Among the Missing
By K Roberts
It’s ten minutes to midnight and Jason hasn’t come home. She doesn’t pace the floor, that would be pointless, it would only wear out the carpet, but in her mind she’s pacing forward and back, replaying what he said and what she thought she heard. At seventeen, the tether holding him in orbit around her is fraying. When he’s away at college in another year, will her worries fade, or will they diffuse and become permanent, lingering in the air, oppressively hot as humidity in the summer, stifling her when she breathes, oily and damp on her skin? It’s ten minutes after midnight and seeing the clock hand grip the number two, she realizes her hand is pressed on her throat.
Perhaps they stopped at an all-night diner for hamburgers. Perhaps he met a nice girl. She tries to avoid being a helicopter parent, but inevitably he gets a double dose of Mom, as the only child of a single parent does. Perhaps he’s having fun and lost track of time. She pushes down the thoughts she’s having of hikers trapped on a hillside in the dark, out of water, cell phone batteries drained and useless. She focuses her attention by listing what couldn’t be possible. He’s not the type to run away. He doesn’t do drugs. They couldn’t have been in an accident, he would have called, the hospital would have called.
How long must she wait to file a missing persons report? Twenty-four hours for a husband, but what’s the rule for a teen-aged son? She shakes her head to clear it, a habit that he has when he’s studying late. For the past month, his final exams have occupied their house like a silent roommate, invisible, pessimistic, disapproving. Perhaps he’s relieved to have escaped the stress.
She imagines him laughing – wherever he is, she thinks, please let him be laughing, the way that he used to; careless and carefree, with his chin tilted up, and his tousled hair falling into his eyes.
THE END
Author Bio: K Roberts is a professional nonfiction writer, a published artist, and a first reader in fiction for the Canadian magazine Nunum. New creative work is appearing in 2022 in the magazines Club Plum, Heron Tree, Words & Sports Quarterly, and Ethel.