I Don't Know

A Terrifying Flight

I finish eating the rancid food from the cafeteria, setting it to the side.

I pick up my phone from next to me and turn it on, noticing a new notification.

There are several missed calls and a long list of frantic messages.

And they're all from Curtis.

"I'm waiting at the baggage claim, can't wait to see you!"

"I made this sign and it says your name with all of these hearts and curly-q's like that font that you always use for no reason other than 'it's pretty' that no one can read. I think this is legible though!"

"Honey, people are starting to leave, they already grabbed their bags and I didn't see any of yours come out, I think I would notice neon pink luggage."

"Jenna? I've been talking to the airline for the past hour and a half. They said you never got on your plane..."

"I just can't imagine you skipping your flight without telling me. I understand that you're at a retreat but why wouldn't you tell your husband that you're taking a later flight?"

"Jenna, answer me. This isn't okay and it's not funny. Please answer your phone."

"This isn't like you and I'm starting to get really worried, what's going on? Did something happen?"

"Jenna? Please honey, just answer the phone."

"Alright I'm buying a ticket I'll be there in six hours."

"Jenna, please, you know how much I hate flying. Just answer me so that I don't have to get on this plane. I'll return the ticket and it'll be no big deal."

"If I die on this plane then I will never forgive you."

"They're telling us to turn off our cell phones, if there's anything that you'd like to say to me before I die, now would be the time."

My name is Jenna. I have a husband. And he is absolutely terrified of planes.

The beginning of the messages start at just after I fell asleep and the last one comes in at just about five hours ago.

I've got less than an hour to contact my husband and tell him that I'm in the hospital and I don't remember who I am.

Great, that's just great.

I press the nurse call button on my bed hoping that two heads are better than one but thinking about my nurse makes me almost wish I hadn't.

She enters the room with a widespread bubble-gum pink lipstick smile pasted on her face and says in a high-pitched, cheery tone, "Yes, dear?"

"I need to contact my husband," I tell her bluntly.

What had already been a too-wide smile turned into a face-splitting grin as she takes in this news.

"That's wonderful!" She says delightedly and then, almost as an afterthought, "But where's the ring?"

"How the Hell should I know?" I ask, my inner bitch showing her face once again.

There's something about her that just grinds on my every nerve I guess.

"Well has he called you?" she asks, as if she didn't even notice my patronizing tone.

"Yeah, about seven times now actually," I reply.

"You have an iPhone, right? Five C or whatever?" she continues.

"Yes. You've seen it," I reply rudely.

"Well here silly," she says sidling up next to me. She grabs my phone out of my hand and taps one of the missed calls, sliding it across the page.

I hear the phone ringing a couple of seconds later and she hands it back to me happily. She skips out of the room and before I can wonder whether this is against hospital rules I put the phone to my ear and hope that Curtis didn't actually turn his phone off.

When I hear his voice mail it almost brings tears to my eyes because now I remember his voice, not like his dream voice where it's just a memory but his actual voice and it's heart-wrenching how much I seem to recognize it without remembering it. I call him again and again just wanting to hear our voices on the voice mail.

"Hey, it's Curtis!"

"And Jenna! Don't leave me out!"

His laughter follows, and then he says, "Leave a message after the beep with your name and number and I-

"We!"

"Will get back to you as soon as possible."

You can hear his laugh for a beat longer before it clicks off and the buzz of the message prompt can be heard.

I call him six times before I finally say something to that buzz, something along the lines of, "Hey, it's your wife...I guess. You can find me at the Inova Alexandria Hospital in Virginia, but you probably already knew it was in Virginia. Um, it's Jenny, Jenna, whatever my name is if you didn't know. Who am I kidding, of course you know, you're my husband, I'm so stupid. Okay, well, bye."

And then I hung up and proceeded to hit myself with my hand but then decided that it didn't end very well the last time I got hit in the head.

And then I started trying to figure out what states were six hours away from Virginia because I had nothing better to do with my time. The only ones that I came up with were all the way on the West coast, states like California, Washington, Oregon and maybe New Mexico or Arizona but I couldn't be sure.

I decided that I probably didn't like a lot of sun and heat very much, like at all, and that narrowed it down to the upper west coast but then I gave up and waited for Curtis to show up, or call me back, or message me or something.

I wasn't left waiting too long when I suddenly saw him through the hospital windows separating the nurse's desk from my room. His hair was disheveled, looking like he'd run his hands through it too many times. He didn't have any bags with him because of the last-minute plans, and his entire appearance looked frantic.

After appearing to talk to Bella, the nurse, for a few seconds she pointed towards my room. He turned around and we made eye contact and it was in that moment that I realized, I don't know him

At all.

He could be an axe-murderer for all I know.

I'm going off faith that whatever he says is the truth but I don't know him. I'm about to let this man that I don't know judge me and decide whether I live up to his 'Jenna', if that even is my name. I don't even have a ring, why don't I have a ring?

He walks through the door towards me and he pulls up a chair and grabs my hand and then he just bows his head and I see his shoulders shake as relief seems to pour out of him.

"I'm so happy to see you alive," he whispers almost too quietly for me to hear, choking on tears that were held in for too long.

"I'm so happy that I didn't just imagine you," I say in reply.

He laughs quietly and then looks up making silent eye contact with me before he leans forward and kisses my forehead.

"I know you don't remember much about me. I know that you don't remember much about yourself even. I'll call your parents and some of your friends and tell them what's happened in a little while but right now I really just need to touch you, even just a small part of you, so that I know that you're real and you're alive because I've just spent an absolutely terrifying six-hour flight imagining all the ways you could be dead," he says with way too much level-headedness for someone who's just gone through thinking their wife is dead.

And yet I don't doubt his sincerity for a second and even...well, I even squeeze his hand back. A reassurance I suppose, my telling him that I am real and I am alive and I am here.

And he squeezes my hand back and says, "You're favorite food is chocolate by the way, and I saw a shit ton of it in the gift shop down below."