She drummed the fingers of her left hand on the oak wood table, the fingers of the right fiddling with the zipper on her worn jacket, under which she alternated between shivering profusely and feeling chilled to the bone.  The door creaked open ten minutes past eleven o’clock, and her bloodshot eyes shot up sharply to land on his mussed hair and washed out skin, the collar of his coat turned up as if to protect him from cold winds, even on this spring night.  “Where have you been?” she croaked, surprising herself with how out-of-use her own voice sounded, the scratchy syllables ringing in her ears long after she had said them.  Perhaps it had been hours since she had spoken, now that she considered.  She always seemed to be losing time these days.

“Out,” he muttered, not even taking off his coat as he headed towards the staircase, his back to her.  Had he even looked at her face?  She was not going to be brushed off so easily, not this time.

Catapulting out of her seat, she hurried after him, following close behind him up the steps.  “It’s my right to know,” she huffed as he headed towards the walk-in closet and stuffed himself within, the door slamming shut in her face.  

“You’re not my mother,” his angry words cut back, and he could almost sense her mentally and physically drawing herself away from the door that he hid himself behind. 

“I still have to take care of you,” she whispered, a small, impossibly-invisible attempt to bridge the gap between them that stretched further every passing minute.  “But you make it so hard.”

“Then don’t,” he said, voice harsh, and in the silence that followed his statement he could almost feel his brain unraveling, and within those coils of a once perfect mind he could tell he was disappointed.  Maybe disappointed that she didn’t want to know.  If she had pushed further, I would have told her, he informed himself sharply, It’s her own fault she doesn’t care.  He stood stock-still in the middle of the infinitely small and impossibly vast closet, the four white walls shimmering blue and then red and then green, depending on how he looked at them.  He heard not a single sound behind the door.  

Suddenly, his legs, like jelly, gave way beneath him and he tumbled to the floor, head snapping dully against the carpet floor.  He was quite, quite certain his fall had not made any noise.

In the morning she twisted the brass doorknob of the guest bedroom and peered within with trepidation whose source she could not place.  The bed was neatly made, the covers stretched taut across the length of the mattress, their openness obviously not hiding a human form.  “Ben?” she breathed tentatively, pushing the door farther open and setting one foot within the room.

The room contained nothing but the made bed and a neat dresser.  He was not anywhere in the room, unless, and the thought struck her painfully and cruelly, even though it was mid-morning and perfectly bright outside, he was hiding underneath the bed.  And she almost considered that was something he might do, like an inhuman caricature from a horror movie: press himself beneath the bed to frighten her.  He’s not here, she told herself again, almost turning away before remembering the walk-in closet.

Slowly she turned that knob too, a golden doorknob because all the knobs in the house were mismatched.  Her husband had not cared in the slightest about uniformity.  She had never been sure she liked that about him.  

Within the closet was Ben’s form, curled oddly, a little on his back and a little on his side, eyes resting softly shut.  She crept over and rested a hand tentatively on his shoulder.  “Ben?” she whispered, pressing her cold hands to his neck, her fingers pressing deeper and deeper into the dark skin search of a pulse. 

“Oh,” she gasped, rocking back onto her heels, her fingers fluttering to the hollow of her throat.  Then she leaned forward once more, her pale fingers this time scrabbling within his pockets.  She drew out her bounty with great delight, a small, clear packet, filled with small, round, multicolored pills, hearts and flowers etched into the surface.  The treasure that she always spent so much time searching for was now here, within her grasp.  Clutching the bag in one hand she stood up, staring at the body as she backed out of the room, as though Ben might wake up any minute, maybe grab her wrists and shake her. 

This is all your fault, he would roar.  Why didn’t you see?  Maybe she would like that.  

She gently closed the closet door and stepped back out into the hall.  The troubled house almost seemed more at peace now, as if it had let out a breath.  She herself exhaled sharply too, before opening the bag and spilling its bright contents into her palms.  Shedding the reality of the broken form behind the closet door, she took a pill and allowed herself to drift away.