Okay

[Madeline Speare]

Propping myself up on the counter, I take another sip of the tea I had been offered twenty minutes ago. It's no surprise that it's cold.
I've been here since early morning, and it doesn't seem like I've been much help.
Jack had been here early as well, but I managed to get him to take the kids out for a bit. I don't think all the questions about Emma where helping David at all.
"You alright David?" I ask softly for the fifth time in the last hour. I'm expecting the same response of course but I'm not sure what else I can do to help, and I hate it.
"It's gonna be okay," I murmur softly,"You'll see,"

[David Saunders]

David sat at the kitchen table, propping his head up one hand with his eyes closed. He couldn't really look at her to be perfectly honest, because the last time he'd spoken to Emma, she'd sat on the counter right over there where Maddie was, and he didn't want to look.
He was actually going mad. He hadn't really thought it was possible before now.
David had spoken to Scott recently, of course having first been made to promise he would not breathe a word about seeing him anyway. Scott said that losing your wife drives you mad, you hallucinate, nightmares while you're awake, it's hell.
David hadn't thought that it was quite possible. He really shouldn't have ever doubted it.
He could have sworn he heard Emma humming in the bathroom that morning. He'd seen her out of the corner of his eye coming up to the front door from the living room window, and scared his kids to death by jumping up and throwing the front door open only to be thoroughly disappointed when there was no one there.
God, he was a fuck-up at the moment.

He was very grateful that Jon had got the kids to bed for him. And he was also glad that he'd sat with him silence all night.
David wasn't sure that he wanted to be in close proximity with Emma's partner, but he would have taken anyone just so he wouldn't be sitting up in silence on his own for hours.
He told the kids, because he couldn't lie to them. He sat them down and explained it in clear concise words and a tone that suggested he was perfectly composed.
Daniel, Daniella and Hayden had sort of attached themselves to each other, whereas Josh had just sat there and blinked. David wasn't really sure what this meant, and whether he understood or not.
True to his word, him and Jon had gone out looking for Emma, bright and early, but within two hours, David couldn't take it any more so he'd left Jon to keep going on his own and come home.
He'd written to his sister, who'd written to their brothers and parents, and then he'd been flooded with owls with letters of varying degrees of comfort and curt words that are designed to make you pull yourself together, but none of that had really worked. So he'd written six painstakingly letters of 'thanks' and bravado and sent them off.
He'd spent hours wandering aimlessly round the house, straightening things and smoothing out covers, just neatening things up because usually Emma did that. And then he'd finally come to sit down here and hadn't really moved.

He was glad the kids were with Jack. He knew he should be doing his best to keep his family together right now, but he felt that it was already breaking apart and that maybe he should just let it.
This couldn't be happening to him, he couldn't help but still belief what he'd thought initially. He'd never done anything wrong, surely? Emma had never done anything wrong. His kids had never done anything wrong. Why did they deserve this?
This couldn't be happening, not now, not when everything was perfect.
"Yes, David. Emma is most likely dead."
He shut his eyes so tightly that he saw white lights in front of his eyelids and he wished he'd never asked so he wouldn't have that answer to taunt him.

He shook his head slightly in answer to her remark. He couldn't envisage any reality or any point where this would ever be okay.
He'd been married for eight years, that couldn't all just be gone, could it? How is that possible? And how was he supposed to bring up four kids on his own?
"No, it won't," He murmured hoarsely, opening his eyes again to idly trace his forefinger around a pattern on the table cloth instead of having to look at her where she was in Emma's spot.