Entry #3: The Wife
The tale of Two Pigeons continues. Start with Entry #1.
I met up with Leah today. After I texted her last night, she said she was gonna be in the city dropping off her daughter for a class. So we agreed up at a coffee shop near the Panhandle. On my way there I spotted a pigeon with three legs around Cole Street next to some tents and decomposing couches. His chest was puffed out and he was chasing after a female, his head bobbing and all three limbs working together. It’s been a while since I saw a functional mute like this, so I took a video and uploaded it to radWatchers. It’s been a hobby for me…I’m one of the most prolific contributors in San Francisco.
The cafe was loud and full of people and Leah said she was uncomfortable talking about private matters with so many around. So I suggested we get our drinks and take a walk in the park.
I hadn’t seen her in a decade but she hadn’t changed much. Her and Misha started dating right after he moved back to San Francisco and landed the job in a startup that about a decade later would make him ridiculously rich. Back then we were all friends. I wasn’t in town often but when I did pass through we’d go out to dinner or catch a movie. She had always looked older than she was. At thirty she could have easily passed for forty. It was her sallow grayish skin and the premature wrinkles around her eyes and her uptight judgmental way of holding herself. But now that she was pushing her mid-40s, she looked her age. A typical Bay Area mom. Wealthy and unhappy.
I said some words of support and concern…how I was sorry about what happened and how I’d try to do what I could help find Misha. She thanked me and then thanked me again for agreeing to help, even though we’ve had our differences and haven’t been close for a long time. She said she didn’t know where else to turn and distrusted corporate private investigators that were suggested to her…she didn’t want strangers prying in her life.
We walked along the Panhandle. It was gray and cold and damp and aside from a few masked-up joggers there was almost no one around. We got to the park at the Stanyan entrance and walked past security into the giant metal gates…then walked west down JFK Drive towards nowhere in particular.
I pressed her to fill me in on the details. What the hell happened?
She basically repeated what his parents had told me. Misha walked out one morning and didn’t return.
She got worried when he didn’t come home in the evening and didn’t check in. His phone was off and he didn’t respond to messages and when he didn’t show up that night she started to panic “It wasn’t like him to do that. He never did that. Not a single time in our twenty-four years together,” she said. She asked his friends, his business partner. No one had heard from him that day. She called the Oakland Police Department and after a few days they put out a missing person’s search advisory.
His last known location was at the train station in San Francisco. The police got the camera feeds from there and he could be seen entering boarding a southbound train but it’s not clear where he got off. “The police said they ran a search for his face but no camera picked him up anywhere. It’s like he vanished.”
I was surprised. “But the trains have near constant camera coverage. You can’t escape them…your path can be traced.”
“The police were going to do a more in depth tracing but then Misha called me..and when they found out they called off the search. He was no longer considered a missing person. He had his right to privacy, they said.” She shook her head. “I was stupid for telling them before they gave me results. I’m an idiot.”
She explained that his call came in the middle of the day from an unknown number. She picked it up, sensing that it could be Misha. And it was. “He told me that he is okay and that he is sorry for disappearing so abruptly but that there was no other way to do it. I asked him what was happening but he cut me off. He said he couldn’t tell me anything…that it had to remain secret for now…that this was very painful for him, too. He said it was necessary for him to leave and that I’ll understand one day. ‘This is something I have to do. This isn’t just about me. It’s for the entire world…for you and our daughters…for all of us,’ he said. He then asked me to tell our daughters that he loves them and hung up. That’s it.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“It was a week, no nine—”