Winds Of Change

The wind from the open windows with swinging white curtains braces Cathy. The hotel room is cozy and has a New York-esque style to it complemented by a stunning beach view. In the room, everything is un-bothered and in its place. Just like the way Cathy remembered before she and Nathan went to the beach. The white bedsheets on the luxurious double bed still untampered with. Their unpacked luggage still upright against the wall next to the window. On the dresser, she could see her access card. Everything is in place. Everything looks the same. Everything but one thing. Only one thing is missing. Nathan.

In dread, she rushes to the bedroom but like the bedroom, everything is in its place and still, Nathan is the only thing that's missing. The little hope she has disappears. Like beautiful dry leaves in a raging storm. "He's... he's not here" she informs Allessandro in a shaky and panic-stricken voice.

"Are you certain Miss, have you looked everywhere in the room?" he asks calmly

"Yes, I'm not blind, of course, I looked everywhere!" Cathy snaps

Allessandro walks further into the room to inspect, confirming Cathy's statement. "Okay Miss, calm down. We will find your husband. We have cameras all over the corridors. We have a shuttle which we will call to take you to the police station for you to issue a statement and possibly file a missing person report."

Allessandro escorts Cathy to the lobby where she waits for the shuttle to arrive.

Cathy waits in the lobby. Her body is shaking and her mind is filled to the brim with thoughts about where Nathan could be and what could have happened to him. She feels a lump forming in her throat and distracts herself by examining the architecture. It's like stepping into a different realm - a different time. It's different from any other hotel she has stayed at as a traveler herself. Her eyes are drawn to the floor art. She thinks the floor doesn't have to be decorated. If it were up to her, she would swap the floor and the ceiling art, - to have her guests walk on the blue tiles and artistic patterns and have the 17th-century art which depicted fighting men in capes, on the ceiling. Thinking about architecture helps keep the foamy bubbles of anxious thoughts in her mind still for a while. She has always loved architecture and has aspirations of one day designing a unique hotel shaped in her vision.

She looks around the foyer to see different hotel staff coming and leaving. A wave of unease washes over her as one thought springs to mind.

The man with the dragon tattoo.

She cannot help but think about that particular encounter. As brief, as it was, she cannot help but think about how being around him made her feel. She had not encountered him since the corridor but she cannot help but think about how and why all the other staff wore white matron gloves and he didn't. All thoughts about him come rushing in - Why was there was something unkind and different about him than the other staff? The hideous and sinister tattoo has a deep meaning, what is it? Could he be an imposter?

"Cathy Miller" calls out Maria as she interrupts her from her thoughts. "The shuttle to the police station is waiting outside."

***

At the police station, Cathy is ushered into Detective Capretta's office. A short, middle-aged, no-nonsense detective with short spiky hair, he was the main detective for missing person cases.

Cathy settles for the brown wooden chair on the left-hand side while the detective pulls out a file from one of his office drawers opposite his desk.

"Alright Signora," he says as he finally settles himself into his chair with a pen in his hand. "You say your name is?" He asks

"Cathy Miller" she answers "My husband is missing"

"Yes. When is the last time you saw him"

"At the beach. He excused himself saying that he wanted to talk to the hotel staff to organize a bonfire on the beach for us"

"When you say this 'us', do you mean you and him"

"Yes!" Cathy's eyebrows are furrowed. She could not understand what this detective was implying. Although he seemed normal for a detective, his asking her that question made it seem like he was too distrusting of her.

"So there was no other woman involved?"

Cathy felt a wave of anger rush into her. She couldn't understand how and why the topic of another woman was introduced in the conversation when this was about Nathan who was missing "Why would another woman be involved? We are married!" She blurts out.

"I er, just asking signora. It is part of my investigation. Don't be defensive" Detective Capretta picks the pen between his fingers and jots something down in his file "Do you know of anyone signora, anyone that would try and harm your husband?"

The events of Cincinnati three years ago come rushing to Cathy's mind like the first whiff of wind in a hurricane. The officer is already distrusting of her and she doesn't know what he will make of Nathan's indiscretions three years ago. "No" she lies

"Would you consider your husband to be someone who would disappear without reason or cause?" Asks the detective lifting his face to look Cathy in the eye with a serious expression on his face.

"No. That's not like Nathan at all" she responds

For a while, the detective's questions are routine and circle occupation, age, and whether Cathy and Nathan have been to Sicily before. She answers them with ease as the dialogue gears into a level of predictability with minimal surprises with more questions that demand simple answers.

The detective looks towards his computer screen while he drags his mouse on the pad. "Signora, I ask. I ask again signora, did you come here alone with your husband or was there another woman along with you?"

"No" She answers as she looks surprised. She does not understand how this detective could bring this up again. She cannot fathom it. Another woman? Is she missing something? How would another woman be involved in Nathan's disappearance? Even in their relationship, she had never known any jealous exes that would want to ruin what she and Nathan have. "As I said before, we are married"

"Hmm," he remarks as he flips his computer screen towards her "This is the corridor footage from ze hotel"

Cathy takes one look at the computer screen and her surprise turns to shock. The shock from what appears on the white-framed screen. Before, she had expected a gruesome scene at the hotel room, or a dead body. It was neither but it made her feel worse. It was Nathan. He was with another woman. They are holding hands and looking romantic.

The shock overwhelms her. She is confused. Everything feels all too much. Everything feels like it's slowly falling apart. Drowning in a concoction of her own emotions, she leaves in a huff.

"Adults have a right to disappear..."

"Signora!" he shouts, throwing his hands in the air and watching her quickly leave.

The detective's words fade as she feels herself losing all sense.

She finds herself back in the corridor that houses her hotel room. Her heart pounds and everything feels bitterly surreal. Her heart pounds faster as she draws nearer to the spot where she saw Nathan in the footage. It pounds faster and aches as if all of it was dipped in a glass of acid. The glass which was her mind, brimming and overflowing. She collapses on the floor releasing a loud wail.

She weeps and weeps. Weeping for Nathan. Weeping for the pain she feels. The pain of what has befallen her. The cruelty of change - how sunshine on the beach has turned to darkness in the cold. It is the cry of a woman who has tried to hold it together only to be plunging through different lows. She couldn't hold it together anymore. And there she lay on the floor, blacked out in a pool of her sorrow.