Harrison and His Wife

           He always showed up to work on time. Usually, five minutes before the start time. He would chat with our coworkers, explaining in great detail, his face lit up with excitement, about the things he did over the weekend with his wife. They never had any children, he would frequently lament, and include how much their children would have loved the adventures they went on every weekend.
           No one has met his wife. He claims she works a lot, is hardly home, and so they get out on the weekends to spend quality time together. But no one has seen a picture of her face, her car, or even seen him get a call or text from her while at work. It’s like radio silence from her all week. I guess if she is busy, maybe she has a job that she can’t use her phone or must maintain confidentiality. Still, he has never brought her to a work party and never invited us to his house for dinner. He’s been working with our company for over ten years. That’s a long time to hide someone. If she is hiding.
           “Good morning, Harrison. How’s the wife?” It’s almost a joke between the rest of us. We try to catch him off guard, get him to let something slip, anything to find out the secret we know he must be hiding.
           “She’s great. Mighty tired after the hiking we did over the weekend, slipped and cut her knee, but she’s alright.” It never worked. He always had a response. Cool, calm, rational responses every time.
           “I sure would like to have you guys over for dinner sometime. I know my wife would love to chat with yours.”
           “Oh, well, you know she did hurt her knee, and she isn’t walking around much now. Maybe in a few weeks once the swelling and bruising goes down, eh?” He walked away, ending the conversation. He always got the last word, too.
           There has never been overt suspicion that something nefarious is happening. Or has happened. He always comes to work clean, levelheaded, and willing to talk about her and their life together. But his phone is always on silent. Usually turned all the way off. He claims it’s because the battery life sucks, and he and his wife have such a routine after all these years that he never needs to get in touch with her during the day. I guess they never have emergencies.
           “Work party this Friday, you and the wife coming, Harrison?”
           “Oh shoot! We booked a hotel for overnight Friday and Saturday. You know how we love to travel on the weekends together. We will have to make the next one.”
           “The next one isn’t until Christmas.”
           “Well, the wife hates changing plans. But we will see you at the Christmas party.”
           “I’ll hold you to it, Harrison.” We always joked. We weren’t sure if he realized that we all picked up on the strangeness of his situation, of the mysterious wife he contained and hid so well. We were desperate to see who could get him to slip. It had turned into an office game now. We all talked to him, frequently throughout the day, and would report back our findings to the rest of the office– like a spy mission to uncover the truth.
           “Nothing. He gives away nothing. He’s a master at coming up with excuses.”
           “He has to slip eventually. Do you really think…”
           “It’s been over ten years that he’s held up this façade. She has to be dead, and he just can’t process it.”
           “Then where is he going every weekend?”
           “Either to visit her grave or meet with his sugar baby.”
           “Ha! Stop. He’s like fifty.”
           “Perfect age. No wife, no kids, extra spending money…”
           “She must be dead. I bet your right…”
           “About the sugar baby?”
           “No! About him visiting the grave.” We searched local mortuary records. Anyone with the same last name. She must have taken his name when they were married. If she didn’t, or they were never married, this would be a lost cause. Which it seemed to be, since even going back ten years, no one with the same last name appeared. Not even his parents. Either they were really old or didn’t live in the same state. Yes, we checked the whole state records. Yes, it took the whole workday, but we traded off searching so we got some work done. Data collection and analysis wasn’t that hard once you got good at it.
           “Hey Harrison! Wanna go get burgers after work?” I asked him to eat with me at least once or twice a week. He always declined. At this point, I just asked to see what his excuse would be.
           “Oh no, I can’t. I need to pick up my dry cleaning tonight before they close at six. Maybe another night, eh?”
           “Wife doesn’t do the ironing, huh?”
           “Oh no. She burnt her arm once and hasn’t picked up the iron since.” I noted that small detail. Maybe I could catch him in a lie later. I accumulated these details and jotted them in a notebook once he left. I pulled it out once he let the door swing shut behind him.
           
