Chapter 3: The Empty Rooms Before The Hallway Door
I carried Tommy first.
He was light enough that the weight frightened me. His fabric onesie hung loose at his shoulders, and his head rested against the crook of my arm without resistance. Lily followed close beside me, one hand gripping the back of my jacket while I kept my other arm around her waist. She moved slowly, dragging one knee and then the other across the floor, but she refused to be left behind.
The living room opened off the hallway. I lowered Tommy onto the couch, placing a folded cushion beneath his head, then helped Lily sit beside him. Their faces looked washed out in the dimness. I touched Tommy's cheek, then Lily's forehead. Neither reacted much. The house held its silence around us.
I searched the coffee table, the shelves, and the floor beneath the couch. There was no cup, no plate, no bottle, nothing I could use. The room looked arranged rather than lived in. A blanket lay folded over one arm of the couch. The television was dark. A small toy rested near the wall, untouched and clean.
Lily watched me without speaking.
I moved into the kitchen, keeping the doorway in sight. The overhead light flickered once before coming on, making the counters and cabinets appear harsher than they had in the dark. I opened the refrigerator. Cold air spilled over my hands. Inside were containers, wrapped food, and a pitcher on the lower shelf. I took the pitcher and a glass.
There was no sign of my wife. Not in the kitchen, not at the table, not near the sink. Her coat was missing from the hook by the back entrance, but that told me nothing. The absence felt deliberate only because everything else felt deliberate too.
I filled the glass and returned to the couch. Lily reached for it before I could offer it to her. Her fingers trembled around the rim. I steadied the glass while she took a small sip, then another. Tommy did not wake when I touched the damp edge to his lips. I stopped before forcing anything.
The refrigerator hummed behind me. Somewhere in the house, a pipe clicked once and went still.
I checked the bathroom next. The door stood open. The light was off. A towel lay on the floor near the tub, dry and undisturbed. I looked behind the shower curtain, inside the cabinet, and beneath the sink, though I already knew she could not be there. I opened the bedroom door.
The bed was made. My wife's side held no crease. Her shoes were gone from the floor, but a hairbrush remained on the dresser with several pale strands caught in its teeth. I picked it up, then set it down again. The ordinary object made her absence sharper, not less.
I searched the other rooms one by one. Each was empty. No note waited on a counter. No dropped bag, no overturned chair, no visible struggle gave me a direction. I found a clean towel in a linen closet and carried it back to the living room. Lily had shifted closer to Tommy, her shoulder curved protectively around him.
I wrapped the towel beneath Tommy's body and lifted him against my chest. Lily slid from the couch and took my free hand. Together we returned to the hallway.
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The locked wooden door waited at the far end, unchanged. I looked back at the empty rooms behind us: the kitchen with its open refrigerator, the bedroom with the untouched brush, the bathroom with its fallen towel. My wife had told the children to stay quiet, yet she was nowhere in the part of the house I could enter.
I set the pitcher on the floor and held Tommy more securely. The answer to her absence was behind that door, or connected to it. I took one step toward the lock.
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