"Where's the knife that goes here?", he said, two weeks ago today.  I remember using it, too.  It is the second big knife down from the vegetable slicing knife in the block we bought a few years ago.  It was, and is, our first set of recognizable brand name knives and when we bought it we felt proud.  Accomplished.

I don't know where the knife went.  I remember using it.  I was prepping food, and the veggie knife was dirty; it had been used so many times.  I pulled the next knife below it in the block, because I was lazy.  I remember saying to myself, using this knife for this reason is really kind of stupid. But I did it anyway.

We left, to go on vacation,  without finding the knife.  A week ago we returned home and the knife had not shown itself.  I think I believed that if we just walked away, if we just forgot about it and came back later, the knife would appear.

The knife did not.

Today, another search did not reveal the missing knife.  We both know that the other didn't take the knife, yet we say to each other, "are you sure you didn't... do this with it, or that with it?"

Of course we are certain.  Who takes a knife anywhere but the kitchen?  NO ONE in our house.  But the knife is missing.  There are just us two, here.  We look each to the other, we talk about the knife, we shrug toward each other.  We laugh-but-cringe at the fact we can't find it.

The knife is somewhere.  Likely, it is in a drawer or a freezer or a cupboard. It is just a matter of time, in this house, before we find it.  It won't be long.

Our eyes lit up when we discovered it missing, however.  For just a moment we shared a silence.

Where. Is. The. Knife.

We shrugged it off, uneasily.  But what is in our minds is:  Where. Is. The. Knife.

The knife is missing and we cannot find it.