Burnt arm on iron.
           Hurt knee hiking.
           Allergic to shellfish.
           Works long shifts, usually overnight. Nurse?
           No children.
           Grew up in New York.
           Anniversary June 12.
           Met and married right before starting this job.
           Blue eyes. Blonde hair.
 
I felt like an investigating officer, collecting evidence to be used against him in court once the truth was leaked. Afterall, the truth always comes out, right? Maybe I needed to do a little more, intensive, investigating. I decided to follow him home from work that day, just to verify that he’s going to the dry cleaners, and then indeed home to see his wife for dinner. What harm could there be in that? I’d stay back, not intrude, not break in or anything. Just watch from my car from across the street.
           As soon as I noticed Harrison leaving the building, I quickly packed up my things and ran to my car. I had missed the direction he drove off in, but there were only three dry cleaners in town. Yes, I looked them up. I hoped I would just get lucky and find his car at the first one. I didn’t. I barely caught him leaving the second one though, and slowly tailed him back to his house. I’d never seen his home before, in fact I don’t think anyone in the office knew where he lived, since he never invited anyone over.
           He turned into the driveway, the garage door struggling but eventually grinding open. One car. His wife wasn’t home yet. The garage door shut behind him, and after a few moments, a light clicked on in the main room. The windows were curtained, but in the fading afternoon light, I could make out his shadow against them. As far as I could tell, he was home alone. I watched for nearly an hour, as he walked to and from the main room, cleaning up, cooking dinner, and changing out of his work attire. Normal after work activities. At one point, he came to the window to look out. I shrunk down in my car seat, pretending to be on the phone talking to someone. He shouldn’t recognize my car. I always get to work after him and leave after him. He peered up and down the road, biting his lip, until he closed the curtains back up tightly. And I mean he clipped them together, ensuring they wouldn’t be blown apart by the rough air conditioning.
           I sighed a breath of relief and put my phone down. When I looked back up and he was wheeling something into the main room. From the silhouette, it looked like someone in a wheelchair. Someone small. Not small like a child, but skinny. Lanky. Somewhat limp. Granted, I was seeing only their shadows through the curtains, but the head was definitely slumped forward onto their chest.
           His wife? Was this the fabled Mrs. Harrison we all so desperately hoped was just a big lie we would catch him in? If she was in a wheelchair, how would she have gone hiking just this last weekend? Maybe she hurt her knee that badly. But that wouldn’t explain her limp posture.
           He lifted her up and out of the chair. Her arms swung loosely at her sides. Her legs did not straighten to hold herself up and stand. It looked more like he dragged her over to her seat at the table, strung something around her shoulders, and let her head once again drop to her chest. Goosebumps prickled my skin. She did not look okay.
           I watched him eat for several minutes. She made no move to even look up or touch her plate. Enough. I didn’t want to watch this anymore. I don’t know what he was doing in there with her, but I didn’t want to know anymore. It looked sinister and weird, and it looked like none of my business. My morbid curiosity had gotten the better of me, and I felt ashamed I followed him to his house and watched him drag his wife out from somewhere and prop her up at the table. She obviously wasn’t okay.
           Was she drugged? Did he keep her captive? No way he just had her dead body in his house. Unless she died recently. But still, why would her limbs move so much? Wouldn’t rigor mortis kick in and stiffen her right up? Either way, it creeped me out too much to keep looking at her sagging head and shoulders tied to the chair, so I started my car and drove away, goosebumps prickling my arms.
 
