Wordlessly, Gabby slides from my side and goes to him, taking his hand in hers.
‘What if something’s happened to her, Gabby?’ he croaks. ‘I left for work on Saturday and didn’t look back once. I just wanted peace from it all, you know? But now…’
‘You don’t know anything bad has happened,’ Gabby soothes.
‘No, but I know nothing good has.’
Gabby’s lips open, a perky distraction on the tip of her tongue, but one look at Otis and she knows it won’t cut it. She falls silent. We all do, glancing at the time because until the police come, all we can do is wait.
The atmosphere before their arrival is tense. The wind whistling outside breaks the oppressive absence of conversation, but no one comments on it. Never have I witnessed weather mimic a mood so perfectly – a dark, brooding sky and rainfall lashing the windows, landing like teardrops. It’s almost poetic.
When sitting becomes too much, Otis paces the room, fizzing with manic energy. His phone ringing interrupts the silence, but every time he sees who is calling, he looks like he wants to throw his phone at the wall. By the sixth call, Otis shuts his phone in a kitchen drawer.
While there, he pours himself another whisky, but before he takes a sip, he pushes the glass over and walks away. Amber liquid pools across the counter, trickling onto the floor.
‘Otis, sit down,’ Gabby instructs, hurrying to the scene to tidy the mess.
Otis follows her command. He slumps onto a seat at the dining table, absent-mindedly running his finger back and forth across the edge of it.
‘Lex hated this table,’ he says. ‘Mum got it for us as a wedding present. Well, I paid for it, but Mum picked it. A family table, she called it. Twelve seats. Lex said, “What family has ten children?”, but Mum wouldn’t budge. She was adamant that a dining table is the heart of a home. A place where happy memories are made.’
I think of the dining table in my own home, the wood chipped and stained by glasses of red wine from nights with friends I’ve allowed toslip out of my life. That table was where I wrote my first novel, back when I saw myself as too much of a novice to buy a desk.
With the money I received from my book deal, I purchased one as a sign of commitment to my new career, but sometimes I find myself pining for the life I had when I was at the dining table. Back then, there was a simplicity to writing I’ll never have again. There was no pressure, no expectation, just the flow of someone who had a story to tell.
‘I should have put my foot down,’ Otis says, pulling my focus. ‘Said no to the table and the expectation that we’d be able to fill it with a big family. Maybe Lex would have been happier then. Maybe things wouldn’t have ended up like this.’
‘Otis,’ I begin, but he ignores me and looks at Gabby.
‘How long has it been since I called the police?’ he asks.
Gabby’s expression tightens as she checks the time on her phone. ‘Not long, you’ve only been home an hour and a half.’
Otis groans. ‘Great. Who knows how long they’ll be? It’s one of the perks of living in the middle of nowhere – the worst police presence known to mankind.’ Defeated, Otis drops his head in his hands. His fingers curl, his nails pressing into the top of his skull like he’s about to tear the skin free from the bone.
‘Otis,’ Gabby begins, but when he looks up, a fierce determination has taken over him.
‘I can’t sit here. It’s driving me insane.’
‘Don’t be silly. You need to be here when the police arrive.’
‘I can’t do it, Gabs. I can’t sit and act like every second isn’t torture, thinking of all the times I was opposite my wife and never tried to make things better for her.’
‘What are you doing?’ Gabby asks, her voice rising an octave when Otis stands up.
‘I’m going out.’
‘Out? Out where?’
Otis leaves the room without answering.
‘Otis, you need to be here when the police arrive!’ Gabby shouts, rushing after him. I stay put, more aware of my position as an outsider here than ever before.
Seconds later, Otis storms back into the kitchen wearing a raincoat over his clothes. ‘Lex left the house from this room. If I retrace her steps, maybe I’ll find something.’
‘But you don’t know where her steps took her,’ Gabby argues.
‘She left through that door,’ Otis says, pointing to the bifold doors. ‘She had to have gone somewhere from there.’