THE WOMEN

As it often does, the gloaming brought dark thoughts. We anticipated a second night of Iris being gone and most of us had no words for our feelings. They were all mixed up. Fear with excitement, worry with relief. We tried to go about our usual evening tasks—making food, eating, cleaning up, getting children to bed, pouring a glass of wine, selecting a book to read or a movie to watch—but our hearts weren’t in it.

Some of us considered knocking on Asher’s door to ask if he wanted company or needed anything. But his daughter was there, we reminded ourselves, so he wasn’t alone. We sat closer on the sofa to our loved ones, made the goodnight hugs last longer than usual. We called our oldest friends long distance, even though we didn’t really have much to say, just to hear the music of their absent voices. We thought about calling a neighbor, even though we rarely telephoned each other, because they would understand how creeped out we felt. Odd how it takes something awful to bring us together, we mused. To finally really notice each other.

How could something like this happen on our familiar, even boring, Azalea Court, we wondered. What difference would Iris’s disappearance make to her neighbors, if she was not found? Would we keep trying to find our missing friend, or just return to our individual lives?