The Long Wait

(Part 6 of a short story series, based on writing prompts. Written while learning to fight brain fog and perfectionism... and my ADHD. By this point my ADHD brain was saying “I’ll do it but I won’t be happy about it. It was absurd to commit to an 8 part series. You knew this was a long shot. Can’t we just kill everyone off and end it early?”. In hindsight that might have been a good move, but here it is anyway. I didn’t hit the required word count so my story submission bounced back, hence being out of order.)

“Your call cannot be connected at this time, please try again later. Goodbye!” the recorded voice message repeated for what felt like the thousandth time. The light at the top of the screen changed from green to red as the call ended. Dhana massaged her temples, trying to rub away the less than gentle urges filling her head. It had been three whole weeks since her husband Arlo had vanished, and she was having no luck finding out even the tiniest piece of information. The missing persons hotline was not even the number she wanted to be calling, but it was the only real option she had, given the circumstances.

“What did I get us into, Arlo?” Dhana asked the empty chair that sat staring at her from across the table. She didn’t know exactly when or where her husband had been caught, but she knew that he must have been. If he were dead or injured, news would have no doubt reached her by now; that was the only thing keeping her last threads of sanity from fraying. And there was only one other reason he would have been missing this long. He had been arrested. And she knew why; because it had been her plan. Not the getting caught part though, that certainly wasn’t part of the plan. They hadn’t even talked about what to do if they got caught. In hindsight that had been a major oversight but hindsight is like that. She wondered if Arlo had had a plan.

It was a strange predicament to be in. Dhana knew her husband must have been arrested, and why... but she wasn’t supposed to know. Somehow her husband must have covered for her, kept her name out of things. Maybe she should have felt grateful, but as she sat there massaging her pulsing forehead she wanted to belt him for it. While she knew she should presume to know the suffering of others, she had spent the past 3 weeks envying every inmate in the country because anything seemed preferable to this hell. The one place she knew would have information about her husband was the one place she couldn’t call. She didn’t know what Arlo might have sacrificed to keep her name out and she wasn’t about to waste that.

Dhana glanced around the living room at their scattered belongings. Government agents had raided the house the night Arlo went missing, and somehow it had seemed wrong to clean up on her own. Every now and then she absentmindedly picked up a shoe or a basket, but the wrongness overwhelmed her before she could set anything back in its proper place. How could life move forward when Arlo wasn’t in his proper place? No, she had to keep living as though he’d be back at any moment or else the pain would overwhelm her. The house would probably just feel emptier if she cleared away the mess anyway. Broken crockery and damaged photos weren’t the best company, but she’d take what she could get.

A low hum outside drew Dhana’s attention to the window. She watched as a government SUV made its way down the dusty drive towards the farm house. She caught herself smiling and shook her head. “Calm down Dhana, it could be bad news.” Realistically it could only be bad news of one kind or another. If he’d only been given a warning he would have been home long before now, that much she knew. But bad news was still news, and after 3 weeks of limbo she’d take almost anything. Just let the waiting be over.