Her Husband is Somewhere

The lady came over to my counter at 3:25. I remember this fact with clarity because her face was not one I could go easily forgetting and her story much the same. I find myself still unable to piece together the encounter, from all it was she told me and all it was that she did. But what I have found myself thinking is that some aspect is wrong, feels wrong; whether she or I, I am unable to tell. There is a motion of uneasiness and discomfort that arises when the story comes to mind, and it is for that reason I have felt I must put this to paper. To get rid of that God awful feeling.

Allow me to share.

I work at a booth inside of a large retail store where people can sign up for or use VISA cards that the store offers. I run that VISA booth. Every day 20 to 30 people get signed up for a card, some days much more than others. I gain commission for each VISA that I "sell" at a rate of $5 per VISA, a metric that not only motivates me to be the best salesman possible but also to be friendly and alert; the job most notably has improved the latter ability. Most days the booth isn't as busy as other departments of the store, leaving me with makeshift assignments called "projects" that typically need completed before close.

A project itself and all that is required for completion can vary, but usually, projects consist of folding or hanging clothes that have been left in an unkempt manner within a cart so that they can eventually make their way onto the sales floor. Obviously projects don't make up the entirety of my shifts, but they do find their own ways of sneaking into my hours. When the lady arrived, I was in the middle of a project. I was folding T-shirts.

As mentioned, it was 3:25 when she came, and she did so with a cart that was half-full of wintry clothes such as coats, beanies, and gloves. The lady was an older woman with gray hair, older in the sense that she looked to be anywhere between 60 and 80 years of age but was not in need of extra assistance to be, to function. She had come up to the left side of my counter, and being focused on completing my project, some time went by before I gazed up at my surroundings and noticed her intently looking at me yet saying nothing, even after I looked her way. The learned alertness I've become settled into sprung out when I saw her, and quickly I shuffled over.

"Hello, ma'am," I said in my customer service voice, "What can I do for you today?"

"Hi, yes. I'm looking to apply for a VISA card."

"Of course, yeah," I responded in a similar tone, near giddy.

“I’m waiting for my husband, though,” she let me know. “My husband is somewhere.” Her voice trailed off a little.

"Oh, okay."

"I don't know where he is," she said, and began looking around the general area, first toward the stairs and the escalators then to the sports and women’s clothing sections. She looked confused.

"Sorry if I'm bothering you."

"Not at all," I let her know. "The store's been really quiet today. They're really only having me fold clothes because there hasn't been much of anything else to do."

"Oh, okay,” she let out, peering around again with a concerned look on her face. “Do you mind if I wait here for him? He should be here soon."

"No, that's completely fine. I'm going to fold some more clothes in the meantime, and if he comes back and I don't notice, just holler at me, okay?"

"Okay," she responded.

I went back to folding the T-shirts but all-at-once realized that I had ought to offer her some information about the card that she may be curious about come time to apply. I shuffled back over.

"While we're waiting," I said in a friendly voice, "would you like to know any more information about the card?"

"Um, no. I think I'm good," she told me, and so without any way of assisting her further, I then got back into the groove of working on my project.

It wasn't until about two or three minutes later when I had reared up my head from finishing one of the four boxes of shirts I had been assigned that I realized the lady was still there. In the same spot with the same confused look on her face, she seemed to be staring up at the sky, pondering even then where her husband could possibly be. That's about when I truly began wondering where it was he must've gone.

Of course, he could just be in the restroom, but wouldn’t she have known that? Shouldn’t she? Also, we live in an age of technology. Couldn’t she have given him a call and asked his whereabouts that way?

'Maybe her phone is dead,' I thought, trying to rationalize the situation, “Or maybe his is. I don't know.' What became apparent as a few minutes of waiting turned into a good few is that something had to be wrong, and the situation quickly messed with my perception of the time and events.

I had checked the time when she came over and my work phone informed me that it was 3:25 when she appeared. But before long, the time came to be 3:30, 3:35, and even nearing 3:40. Too much time. And that was when the strangest part occurred.

