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Smithy looks back at me as he closes his car door, his face drawn as if he isn’t sure what we’re going to find when we go into the house.

We make our way to the front door, and Smithy knocks, gently at first, then with a little more force when there’s no answer.

“Owen!” he calls, and I hug myself and jangle my leg.

Smithy takes a step back and surveys the house as if he’s assessing it for damage or pricing it up. It strikes me then, what Smithy and I must look like we’re doing, him in his loungewear and me in a shirt that reads Where all your kitchen dreams come true.

Letting out a breath, Smithy pulls out his phone and dials.

“He knows we’re on our way over. I told him on the phone,” Smithy tells me as he pulls the handset from his ear and I hear it go to voicemail.

He steps forwards and punches a number in a box on the side of the house.

“This was the key safe for Carmel,” he tells me, the name coming out as a wobble. “I think we have good reason to enter, don’t you?”

I nod because all my words are lodged in the back of my throat, stuck on the lump that’s been there all day.

Smithy pushes open the door, and we step into a minimal hallway with a slate-tiled floor. I follow his lead and take my shoes off, trying not to look at the harness hung on the coatstand or the three dog leads dangling next to it. I can’t even imagine how hard it must be for Owen to have these reminders everywhere he looks.

Smithy marches into the house, calling Owen’s name.

We enter a modern, sleek living room that’s very Owen. And there he is, just sitting on the off-white sofa, a cushion in his hands as if he’s holding onto it for dear life. We’re behind him, so he doesn’t see us walk through the doorway.

“Owen?” I’m not sure why Smithy sounds like he’s asking a question. It’s as if he’s testing the water, making sure it’s Owen sitting before us and not a hollowed-out replica of him.

Owen doesn’t move, doesn’t respond to the sound of his name.

We inch further into the room, Smithy now in his line of sight, and suddenly, I’m worried I shouldn’t be here. This isn’t a moment for your work colleague to be tagging along.

But I don’t feel like his work colleague. I feel like something more, and that’s the reason I’m here. Because I care about him.

“Owen,” Smithy says again, now in Owen’s line of sight. “Alice is here.”

And that’s when Owen looks up.

39

Owen

Alice is here.

I look at her to confirm this. But this isn’t the Alice I know. Her eyes are watery, her skin is pale, and her smile is nowhere to be seen.

“Alice came over to ours as she was worried about you,” Smithy says.

“Smithy said it might be better if he came to see you alone, but I insisted. I just needed to see you.” Alice kneels in front of me, still in her work uniform, and I want to hug her. More than anything in the world, I want to hug this woman before me because I imagine that in her arms, nothing would feel bad ever again.

“I’m so sorry, Owen, truly,” Smithy tells him, his voice soft but wobbly. “And Romana sends her love. She wanted to come over, but we’d have had to bring the girls, and they would’ve given you the third degree as well as trashed your house, but she sends her love and said she’s thinking of you.”

I nod because he’s right. The girls would’ve trashed my house. But right now, I don’t care.

“I’ll put the kettle on,” Smithy says and leaves the room.

Alice remains, cross-legged now on the floor next to the coffee table. She looks so much younger than her thirty-six years. And I wonder if the silence is killing her just as much as it is me.

“I’m not very skilled in these situations,” she begins. “I’ve been very lucky in my life to have not lived through anything traumatic or painful. The closest I got was when Sydney’s parents split up and she was so upset, so broken, and I had to watch her retreat into herself, every day a little bit more of her disappearing. No matter how hard I tried to help, tried to show her that life went on and there was a way out of it all, she wouldn’t follow me, wouldn’t let me help, and that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, watching my friend disappear. And I always felt like I failed her, like I didn’t try hard enough or didn’t say or do the right things, and that must have made me a bad friend.”

She releases a shuddery breath. “And now I’m here with you, and although the circumstances aren’t the same, I don’t want to lose the little bit of you I’ve found, so, much to your annoyance, I’ll be here for you, annoying you, pestering you, and doing whatever it takes to make sure you don’t disappear.”