Gone by Mallory Kane

deliberately avoided looking at anything in the room.
    Now, in the bright light of morning, he couldn’t ignore the baby toys, baby furniture, blue curtains and mobiles hanging over the crib. With the empty place inside him throbbing with grief for his son, he vaulted up off the hide-a-bed sofa, grabbed his slacks and slipped across the hall to the bathroom.
    The hot shower eased the pain inside him and soothed the stinging in his eyes. When he stepped out of the stall and reached for a towel, he noticed a neatly folded pair of blue boxers and a white T-shirt. They hadn’t been there when he’d started his shower. Gratefully, he donned the clean clothes, pulled on his jeans and headed downstairs to the kitchen.
    Marcie was already there, making the coffee. As he walked in, she finished pouring water into the coffeepot and turned it on. Her hair was damp and pulled back in a high ponytail that made her look like a college kid. But when she turned and looked at him, her eyes were rimmed with red and her nostrils and the corners of her mouth were pinched. She looked awful. Still beautiful, but awful nonetheless.
    “Morning,” he said.
    She didn’t answer him. She turned her attention back to the sink, rinsing glasses and placing them in the dishwasher. She dried her hands. Joe noticed that she’d been chewing on her fingernails.
    “Marcie, don’t you have some of the tranqs the doctor gave you? You ought to be taking them.” He took her hand in his and rubbed his thumb across the ragged nails. “You’re a nervous wreck.”
    She jerked her hand away and glared at him. “Thank you, doctor. But I don’t want to be tranquilized. That man is going to call this morning. What good will I be if I’m drugged?”
    He nodded. He understood. It just hurt him to see her hurting so badly. The coffeemaker grumbled and gurgled, announcing that the coffee was ready. She poured herself a cup and took it to the kitchen table and spooned sugar into it.
    “Still like a little coffee with your sugar?” Joe said, hoping to make her smile, even if just a little.
    He was rewarded with a wan upturn of her lips as she lifted the spoon and inspected it for lingering granules of sugar. She touched the spoon, wiping sugar onto her fingertip. “I’d let Joshua suck a little sugar off my fingertip. He loved—” She set the spoon down with a clatter and lifted the cup to her lips.
    Joe poured himself a mugful and sat down beside her. He drank his black. He took a long swallow, regarding her over the rim of his mug as she sipped at hers.
    “What happened to us?” she asked.
    “What do you mean?” Joe asked, looking at the dark liquid in his mug, then picking it up and sipping.
    “Just what I said. What happened?”
    He set his mug down a little too hard. “You couldn’t—or wouldn’t—understand why I went back to work instead of sitting around here and moping, or going over to haunt the outdoor market in case someone showed up with a child, so you could get all excited for two minutes until you got a good look at them.”
    She shook her head, a pained expression on her face. When she set her cup down, a little bit of coffee sloshed out. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean before—before Joshua. We weren’t good for each other anymore. You were working ten-to twelve-hour days and I spent most of my time painting. I was usually in bed asleep by the time you got home. And you still managed to be jealous of me. You could never believe that I wasn’t like your mother. I wasn’t then and I’m not now.”
    He didn’t say anything. He knew she was right about what their life had turned into before they got pregnant. But why in hell was she bringing all that up now? It was old news.
    “What are you doing, Marcie? Do you really want to talk about that now? I think there are bigger issues here.”
    She shrugged. “I was so naive. I thought that having a baby would change things. I thought it would make you happy. Make you