Chapter Five

Jake. 

I’ve forgotten what day it is.

I haven’t slept since she disappeared. How could I? 

The coffee in my cup has gone cold for the fourth time this morning, but I still bring it to my lips out of habit. My body is running on fumes, but my mind, my mind won’t stop running at all. It keeps playing that moment on a loop: walking into our quiet house, finding the positive pregnancy test on the counter, and then nothing.

Just a silence so thick it wraps around everything in this house like a funeral shroud.

They’ve been searching for four days now. Four days of dragging the river, scanning woods, combing every inch of town with volunteers and canines. I joined every damn hour they’d let me. I barely left the search site. I screamed her name until my throat burned. Every rustling bush gave me hope. Every piece of floating debris made my chest clench.

Until yesterday.

When they found the clothes.

They said they were hers. I didn’t need to be told that, I knew them the second I saw the pictures. That pale pink coat she loved, the one I bought her last fall when the weather first turned cold. Her jeans. Her white sweater.

All found caught in a bend downstream, tangled in a branch by the riverbank like they’d been discarded by the current itself.

But not her.

Never her.

There was no body. No footprints. No phone. Just clothes. As if she’d melted out of them and into the water, swallowed whole by something bigger than any of us could understand.

The police were quick to piece their version of the story together.

They said she was emotional. Pregnant. Maybe overwhelmed. That she ran out in distress and stumbled into the river. They think she was carried away by the current. Maybe she hit her head. Maybe she passed out from the cold. And maybe just maybe, her body would wash up eventually.

But maybe not.

The current was strong, they said. Fast. She could’ve been pulled far downstream. Or deeper.

Today, they closed the case.

Just like that.

Declared her dead.

"Presumed drowned due to emotional distress."

Like she was some statistic.

Like she was just another woman who couldn’t handle her feelings.

But I know Kyla. I had been married to her for five years and had known her practically my whole life. She wouldn't do something like that. 

She wouldn’t have run away, not like that.

She wouldn’t have left me.

Not when she was finally carrying the one thing we prayed so hard for. She wanted this baby. We both did. She told me once, in one of those quiet, late night pillow talks, that the minute she got pregnant she’d wear joy like a crown. She was supposed to be glowing right now. Laughing. Teasing me for crying when she told me.

Instead, she’s gone.

And I’m still here.

Sitting on our couch, staring at the test stick like maybe if I hold it long enough she’ll walk back through the door.

My hand trembles as I set it down on the table and lean back. The house is silent again. Not even the wind dares to move. It’s like even the world is mourning her now.

Rachel came by earlier with some food. I think she wanted to talk, maybe cry with me, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t be the broken husband in front of her. Not yet. Because I still don’t believe it. Not fully.

I keep hearing Kyla’s laugh in my head.

I keep imagining her humming in the shower, calling my name from the kitchen, curling up beside me and poking my side just to annoy me. I can’t let go of that. Not yet.

But the authorities already have.

"Mr. Donovan," the lead investigator told me this morning, eyes solemn and voice low, "we’ll continue monitoring the area, but we’ve exhausted our immediate resources. We believe it’s time to allow your family to grieve properly. I'm sorry for your loss."

Sorry for your loss.

That’s what they say when there’s no hope left.

But I still keep the porch light on.

Because maybe she’s still out there. Maybe she’s cold. Hurt. Maybe she can’t find her way back and she needs me to hold on just a little longer. Because *if she’s alive,* then every minute matters.

But if she’s dead…

No. I can’t go there.

Not when I never got to hold her and tell her I knew. Not when I never got to say thank you for carrying our child. For choosing me to be the father of her baby. Not when I never got to say goodbye.

I walk into her art room, where she used to paint in the mornings, the sunlight always pooling across the floor like it loved her too. Her easel still stands near the window. Her last painting is unfinished bold, sweeping colors with a delicate flower blooming in the corner.

That was Kyla.

Soft and wild. Chaos and beauty all wrapped in one fragile, fierce woman.

I pick up one of her brushes, turning it in my hand like it might bring her back. But all it brings is the ache. The hole. The weight pressing against my chest, squeezing until I can’t breathe.

My wife is gone.

And so is the life we were supposed to build together.

A future of shared diapers, midnight feedings, silly lullabies, and sleepy baby giggles.

All stolen.

By the river.

I leave the brush on her table and walk out of the room, afraid I’ll drown in the scent of her if I stay a second longer.

I pass the mirror in the hallway and catch my reflection. I almost don’t recognize myself. The bags under my eyes, the scruff on my jaw, the vacant stare of a man still in shock.

A man who’s lost everything that ever made his house a home.

I sit back on the couch, the test still on the table in front of me. I stare at it like maybe it’ll shift. Like maybe the word *pregnant* will change to alive or safe.

But it doesn’t.

It just sits there.

Like a cruel reminder of everything I was about to have… and everything I’ve lost.