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“I tried calling Linda again,” Rosemary says against his back, as they stand in the dark kitchen. Her voice is hoarse. “She didn’t pick up.”
Sophie went to bed hours ago, sleeping off the wisdom tooth pain. Her dentist appointment had been just yesterday, and she was still in a great deal of pain. Jack is quietly thankful for it, because he doesn’t know what he would even say to her if she was awake and as worried as they are.
“He won’t pick up,” his knuckles are white, hands gripping the rim of the kitchen sink. The phone, stand and all, has been moved temporarily into the kitchen, since it’s the farthest corner of the house from Sophie’s room. They’ve been trying to keep quiet.
He wants to scream.
“It’s been more than a day, Jack,” Rosemary’s voice crack does him in. The tears burn at his throat and eyes, and he turns around to fall into her arms, clutching her tight. Her mouth at the crown of his head, his face tucked into her throat. He smothers the choking sobs against her skin, still warm from the shower. This isn’t fair. None of it is fair.
They stand in the kitchen for a while longer. There are no words, no consolations to offer.
The pit in both of their stomachs is tinged with parental instinct.
Jack won’t be the one to voice it, but they both know that nothing will be the same again.
Ed and Molly aren’t coming home.
They crawl into bed, faces damp, and throats tight. Jack is little spoon for the first time in a long time, and Rosie’s arm is a tight band around his ribs. His breathing is too loud in the quiet of their room, but her hand slides into his, and there is a damp heat spreading across the space between his shoulder-blades, where her face is hidden, and he finds he doesn’t mind. His free hand clenches into a fist, tucked near his mouth. He would bite his knuckles, muffle the sobs, batter down the screams, but the weight crushing his heart is simply too much to try and run from.
He sobs into the empty space, and feels Rosemary shaking, her own silent weeping shown only in the tremor of her shoulders and the nails digging into the back of his hand.
In the morning they’ll have to decide what to do, but for now. For now they lie entangled and despairing in the darkness of their room.