4338.214.1 | A Shared Ordeal

The shrill ring of the lunch bell echoed through the corridors of St Michael's Collegiate, signalling a brief respite from the day's lessons. My Year 10 drama students filtered out of the classroom in their usual chaotic stream—Maisie still gesticulating wildly about her audition piece, Tom ribbing Connor about his forgotten lines. Their laughter dissipated into the growing hum of the bustling school, leaving me alone with the silence I'd been dreading.

I remained behind my desk, gripping its edge as though it might anchor me against the tide of anxiety threatening to sweep me away. The impending meeting with Sharon Pafistis sat like a stone in my chest. A stranger, bound to me by the cruelest of threads—our missing husbands.

The clock above the whiteboard mocked me with its glacial progress. Ten minutes until she arrived. Ten minutes to collect myself, to organise the swirling chaos of my thoughts into something coherent. Ten minutes to prepare for a conversation that might illuminate the darkness—or confirm my worst fears.

I busied myself with the disarray of my desk, seeking refuge in small, controllable tasks. Shakespeare anthologies went into neat stacks. Marked essays formed orderly piles. My hands moved mechanically, but my mind refused to settle. Then my fingers brushed against a battered copy of Hamlet, and everything stopped.

Inside the cover, Nial's handwriting remained as vivid as the day he'd penned it, eight years ago when we'd first moved in together: "To my Ophelia—may our love story have a happier ending."

The memory struck like a physical blow. I could see him so clearly—sprawled on our second-hand sofa, grinning as he presented the book with mock solemnity, knowing how I'd roll my eyes at the dramatic gesture whilst secretly loving every bit of it. The warmth of that moment felt impossibly distant now, separated from me by an abyss I couldn't cross.

I closed the book carefully, as though its pages might shatter, and set it aside. Breathe, Jenny. Just breathe.

My gaze drifted to the Wall of Fame, that collage of student achievements I'd curated with such care over the years. Paintings, essays, poems—each one a small victory, a moment of creative breakthrough. A recent addition caught my eye, its bright border drawing me closer.

Sarah Pafistis. Year 10. A poem about family.

The surname hit me with the force of revelation. Pafistis. Of course. How had I not made the connection sooner? Sarah had been in my class since the start of term—quiet, diligent, thoughtful. Never demanding attention, never causing trouble. Just... there. And all this time, her family had been unravelling in parallel to mine.

I stepped closer, my heart hammering as I read her careful handwriting:

"Family, our anchor in the storm,

A constant in life's changing form.

Through thick and thin, they'll always be,

The heart of our security."

The words twisted something deep in my chest. An anchor in the storm. Where was my anchor now? Where was the security Nial had promised, the stability we'd built together, the life we'd created for Sammy? Each line of Sarah's poem felt like an indictment of everything I'd lost.

I pressed my palm against the wall, steadying myself. That poor girl. She'd written this before her father vanished—or perhaps just after, clinging to hope in the only way she knew how. And I'd pinned it up, praised her craft, completely oblivious to the nightmare unfolding in her home.

Some teacher I was.

A soft knock at the door pulled me from my spiral. I turned to see a tall, slender woman standing hesitantly in the doorway, backlit by the harsh corridor fluorescents. Even from across the room, I could read the cost of recent days in her posture—the exhaustion in her shoulders, the wariness in her stance, the haunted quality that seemed to emanate from her like a cold fog.

She looked like I felt. Like someone barely holding herself together.

"Jenny?" Her voice carried a tremor, hovering somewhere between hope and dread.

I nodded, forcing something that might pass for a smile. "Sharon. Thank you for coming. Please."

As she crossed the threshold, I studied her more closely. She wore a charcoal grey suit—expensive, well-tailored, speaking of a professional life that demanded polish and competence. Her dark hair was pulled back into a severe bun, not a strand out of place. At first glance, she projected control, even authority.

But the cracks were there if you knew where to look. The slight tremor in her hands as she clasped them together. The red rims of her eyes, hastily concealed with makeup that couldn't quite disguise the evidence of tears. The way she held herself too rigidly, as though relaxing even slightly might cause her to collapse entirely.

I knew that feeling. I'd been living it for days.

"I hope I'm not interrupting," Sharon said, her gaze sweeping the empty classroom with something like relief.

I shook my head. "Not at all. It's lunch hour." I gestured vaguely towards the door. "I thought we might talk in the staffroom, if that suits you. It's more comfortable, and..."

I faltered, unsure how to articulate the instinct that had been gnawing at me since we'd arranged this meeting. Meeting a stranger. Discussing our missing husbands. Something about doing it alone, behind closed doors, felt wrong. Unsafe.

Sharon's expression shifted, understanding flickering in her eyes. "And there'll be other people around," she finished quietly. "I had the same thought. It does feel safer, doesn't it? Having witnesses."

The word hung between us—witnesses—loaded with implications neither of us wanted to examine too closely.