           I avoided Harrison at work the next day. My face was pale this morning when I looked in the mirror. I had hardly slept thinking of what he could possibly be hiding. If his wife had died, and he was busy visiting her grave every weekend and made up those silly excuses to cover his grief, okay fine. That was acceptable. But whatever he had in that wheelchair was not alive, or at least not conscious.    
           “Morning Jackson.” Harrison snuck up behind me and I yelped. My cheeks flushed but I stuck my nose back into my computer keyboard.
           “Good morning.” I addressed him curtly, hoping he would just leave.
           “You okay? Not as talkative as you normally are this morning.”
           “Uh, yeah. I just had a crappy night sleep, and this coffee isn’t doing much for me.” I tried to chuckle, but it sounded like a cough scratching at my throat instead. Harrison patted me on the back. I tensed up at his touch. The same hands that manipulated that thing in the wheelchair. He quickly noticed my demeanor change, and simply wished me a good Thursday. e
           I didn’t have a good Thursday. It just didn’t make any sense and it didn’t sit right with me. Did he have a huge stuffed doll that he pretended was his wife? She had seemed too sturdy, her joints moving and sagging like a real person. Did he keep her drugged up all day, worried she would leave him? Nothing made sense and all the conclusions I drew were too dark to seem real.
           “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
           “I probably did.” My coworker, and close friend Johnny, talked to me during lunch. I didn’t tell him any details, but I told him I followed Harrison home last night. “Come with me tonight. Tell me what you think it is.”
 
           I knew where Harrison lived now. I didn’t have to follow him home. We stopped and got burgers, fries, and shakes, like a true cop duo would. It helped settle my stomach and nerves, gave me something to concentrate on other than the shadows moving behind the curtains across the street. We chatted for a while, watching him move around, until once again he popped his head out from behind the curtains and looked up and down the street, before closing them tightly and walking into another room.
           Just like the night before, he wheeled out the chair with the thing in it. I nudged Johnny so he would look up and notice the movement.
           “Oh shit. Another person.” 
           “Yeah, but look,”
           We watched in silence as once again he dragged the limp thing out of the chair and propped it up at the table. This time, he messed with the head a bit more, leaning it back against the chair. Again though, it was limp, and when Harrison moved to his side of the table, it feel forward. Like it was passed out. I couldn’t think of it as his wife. This thing couldn’t be alive and well.
           “I don’t… I don’t get it, is she like, drugged up?” Johnny asked.
           “Or dead?”
           We sat in silence for a few more moments, watching as Harrison ate his dinner, seemingly looking up and talking to the thing across the table from him. The thing never moved.
           “Come on,” Johnny popped open his car door and started across the street.
           “No, John, no, stop!” I jumped out of the car and chased after him, grabbing his arm and trying to pull him back.
           “I want to see. It’s time. His wife is not okay.”
           “It’s not our responsibility,” He was already at the door. I ran up and stood meekly behind him as Johnny pounded on the door. Seconds later we heard the latches on the door click open, then the door swung open.
           “Oh hey, Johnny, Jackson, wassup?” Harrison leaned in the doorway, blocking any sight into his home. But the smell. I tried to keep a straight face, but when the smell hit me, I gagged. Johnny gagged. Harrison pretended not to notice.
           “Boss gave us your address, told us to stop by and get some info about the project at work. You left before we could ask, and you never seem to answer your phone, ya know?” Johnny chuckled and tried to take a step forward toward the door. Harrison didn’t budge.
           “Okay, what project?”
           “Can we come in? I’d love to meet the wife finally.”
           “No, she’s sick, and we’re in the middle of dinner, I’ll see you first thing in the morning, okay?”
           Johnny pushed his way inside anyways, Harrison screaming and clawing at him. I snuck in as well, and all three of us stood in the open kitchen, overlooking the dining room. And the thing. The thing in the wheelchair that had a human face but no eyes, a gaping mouth, yarn for hair, and stuffed, scarecrow-like body.
           I vomited. On the floor. In his kitchen. The smell, the face, the doll-like body, it was all too much. We ran out of his house, sputtering and gagging, tripping over our own feet and falling on his front lawn.
           We drove home in stunned silence. I dropped Johnny off and we vowed never to talk about this with anyone. While driving alone I sat wondering, not wanting to know the answer, but where was the rest of the body?
           Harrison never came back to work.