I can’t find my wife

Yesterday I shared something I wrote on Friday while between events at the Burnham-on-Sea Book Festival. An un-named narrator is getting ready to go to work when he realised his wife has inexplicably gone missing. He last saw her as he was in the kitchen getting their packed lunches ready; she went to the front door to put the empty milk bottles on the step . I don’t know where the idea came from, but you can find the first part here:

https://loiselsden.com/2024/05/17/it-seemed-a-bit-odd/↗

Here’s the next part:

I went into the kitchen in case she had gone in while I was in the sitting room or the dining room. I wondered if she had gone into the garden but the back door was still locked and the key was in the lock. I know we should put the key somewhere else but we never do. She wasn’t in the downstairs bathroom.
I went upstairs and she wasn’t in any of the bedrooms or en-suite or the bathroom.
I was getting a bit anxious, it was mystifying. I went downstairs and checked around and looked under the stairs. I went out in the garden and looked in the little summerhouse. I went in through the side door of the garage but it was empty.
I went back into the house and looked in all the rooms again and shouted out her name. I went out to the car but she wasn’t there.
I don’t know how she would have gone to the neighbours without me seeing her but I went next door to Jean. Her daughter was with her and they couldn’t help me. Jean had seen her yesterday putting the washing out.
I went to the other side; I don’t know them very well but they are friendly enough. He came to the door, but he didn’t know anything. He called his wife, Judy she’s called but they were no help either.
“When did you last see her?” he asked me and I explained I’d gone downstairs while she got ready for work.
“Have you rung her phone?” Judy asked.
I hadn’t even thought of that so I went back to the house and rang the phone. I could hear it ringing upstairs and I found it on her bedside table.
This was really ridiculous. There must be an explanation.
I was going to be late for work.
She must have left the house while I was in the kitchen getting our lunch ready. But where would she have gone? Why would she have gone to work on her own, and how would she have got there?
There was someone she worked with who lived down the road, he asked for a lift once when there was some problem with his car. But why would she have got a lift with him? I would go and knock on his door, he might have left for work already. Maybe someone else lived there she would know so I walked down to his house. In fact he hadn’t left for work and opened the door, but he couldn’t tell me anything. How curious,
I went to our house and looked everywhere all over again. I went outside again and looked in the garage again.
I decided I needed help. I went next door again, not to Jean and her daughter but to the other neighbours with the wife called Judy.
“I am sorry to trouble you,” I said. “But I can’t find my wife. I think she has disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“I can’t find my wife.”