"Exactly," I said, exhaling with relief. "After everything that's happened..."

"We can't be too careful." Sharon's voice had gone flat, matter-of-fact. "Not until we understand what we're dealing with."

The weight of her words settled over me as we left the classroom. What were we dealing with? Two disappearances, too similar to be coincidence. Two families shattered. Two women, strangers until grief bound us together, now walking side by side down a school corridor, seeking answers no one seemed willing to provide.

As we walked, I noticed Sharon's eyes moving constantly, cataloguing everything—the artwork lining the walls, the trophy cabinet, the notice boards plastered with announcements. It wasn't the casual interest of a visitor. It was something more deliberate, more assessing. As though she were memorising escape routes or noting potential threats.

Or perhaps I was simply projecting my own paranoia onto her.

"It's a lovely school," Sharon said, breaking the silence. Her tone carried a wistfulness that caught me off guard. "Sarah speaks very highly of it. Of you, especially. She was thrilled when she discovered she'd be in your drama class this year."

The mention of her daughter tightened something in my throat. "She's a wonderful student," I managed. "Thoughtful. Talented. Her poem—the one about family—I've put it on our Wall of Fame."

Sharon's steps faltered. When I glanced at her, her composure had cracked, just for an instant. "Oh," she breathed. "I... I haven't read it. Adrian was always the one who..."

The sentence died, strangled by grief.

Without thinking, I reached out and touched her arm—brief, gentle. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to..."

"No." Sharon drew a sharp breath, squaring her shoulders with visible effort. "No, it's fine. We can't avoid these reminders, can we? They're everywhere. Every corner we turn."

She was right. The ghosts of our former lives haunted every space, every moment. The absence of our husbands had become a presence in itself, vast and suffocating.

We reached the staffroom in weighted silence.

The moment we stepped through the door, the ambient chatter dipped. Heads turned—some openly curious, others attempting discretion. I caught fragments of whispered conversations, my name drifting through the air alongside speculation. The social media campaign had stripped away any privacy I might have clung to. My personal tragedy had become public property, subject to commentary and conjecture.

I hated it. But I'd endure it if it brought Nial home.

I guided Sharon towards a small table in the corner—not quite isolated, but far enough from the main cluster of tables to offer the illusion of privacy. The strategic position allowed us to speak without being overheard whilst keeping us visible to the room. Safe.

As we settled into our chairs, I felt the weight of collective attention. Most of my colleagues pretended to focus on their sandwiches or marking, but the quality of the room had changed. Everyone was listening, even if they wouldn't admit it.

From across the room, Mike Doherty caught my eye. The PE teacher's usually boisterous demeanour had given way to something sombre, almost protective. He gave me a brief nod—acknowledgement, support, solidarity. I returned it, grateful for the gesture even as I wished none of this were happening.

Sharon leant forwards, her voice dropping to an urgent whisper. "Jenny, I can't tell you how much it means that you agreed to meet. When I saw your post about Nial on Facebook..." She paused, swallowing hard. "The similarities to Adrian's disappearance—it can't be coincidence."

I shook my head, my knuckles whitening as I gripped the table's edge. "I don't think so either. The timing, the circumstances..." I forced myself to meet her eyes. "Sharon, please. Tell me everything. Every detail about what happened with Adrian. Anything could matter."

She drew a steadying breath, her hands clasping together so tightly her fingers went white. "Tuesday morning. Adrian left for work at his usual time—same routine he's followed for years. He kissed me goodbye, told the girls he'd be home for dinner." Her voice cracked. "But he never came back. His phone goes straight to voicemail. His car is gone. It's as though he simply... vanished."

The words struck with sickening familiarity. Each detail aligned too perfectly with my own nightmare—the ordinary morning that had descended into horror, the waiting that had stretched into days, the silence where there should have been answers.

"The police," Sharon continued, her tone hardening with bitterness, "think he walked out. They think he chose this. As though twenty years of marriage, two daughters, a life we built together—as though he'd just abandon it all without a word."

"It's the same with Nial." The admission escaped before I could contain it. "They don't understand. They see statistics, patterns. They don't see the man who never missed one of the school plays. Who spent three weekends building a playhouse because he wanted the door hinges to work perfectly."

Sharon's eyes glistened. "They don't see the man who stayed up all night helping Sarah with her science project when she fell ill. Who never, not once in twenty years, forgot our anniversary."

For a long moment, we simply sat with our shared grief, two women bound by an understanding no one else could share. Around us, the staffroom continued its mundane rhythm—mugs clinked, papers rustled, someone laughed at something trivial. The normality felt obscene.

Finally, Sharon broke the silence. "Jenny, I don't think this is bad luck. Two men, same city, disappearing within days of each other under nearly identical circumstances? There's something more here. There has to be."

I nodded slowly, the conviction settling into my bones. "Tell me about the days before. Was Adrian acting strangely? Different in any way?"

