We Are Us

Mrs. Stockton was found unconscious, with a head wound and other unspecified injuries, and was immediately transported to the Lower Keys Medical Center. Mr. Stockton, twenty-nine, has not been found.

The couple met at Worthington University as freshmen, marrying less than two years after their graduation. By all accounts, their marriage is a happy one, and Mr. Stockton is extremely successful and well respected among his Wall Street peers.

The U.S. Coast Guard, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, and the Marine Enforcement Unit are searching for Stockton, and a forensics team is scouring both vessels for any evidence of foul play. Police have labeled his disappearance as “suspicious” but are not ruling anything out at this early stage in their investigation.

The police seized my phone as part of their forensic examination. I gave my password to Detective Diaz without hesitation, although if they expect to learn much, they will be disappointed. A few pictures. To do lists. Emails, most of them mass mailings from retail stores or online shopping sites. Contact information for Tucker, Wren, my mother, and sister. Doctors. My dentist. My therapist. A few other people I haven’t reached out to in months, if not longer.

They won’t find any of Gavin’s messages. He stopped leaving them after that afternoon in my apartment, the week before my wedding. And at Tucker’s insistence, because I refused to drag my iPad with me wherever I went, I switched to an iPhone when I became pregnant so we could FaceTime while he was traveling. I lost everything from Gavin in the process.

Since Sadie walked in on me talking to Gavin, she’s been at my bedside practically around the clock, which unfortunately means he hasn’t. I used Sadie’s phone to speak briefly with our mother, who lives in northern Maine now, courtesy of Tucker. She’d relapsed, again, a couple of years ago and after another long stint in rehab, Tucker discovered a place, a commune really, that believed in living off the land and avoiding all chemicals and additives, including caffeine, alcohol, and drugs. It works for her, and allowed Sadie to leave Sackett and move into Manhattan with me. The community also takes particular pride in remaining “unplugged.” In my mother’s case, ignorance is bliss.

According to Sadie, news of Tucker’s disappearance has “grown legs.” A few reporters had even trekked out to Worthington University to report from campus, standing right outside the dorm we shared during our freshman year. My thumb had hovered over the remote, unable to change the cha

My years at WU belong firmly in the past. No good will come of unearthing that particular skeleton.

And from what Gavin told me, there are plenty of other skeletons in our closet, ones I had no idea about. The talking heads on the twenty-four-hour news programs are having a field day, and they don’t even know about the criminal accusations being levied at Tucker. Yet.

On-screen, our marriage looks so glamorous, filled with luxurious vacations and black-tie galas. In reality, those vacations were usually business trips, with Wren joining us as often as not. And at most social events, I’d felt like a ma

Tucker expected me to be perfect, or at least a perfect reflection of him. Anything less was unacceptable. Not just to him, but to me, too. It was almost as if, by marrying him, I’d been given a cloak of invincibility. As long as I looked like a Stockton and acted like a Stockton, I could think like a Stockton, feel like a Stockton. All the bad things that happened to Poppy Whitman—they never happened.

Walking down the aisle, I’d believed that each step toward Tucker took me closer to a fairy-tale life. Back when I felt like Cinderella about to marry her Prince Charming and live happily ever after.

How wrong I’d been.

I’d sworn to love, honor, and cherish Tucker Stockton. I’d married him with the best of intentions, pla

The life I see on screen is not the one we lived. There are no photos of me sitting alone in our apartment, waiting on eggshells for Tucker to get home from the office, hoping he’s in a decent mood. None of a pink-tinted puddle on a white sheepskin rug, or of our empty nursery. No reporter cutting to a video of Tucker and I in the hospital, saying a final goodbye to our babies.

A year ago, I thought Tucker and I had it all. He’d just taken over his family’s business and I was pregnant with not just one—but two Stockton heirs.

Until I wasn’t anymore.

The stability I’d been thirsting for my whole life was ripped away from me, ripped out of me. I learned that being a Stockton didn’t guarantee happiness or security or anything at all.

No marriage certificate could patch the fractures and blemishes that marked our relationship, glazing it with a glossy sheen. Once we lost our babies, our elegant Manhattan penthouse became the loneliest place in the world.

For the thousandth time, I try to imagine my last moments with Tucker. Alone, on the open water, had we finally given up what little pretense remained of our marriage? Did I bring up divorce, as I’d pla

What if Tucker refused to let me go? The man I married ca

At what point did it become violent?

If I believe Gavin, Tucker staged the scene to escape criminal charges. But Gavin doesn’t have all the facts. He doesn’t know that I’ve spent the better part of the past nine months wishing Tucker dead, fantasizing about a life without him.

But the detectives don’t have all the facts either. They only just learned of Tucker’s crimes. And they ca

If Tucker knew he was about to go to jail, facing years behind bars… I have no doubt he would do anything he could to evade the law. Including faking his own death.

Will any of us ever know the truth?