Two days! Two fucking days of not knowing where my wife is. Since I received the text from Emma, I’ve been going crazy with worry. I could track her down to New Mexico but couldn’t find any place where she would be receiving help, something she claims and promises she’s doing.

Not able to return to work because my mind has been anywhere but on the animals I love treating, I’m on my tummy with Aspen when my phone rings. She hates tummy time, and all those books Emma read before the baby was born say you must encourage it. All my baby is doing is crying her head off in the tummy position. Of course, in all my wisdom, I’m trying to coach her and encourage a six-month-old, but it’s only pissing her off. Now, she’s red faced, so I grab her while trying to get to my phone at the same time.

“Hello,” I answer when I’m sure I missed the call.

“Dr. Hunter?” a deep voice asks on the other end of the line.

“Yes, that’s me,” I utter, rocking Aspen back and forth in my hands, trying to calm her down.

“Ah, good, but it sounds like I caught you at a bad time. Aspen sure doesn’t sound very happy.”

This gives me the creeps and sends a shiver down my spine at the mention of my daughter’s name. “Who the hell is this?” I ask, both pissed off and scared.

“Ah, I’m sorry, I must sound like a creeper knowing your baby’s name. Let me start again. My name is Anders Charmaine, owner and operator of Desert Oasis Treatment Facility and Commune.”

At those words, the pent-up frustration of this man knowing my daughter’s name, the room becomes blurry, and I can feel my pulse quicken.

“Dr. Hunter, I am so sorry. I understand my words have scared you and for good reason. I swear I am one of the good guys.” His voice elevates. “I called to discuss Emma.”

Before I threaten violence to this man, a little common sense comes back to me when I ask, “Do you know where my wife is?”

“Yes, she’s with us. She arrived two days ago, and after our new guests get settled in, we reach out to their families. Some, like you, are not aware that their loved ones are here. One of the major foundations of this facility is that they are not allowed to hide and grant us limited permission to share part of their treatment with you. Unfortunately, we are still bound to the laws of HIPAA, and Emma has only allowed us to let you know, at this point, that she’s here. I can share with you how some of our programs work but not the progress, not yet.”

I now have Aspen settled. Placing her in the high chair and grabbing her rice pinwheels as a late-morning snack, I sit in front of her with the phone cradled in the crook of my neck, trying to power on my MacBook. “You said you are from the Desert Oasis in New Mexico. I assume that is Albuquerque?” When I called the cell phone associated with the text message Ems sent me, I spoke with some young girl. She told me they were at the airport in Albuquerque when Emma asked to borrow it.

“Yes, we are an hour away. And if I had to guess, you are looking me up right now?”

I wanted to say fuck yeah, I’m looking you up since you have my wife, and right now, I want to make sure she’s not being brainwashed. It’s like Emma to do this her way, so I don’t give a fuck if it’s Captain Kangaroo offering help. If it works, I’ll be his number one fan.

When I pull up the information from Google, it looks like a post-sixties Woodstock concert site in the desert with a sunset that you’d see on some sort of retreat brochure.

“Dr. Hunter, our facility certainly doesn’t fit the mold of most mental health places, but our recovery rate is over ninety percent, which is unheard of in the mental health field. I’m not a doctor, but I was once a patient. A long time ago at our sister retreat in Texas, I took their idea and started one here, away from the memories that plagued me in my hometown. But I can tell you, we use doctors, nurses, medicines, and everything that most sites use, but we customize a plan. We will push Emma, but more so, she has agreed to it, which is a wonderful start.”

“So, tell me this, Jerry Garcia”—because looking at it, all I can picture is dead heads and a fuck ton of tie dye—“how much is this running me? I mean, my wife took forty K out of our savings, which, quite honestly, was budgeted for other things in our life, like a babysitter, and I’m barely working. So what is your cost?”

“Our average pledge is thirty thousand dollars, but that is if you are here three months or two years. Anything before three months is returned to the individual with medical costs and boarding taken out.” I sigh, and before I have a chance to insult his life’s work, he says, “Dr. Hunter, I get it. We are not of the mold, but if I’m being honest, mental health in the United States is suffering. So if I can help your wife be successful, no harm, no foul, and I’ll have restored her to you, are you willing to give it a try?”

I can’t argue with his logic. We have already paid twenty thousand, and Nick had been willing to dole out fifty for the place in LA. “Okay, Mr. Charmaine, I’ll be open to this, but please, tell me how you think you will be able to help my wife.”

* * *

Knowing that Emma is someplace getting much-needed help fills me with the confidence to take my own life back. Arranging with Hils, my mom, and the neighbor across the street, I arrive back to work ready to take on the world. Nick’s surprised to see me and pulls me out of a routine shot appointment, replacing me with Dr. Chandler.

“I was surprised when Kevin told me you were back.”

To say I was wallowing in a small anxiety attack would be an understatement; Nick wanted me to take care of myself, first and foremost. “I have to start living again. I need to get our life in order for when Emma returns to us.”

Slumping over, he braces himself, and I see on his face his ability to accept that Emma may never come back to us. “Tyler, you have to realize as much as I want her back …”

Scrubbing my face, over the scruff that has grown in the past week, I’m not sure how he will take the news. Nick is a man of science, and for that reason, he may not see this facility in the same light as Emma sees it. “Actually, I’m trying to be optimistic. I heard from the facility where Emma checked herself into, and though they are a bit nontraditional, I think Emma may have a chance.”

Nick is many things to me, and he’s great in all these ways, but I know him well enough to know when he’s about to lose it. He’s had so much piled on him. First, Rose and Lorel, then Ems’s attempted suicide, and now this. For a man of science, this whole earthy mumbo jumbo will have him heading to New Mexico on the next flight.

When he doesn’t say a word, I take it upon myself to type the information of the facility into the iPhone and hand it to him to process in his own time. Before I can reach the door of the exam room where we were talking, he calls my name. “Tyler, this isn’t what I would have picked for her.”

Stopping with my hand on the doorknob, I don’t turn to look at him. With Ems, the added responsibility of being a single dad, and the work of our clinic, I can’t take a tantrum from Nick.

I hear him take a deep breath and exhale slowly when he finally finishes his sentence, “But nothing up till now has worked. If you give me the info, I’ll arrange payment.”

I only nod my head because I can’t get into logistics right now about how Ems already paid for it. I’ll tackle that subject another day.