It's a long night ahead that I'm looking down the barrel of, and not at all one that I'm looking forward to whiling away.
It's agonizing, dealing with the quiet hours. When all you can do is lay awake, staring up at the ceiling: because no amount of deep breathing, or counting sheep, or trying to go through the rituals and routines you've constructed so elaborately over the years to be able to put your mind at ease- check the doors, the windows, make sure the locks are holding true: will help.
The disquiet sits, in the back of your skull: scraping away like the centipedes mouldering in the earth, swimming through the wet loam by the lake side. I hate turning over river rocks and finding them beneath: they always race out, trying to run every which way: and you're left hopping and wobbling and scrambling so they don't run over your feet.
The officers asked if there was anyone they should contact, anyone at all they could get in touch with to keep an eye over me through the night- they were nervous, in the skittish way outsiders often are. Sawnbone is quiet, close knit- intimate in the sickening closeness that comes with going cradle to grave with the same faces, day in and day out.
It's easy to see who doesn't quite fit in: the awkward way they hold themselves, the clipped, rapid fire speech that flutters at the edges with a nervousness of the deep woods: the way they shiver and look away when the shadows settle long at noon.
I think they were also worried that I'd be beside myself.
There's no hotels out here- hardly anyone passes by Sawnbone who isn't a local, or family to someone who is- and the next town over has a few places to lay your head down for the night, but the roads are rough and hard to traverse. When the winters come- there's no getting in or out.
They politely suggested that I might find it comforting to stay the night with a friend of the family, then- another local in town, asked if there was anyone that I thought would be willing to. I'm sure that there would be- but there's no sense in it.
When Father comes back home, the first place he's going to go to is home, obviously. Home is where the heart is. And after all, like they tell all of us snot nosed, skinned knee kids, when we're still flush with youth and rocking sunburned noses and terrible haircuts: if you're lost, you stay put. You don't move to a secondary location.
When he's back, he'll see the porch light on- and I'll be laid up awake in my room, slip down when the stairs creak- and ask him where the hell he's been, what the hell did he think he was doing: half of the town's been hunting in the woods for him, the other half's been organizing logistics and searching nearby hospitals and gaols, even- you can't just up and leave like that. People will worry. People will notice you've gone missing.
So it's me, the long night, and countless hours spent laying awake, wishing dawn would break already.