The Whole World by Emily Winslow

some people back home who don’t believe in it, but I hope every day that it’s really true.
    A man knocked and entered without waiting for the invitation. “I’d like to ask you a few questions, Miss Bailey.”
    This was different. See? Find what’s changed. The accent was different. It helped to be in another country. This was not the same. It was not happening again.
    He asked Allison to wait outside and took her place across the table from me. I gathered up the papers that were spread there, and reached to close an open book. He splayed his whole hand across both pages. He read the chapter title upside down. It was “Mating Systems.” As soon as he backed off to get out a small notebook I slammed the textbook shut.
    “Do you know Nicholas Frey?” he asked.
    “Yes.” He wrote that down, just the one word.
    “And what is the nature of your relationship?”
    “We’re friends.” The policeman nodded and wrote Friends . He put a dot after it, like it was a whole sentence, and looked back up at me.
    “We’ve been alerted that he failed to appear for a meeting yesterday morning, then missed an appointment with his supervisor. He hasn’t been to the house where he rents a room since Wednesday. When was the last time you saw him?”
    “Uh—three days ago. Four? It was Tuesday. Today’s Friday. I saw him Tuesday.”
    He wrote that down. He wasn’t hiding his notes from me. I was clearly meant to see my own words transcribed. “I see,” he said. “May I ask what you were doing, what was his mood, and so on?”
    “I—we—went to the Sedgwick. That’s the geology museum. He seemed normal.”
    “Normal?”
    “Just Nick.”
    “Ah. Did he have any plans?”
    My face heated up, but the policeman was still talking. “Was he going out with friends, heading out of town?”
    “It’s nearly the end of term. He wouldn’t go out of town now.”
    “No,” the policeman agreed. He wrote down: End of term . Then asked, “Is there any reason you can suggest why he might have chosen to leave so suddenly?”
    “You think he left on purpose?” Surely Nick was too stable to run away over a mere embarrassment. For all he knew I’d had stomach flu and it was nothing personal. This wasn’t my fault.
    He leaned in, fascinated. “You don’t? What do you think happened?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “But you don’t think he left willingly.”
    “He wouldn’t do that.” He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t let anyone down; he wouldn’t make anyone worry. The policeman folded his notepad and put it back into his pocket.
    “You’ve been described to us as his girlfriend….”
    “By whom?” I was indignant. I was on the offensive now.
    “Various sources. It isn’t true?”
    “No,” I said.
    “Maybe he wanted it to be true?”
    “No.” It was a lie, but it didn’t feel like a lie.
    “Anything on his mind lately? Troubles with his work …?”
    “Nothing that I know of.”
    “All right,” he said, punctuating his words by clicking his pen closed.
    “Are you worried about him?” he asked, as if it were a personal question.
    I swallowed. “Yes.” If the police were involved, I was pretty sure we all needed to worry.
    He waited, but I didn’t say anything else.
    “All right,” he finished at last. “Thank you for your time, Miss Bailey. May I give you my card? I’d like you to ring me if you think of anything else. I’ll come by again.”
    I’d hidden my hands inside my sleeves. Two fingers peeped out to take the card.
    “He’s not really missing,” I called out to the policeman’s back. He turned around and stared hard at me. I realized what I’d said was ridiculous. “I mean,” I added in a whisper, “that this isn’t happening. Okay?”
    The policeman nodded slowly. Allison stepped in. I think she’d listened through the door. “We have a lot of work to do,” she announced.
    She watched out the window to see the policeman leave. She waited for him to pass the Porters’ Lodge before