At 3:39 I checked the time again, and as I did, the lady got into her purse and dug around for a little bit before pulling out a small white slip of paper. I became quickly perplexed at the situation. Not only had she dug this piece of paper out of her purse and laid it on the side of the counter, she dug back in for another object, a pen.

I watched it all, enveloped by that point. She took out a black-inked ballpoint pen from her purse, undid its cap, set her purse down on the counter next to the slip of paper, and began writing. I was intrigued and kept my eyes glued, wondering all the while where her husband must be. As she began to write and as I began to try and spot the message she was labeling out, I noticed an oddity.

All she was writing down were numbers, random numbers without any apparent meaning. The lady had just begun writing out whatever numbers seemed on her mind, yet wrote so diligently as if in some way there was some sort of purpose behind the string of numbers.

When I realized she wasn’t writing any words, I decided to let her be and went back to folding T-shirts, feeling weird due to the situation but suspecting that there may be the chance the lady had something wrong going on either in her mind or in being, that maybe what was needed out me of above all else was to give her space, and that I did. For a moment.

“Here,” she whispered. I turned my head in that quick, alert manner I had become accustomed to, and saw as I did that she had folded the slip in half, and had pushed it closer to me as if the message inside was top-secret. She had put her pen away and moved her purse off the counter while I had gone back to the project, and as I shuffled over to pick up the piece of paper she said, “I’m going to go look for my husband. I’ll be back soon.”

I wasn’t sure whether or not I believed her, about her being back soon, and there again came the question of where her husband could possibly be. I hoped she would find him peeking out from around a corner and that they’d enjoy a good laugh about it and sign up, not because I wanted the commission but because her husband's absence had started to worry me. There came an anxiety in the air that pressured me into that state, and the worry on the woman’s face only perpetuated that emotion.

It came to mind then that maybe her husband didn’t exist. Not in the sense that he had never come to be, but the feeling arose that perhaps her husband had been real and had died and some mental aspect of the lady’s being pushed her into thinking he was around, around somewhere. I hoped hard that that motion of mine was untrue.

As the lady walked off I picked up the slip of paper she slid over and opened it up. On the back was the first and last name of a store associate, which I’m guessing was the employee that referred her over. On the inside, where I had seen her begin writing, she had written “0608111480 587890719”. No other markings, no letters, no signature, explanation, nothing. I had to look back and forth between the sides of the paper, neither changing appearance as I did.

I was so drawn into the concept of what had occurred before my own eyes that I had almost forgotten I was still on the clock and became startled when a customer came up to me and asked if the store had any elevators they could use. I told them we did and pointed them in the correct direction before immediately settling my eyes back again on the paper. Her sloppy handwriting, numbers that had been written fast as if remembered and known not as to confuse but to convey a potential message. But I, sadly, did not understand what that message could be, and seeing no better alternative, I stuck the paper in one of the drawers in the counter and waited patiently for the woman to return so I could kindly ask what it was she meant to convey.

But she never came back.

I swear I never saw her again. As soon as she made her way into the women's section, it was as if she had been swallowed by a black hole. I never saw her pass by, talk to any other employee, shop, find her husband, anything. To me it seemed she disappeared and that was all there was that could be said.

Maybe she left the store, maybe she found her husband but had to leave. I’ll never know. I’ve never seen her face since, and it had gotten to the point that while I have relayed the story to all of my co-workers in my department, the fact that no updates have occurred makes me question whether the event actually even took place or if I went crazy and imagined it all. I can’t believe that I did, but the nature of the situation pushes me to question myself.

The lady was a good customer and she was nice for as long as I knew her. She did not yell or raise her voice at me, nor show any signs of aggression. She treated me kindly and treated her husband kindly, never becoming angered by his lack of appearance. I do not believe that she was mentally out of it or disabled in any way, but if my thoughts were correct in that her husband was real but is no longer living, I would be devastated. I wish I could see her again.

If I ever see her out somewhere and she is in need of a friend, I would be that friend. If she needed a hug, I would lend her that hug. If she needed a VISA, I’d get her that VISA.

And if she ever comes back asking for her husband, I’ll ask her if she’s yet to check the women’s section.