I can see the commotion from my window.  Not very clearly, but across the barren earth, through the naked branches of the trees that separate our home from theirs – in a way that makes me feel like I’m spying. Which, let’s face it, is exactly what I’m doing.

It’s hard not to be curious, when there are so many lights flashing from our neighbor’s distant driveway I could swear I’m standing in front of the Bellagio.  But my interest runs deeper than an innate sense of curiosity.  And my curiosity has long since been replaced by a feeling of dread – a helplessness akin to watching your child make the same mistakes you did and standing unable to stop it.

But this – this is a mistake I would never make.  A shiver runs up my spine as yet another siren’s wail comes closer and closer, its vehicle finally pulling into the drive and beginning its long ascent to that house atop the hill.

“Can you get any better a sense of what’s going on?” my husband is suddenly beside me, holding out a cup of tea.  I take it gratefully and peer over the rim of my favorite mug only to find that he’s made it exactly the way I like it – one bag of Chamomile, one bag of Mint.  In spite of the circumstances I smile, overwhelmed as I so often am at the thoughtfulness of the man that I married.

“No,” I say, returning my thoughts and my eyes to the scene unfolding a little over an acre away.  “You sure we shouldn’t go over there?”  On this I realize I’m being a pest – I’ve asked him at least twice in the last fifteen minutes.

“Positive,” he answers, barely missing a beat.  “Whatever is happening, we’ll only be in the way.  They know our level of involvement.  If they have questions for us, they’ll seek us out.”

I nod slowly and take a sip of my tea, resigning to my husband’s judgment, which more often than not, turns out to be better than mine.  The man’s never made a rash decision in his life; I, on the other hand, could write the book on them – and their consequences. 

I study the man next to me as he stares intently out the window.  His temples show a little more gray every year, his hairline receding along with it, but he is still every inch the man I married.  His jaw is strong and covered with invariable sandpaper stubble - our sons’ are constantly teasing him about his ability to grow a full beard in less than 48 hours.  There is a scar on his left cheek that could easily be mistaken for a dimple – and another that cuts through his eyebrow.  Add these features to a complexion that is tanned from years of spending time outdoors, a few wrinkles around his eyes from squinting into the sun, and he definitely classifies as rugged.  But those moss colored eyes are as bright as they were 30 years ago, and when they find mine now, my heart still skips a beat.

“I hope she’s ok,” is all he says, as he gives my shoulder a squeeze.  I don’t need to respond for him to know that he’s just read my mind, and I have to focus to keep my lip from quivering. 

“I just wish there was something we could do…” I cast a sidelong glance at him, giving it one more shot. 

“We’re not going over there, Darby,” he says firmly.  “Not tonight.” 

I know he must mean it, because he rarely calls me by my full name.  On most occasions, he just calls me “D.”  Darby is reserved for only the very serious times, and as he says it now I can’t help but feel chagrined.  Just as quickly as I found myself adoring my husband minutes ago, I suddenly find myself wondering why I married such a stubborn man, anyway.

“Fine,” I mutter, and stalk away from the window.  I need some air, need to think, need to keep those awful thoughts from my mind, those questions that have been threatening to bubble up since the moment the first squad car pulled into their drive early this evening; Has he finally done it?

And more importantly, Why couldn’t I stop him?

The screen door slams behind me and suddenly I’m on the back porch, gripping the railing to stop the world from spinning around me.  I focus on breathing, focus on the varnished boards beneath my feat, finally sinking into the rocking chair behind me and letting out a long deep breath.  Ian and I bought these rocking chairs expecting to spend long summer evenings sitting quietly and sipping sweet tea from Mason jars.  I had visions of summer sunsets, the chorus of bullfrogs and crickets that would inevitably follow, and holding hands as we gazed across this land we had worked so hard for.  But more often than not, particularly over the last year, these chairs have served as my escape – a place to go and gather my thoughts – to form a plan that would work this time.  But it has not – I am sure of it, sure that whatever news we get tomorrow will be bad, will mean that all that thinking, all that planning, all those prayers, have been for naught.

A pool of light spills onto the floor of the darkened porch as Ian comes to sit beside me. With the sigh that accompanies most of his movements these days, he lowers himself into the chair next to mine and quietly rocks.

Finally his gentle voice breaks the silence.  “So here we are.  Just as we always imagined.”

“The circumstances are a little different though,” I remind him.  He nods solemnly and says nothing, just looks out over the land.  I follow his gaze to the top of the ridge, and watch as the last of the light seeps from the sky, the bare, unprotected branches of the trees casting long shadows like fingers across the landscape.  From here, the small evergreens shivering amongst the hardwoods look like children clinging to their parents’ legs, shaking and afraid in the cold of an Eastern mid-January.

From the neighboring farm, the sirens start up again and then slowly begin to fade into the distance.  Ian and I make it back to the window in just enough time to watch the last car pull from the long gravel drive and turn towards town.  With one glance at the darkened house, I am almost lured to believe that no one remains. 

But I know better. 

I stay and I watch – long after the moon has risen, long after Ian has left.  And now, just as I predicted, a single light turns on in the upstairs bedroom.  The one he never let us near.

And from the dusky shadows comes a lone silhouette, dark against the yellow light of the room.  Though he's looking straight at this window, I am glad he cannot see me, standing in our darkened den.  But I watch him as he watches us, finally alone in a house that shouldn’t be his.  I wonder what he’s thinking, what he’s plotting now.  For a long while we stand this way – face to face, secret to secret, only the frozen darkness between us.  Though he cannot see me, he knows I am here, and he knows I will not be the first to leave.

“Uncle,” I imagine him saying as he backs away from his window slowly, turning the light off behind him.  But I stay where I am, still watching, still waiting, for I know he is not done yet.

Yet fatigue gets the best of me, and before long I trudge upstairs to bed.  Ian is still awake reading, and as I brush my teeth and pull my nightgown on over my head, I wonder how he can be doing anything else right now. 

But he has always been better than I am at waiting. 

I crawl into bed, noting that my electric blanket has not only been turned on to warm my side of the bed, but has already been turned back down to the temperature I keep it at all night, and again I marvel at the man I married.  Kissing him goodnight, I roll over and try to sleep.  But sleep doesn’t come as I knew it wouldn’t – even long after Ian has turned off his light and is happily snoring, one arm carelessly flung over my middle in the familiar pose that passes for spooning after so many years of marriage. 

For what feels like hours I lie awake, until the sound I’ve been expecting finally ricochets across the darkness like a gunshot.

A little over an acre away, a door slams, and he is somewhere out in the night.  I have no idea where he is going, but that same instinct that first warned me about him rears its head to tell me that it is in this general direction.  A shiver of absolute dread works its way up my spine one vertebrae at a time, and I tuck in closer to Ian, pulling the quilt up to my nose like a child afraid of the dark.

Knowing that sleep will not find me as long as he is out there, I close my eyes and allow myself to reminisce, to remember, to regret, letting my thoughts of the past pick me up and carry me back...

{rokintensedebate}