Ethan didn’t have many friends. Generally, he liked hanging out with Sutton. He’d been a hell-raiser in his youth, a lunatic ladies’ man, an excessive drinker and partier, but once he’d married her, his wild ways had departed, and he’d become a devoted husband. And for a little while, a doting father, as well. Oh, he had a number of men around, people to have a beer with, or a pickup game at the gym, but he wasn’t the type to go out with the boys, instead preferring to watch from the sidelines.

He was a classic introvert, and observation was his superpower. It’s what made him such a good writer, everyone said so.

He’d gone online once, earlier, after the storm, after Joel left. His meltdown was intricately documented. He’d given them quite the show. He’d made headlines nationwide. He didn’t need to read the stories. What he observed, right now: the whole world was entranced by the idea of a beautiful woman disappearing off the face of the earth. And the media bought in. They dug and pawed and scrabbled for information, sharp nails clawing for the viewer’s attention, clambering over each other in an attempt to solve what had turned into a genuine, bona fide mystery.

As for the rest of them, he ignored it all. He needed to separate himself from his reality. He ignored the strings of Dvorˇák and the crashing of Judas Priest. Turned off the internet, unplugged the router.

He returned his fingers to his lonely keyboard. Allowed the pent-up anger and lust and love and hate to explode forth onto the page. In the back of his mind, he wallowed, thinking about all the ways he’d done her wrong.

If only he hadn’t switched out her birth control pills. If only he hadn’t planned to get her pregnant. If only he’d worked harder to convince her how their lives would be enhanced by a baby, if only she’d agreed to that choice. If only, if only, if only.

He went on like this for hours, until the pads of his fingers were bruised and aching.

The catharsis of losing wife and finding words was not lost on him. The visions of her dead would not recede, and instead made their way into his story. They dripped with sarcasm, redolent of his early work, the voice he’d long lost found again.

He finished one Scotch and poured another. Wrote and wrote and wrote. Got hammered as hell.

And still he wrote.

It wasn’t until he noticed the sun had gone down and it was dark as sin that he realized his hands hurt too much to go on.

With a gentle smile, he gingerly hit Save. Stood and stretched. Played back the messages, increasingly urgent, from his agent, his lawyer, the cop.