Just Waiting

The phone didn't ring.

Susan wavered back and forth between staring at the phone and staring away. She remembered her mother always told her, "A watched pot will never boil." Susan wondered if that cliche' went for telephones or even lives. Her house looked different, hell, it was different. Black cars were parked all around it and inside there was a murmur of activity, nothing like daily life, more like an undercurrent. Voices were muted, conversations stopped as she approached, smiles were suddenly hidden.

The house smelled differently, no longer filled with the warm scents of ginger and baking bread, cookies in the oven, a pie cooling on the oven, perhaps popcorn in the microwave. No, it was more like stale coffee, aftershave and a hint of perfume now. Sitting down at the kitchen table she thought about cooking and leafed through her recipes.

The phone didn't ring.

She looked at the wall, barely recognizing the phone for all the wires and electronics hooked up to it. She tried to remember what each wire and device was supposed to do, but the man's explanation had slipped past her. Hard to imagine how important such a simple household device could be, could become.

Someone coughed in another room so she decided to get up and wander through the house. A man dozed on her couch. Susan wondered how many couches he had dozed on, how many phones he had prepared, and she wondered how many times the phone rang.

Two others watched a weather report on TV, making her wonder if the weather might have a bearing on something. Was a sunny day good or should she pray for rain... and what could snow possibly bring? She was about to ask, but then looked into the study and spotted another phone wired as if on life support.

The phone didn't ring.

She walked back to the kitchen, returning the silent nods from the people she passed. Sitting back down at the table, she grabbed her watch, holding it with both hands to steady the trembling. She thought to herself, "Twenty-six hours since the last time she saw him." Twenty-six hours since she slept, since she smiled or laughed, since she did anything but wait, or maybe cry. All she could do was wait or cry, all they let her do was wait or cry.

She let herself ignore the hollow drone of the activity around her, so it seemed so quiet she actually could hear her watch ticking, such an odd sound to hear in this house, this house so crowded with people, this house so utterly empty. She counted the ticks while watching the second hand spinning around the dial. Unable to concentrate she kept losing count.

The phone didn't ring.

The sun might set and it might rise again, Susan didn't care. She wondered if her son could even see the sun. Sunset, sunrise, it lost all meaning. Time, seconds, minutes... and longer, that's all that mattered. The watch kept ticking, the microwave kept flashing 12:00 and her hands kept trembling.

They had told her, "Time is very important now, that's why we are working so hard now. The longer the child's gone, the less chance we'll have of recovering him."

"Recovering him?" she asked painfully, "You mean saving him."

"Yes Ma'am, saving him," came the unconvincing answer and the inevitable glance into the study, or at the wall.

The phone didn't ring.

Cereal, his favorite cereal, she stood up from the table and poured his favorite cereal into a bowl. The same cereal she had poured for him that morning. It seemed so many ages ago when he walked in smiling. "It's my favorite cereal Mommy. How did you know?" he asked with a big hug.

"Mommies just know," she answered with a smile. When he smiled back at her she had to fight off the tears, that simple facial expression somehow filled her day. Strange how that smile could save her from the even the most dismal days. She would give anything to see that smile again, she would do anything, but all they let her do was wait... and cry.

The phone didn't ring.

Pushing herself back from the table, she walked away from the bowl and cereal, once again wander through the house. The man still dozed on the couch, but the people had abandoned the TV so she reached down and turned it off. She wandered into the study and looked at the man sitting there, he had an odd look on his face.

"Ma'am," he said.

She looked at the man, who nodded toward the jumble of wires on the desk.

The phone was ringing!