of professional, father figure, lover, husband.  Right now, he felt like a confused adolescent, a tether-less kite being buffeted by winds crossing and re-crossing his path. 

He closed the door behind him and moved quickly down the hall toward the elevator, thinking with each step, “Where the fuck has she been?”

***

For Samantha and Ari, the flight from London to New York represented a few hours for sleep.  They had been slowly exhausting themselves for weeks; sleeping only when fatigue overcame them.  Samantha was pleased they had been able to get First Class seats on the dwindling 747 mode of travel.  Lufthansa Air was one of the few airlines that still maintained a fleet of the upgraded 747-8 planes, and luck would have it that with the abrupt choice to fly back, Lufthansa was the only carrier with space.  That was rare for the carrier, except when as in this case, last minute cancellations had freed up first class two seats. 

***

As the flight made its way further into the earlier time zone, the sky faded from early morning Europe to late night US time.  More passengers took advantage of the darkness by asking the flight attendants for blankets and pillows.

The upstairs first class lounge and sleeper remained lively into the third hour of the flight, but it’s six passengers slowly found themselves retiring – most of which succumbing to an abundance of breakfast champagne. 

A flight attendant noticed one passenger rise from his seat and wearily make his way down the spiral gangway to the restroom.  He too had allowed the quality libation to work its spell over him.  As a result, he became abruptly aware that until this trip to Europe, he was unaware that his bladder was less resilient than before.  He wasn’t used to relieving himself every hour and the added alcohol only exacerbated the annoyance.  Once in the toilet, like most, he was reminded how seductive first class could be on International flights.  This being his first Lufthansa flight, he was doubly impressed with the appointments of this spotless cubicle reserved for the less inspiring aspects of travel.  The mirror was framed in small sconces holding small orchids.  The towels were linen.  Even the cramped seating was surrounded with walls of silk-grass covering.  As he finished his business and washed his hands, his eye caught the small crystal dispensers of fine French perfume and to his surprise, Jaïpur Boucheron , a men’s cologne he was very familiar with, made him pause.  He splashed a touch of the cologne and breathed in its unusual scent, remembering better times when the nighttime splashing of this very cologne meant he was about to hold the love of his life in his arms. 

But… he shook the reverie from his head and exited, smiling to himself that he would be home shortly.  As he rounded the corner, a split-second glance at a hand resting on the armrest of seat 4-A brought his senses to a sudden halt.  As he now stood frozen in the opposite direction, a sudden and excruciating re-occurrence of self-doubt overtook him.  Was he that tired?  Was he under the influence… or had he seen what he thought he saw?

As he slowly glanced back over his shoulder, the overhead pin spot once again revealed the delicate hand.  His eyes blinked at the painted nails with a familiar skin-pink coloring and then as his eyes focused further, he turned completely around and stood transfixed.  The fourth finger carried a wedding band not unlike the one he had slipped on his wife.  His first thought was his mind was playing tricks on him.  But an instant later, he was completing the few steps forward to 4-A to look closer.   Suddenly he realized that the platinum band was upon the finger, attached to the hand, wrist, arm, neck… and yes, he realized, the face of his wife… deep in a sleep, cradled upon the shoulder of the young man sitting next to her… a man who although in the cabin’s low light shadow, looked familiar.  A familiar man whose head hung limp, hands lifelessly resting upon the keyboard of a laptop, the screen showing a mix of colors and textures making up two faces… the face of the woman… and himself.  A squint of the eyes and Max now recognized the man as the uniformed waiter flashing pictures at the bottom of the gangway on that dark night of memory aboard the restored San Miguel.  The man Sam had all but maimed at a Zermatt club.  Max felt weak.  He turned abruptly and quickly made his way back up to the lounge muttering to himself, “What the hell she doing with….  Who the hell was this guy?

Max grabbed the seat belt and cinched it tight.  His face was fixed in stunned, disbelief.  He fumbled for the assistance button, bringing the attendant.

“Water, please… some water” he stammered. 

“Right away, Mr. Quinlan,” she whispered. “Can I get you anything else.”

“Oh, God.  If you only knew.”

She smiled.  “I understand.  These long flights can be tedious.  I be right back with your water.”