Sharon's expression turned troubled. "He'd been distracted for weeks. Coming home late, taking calls at odd hours. When I asked about it, he'd say it was just work stress. But I knew him, Jenny. I knew when he was lying." She paused. "He was frightened. I could see it, even though he tried to hide it."

The revelation sent ice through my veins. "Nial too. He'd been tense, secretive. I'd wake in the night and find him staring at the ceiling, completely still. When I'd ask what was wrong, he'd kiss my forehead and say everything was fine. But it wasn't. I could feel it."

"Did he mention anyone? Any names that seemed significant?"

I started to shake my head, then stopped. "Wait. There was something. A few nights before he disappeared, I heard him on the phone. He was in his office with the door closed, but I could hear his voice through the wall. He kept saying, 'I can't do this anymore. This has to stop.' When I asked him about it later, he brushed it off. Said it was just a difficult client."

Sharon's face had gone very still. "Adrian said almost the same thing. I overheard him on the phone one evening, arguing with someone. He mentioned 'irregularities' and said, 'We can't let this continue.' When I pressed him, he claimed it was nothing—just a disagreement with a contractor."

The parallels were unmistakable now, impossible to dismiss as mere coincidence. Our husbands had been involved in something, something serious enough to frighten them, something that had ultimately swallowed them whole.

"Sharon." I leant closer, my voice barely above a whisper. "Do you think they knew each other? Nial and Adrian—is there any chance they were connected?"

She hesitated, clearly wrestling with the same question. "I've been trying to work it out. Adrian manages a large construction firm. Commercial projects, mostly. Your husband—you said he runs a fencing business?"

"Yes. Small operation. Just Nial and a couple of workers. Residential jobs, mainly." I frowned, trying to recall any mention of Adrian's name, any overlap in their professional lives. "It's possible they crossed paths on a job site, but..."

"But it seems unlikely," Sharon finished. "Adrian rarely dealt directly with subcontractors. He had site managers for that." She paused. "Still, Hobart's small. Perhaps they met socially? Through mutual acquaintances?"

I shook my head slowly. "Nial never mentioned an Adrian Pafistis. I'm certain I'd remember if he had."

The dead end frustrated us both. If our husbands had been connected, the link wasn't obvious. Yet the similarities in their disappearances screamed of a common thread, something binding them together in ways we couldn't yet see.

Sharon glanced around the staffroom, ensuring no one was within earshot, then leant even closer. "Jenny, there's something else. Before Adrian disappeared, he was working on a significant project. He couldn't discuss the details—confidentiality agreements—but it was consuming him. Long hours, constant stress. And then, about two weeks ago, everything changed. He became... paranoid. Checking the locks obsessively, looking over his shoulder. Once, I caught him sitting in the dark at three in the morning, just staring out the window."

A chill crawled down my spine. "What do you think he found? Or saw?"

"I don't know. But whatever it was, it terrified him." Sharon's voice had dropped to barely a whisper. "A few days before he vanished, I overheard him on the phone. He kept repeating a name: Luke Smith. I didn't catch the full context, but the way he said it... there was something urgent. Desperate, almost."

The name meant nothing to me. "Luke Smith?"

"When I reported Adrian missing, I mentioned it to the detectives—Sarah Lahey and Karl Jenkins. The moment I said the name, Karl's reaction..." Sharon paused, her eyes distant as though replaying the scene. "He couldn't hide it. The recognition in his face was instant. And more than that—concern. Real concern. He tried to cover it, acted as though he was just noting the information, but I saw the truth. He knew exactly who Luke Smith was."

My pulse quickened. "Detective Jenkins asked me about him too. During our first conversation about Nial's disappearance, he specifically asked if the name Luke Smith meant anything to me. At the time, it didn't. But now..."

"Now it feels like the missing piece," Sharon said grimly. "If both our husbands were connected to this Luke Smith, then he's not just relevant—he's central. The key to understanding what happened."

The implications settled over me like a shroud. A name, mentioned by both our husbands in their final days. A name that made a detective's mask slip, revealing knowledge he hadn't wanted to share. Luke Smith wasn't just another person in this mystery—he was the answer we'd been seeking.

Or the danger we'd been too blind to see.

"Sharon." My voice came out hoarse. "What if they uncovered something? What if Adrian and Nial stumbled onto something they weren't supposed to know, and this Luke Smith—what if he's the reason they're gone?"

The possibility hung between us, terrible and undeniable. We weren't just searching for our missing husbands. We were potentially hunting the person responsible for taking them.

The realisation should have terrified me. Instead, it ignited something—a fierce, burning determination. If someone had harmed Nial, if someone had torn apart my family, then I would find them. I would make them answer for what they'd done.

Sharon's expression mirrored my own resolve, her jaw set with grim purpose. "We need to find Luke Smith. We need to understand what connects him to our husbands."

I nodded, but even as I did, doubt crept in. "How? The police clearly know who he is, but they're not sharing information. We're just... we're just wives. They're not going to tell us anything useful."

"Then we make them." Sharon's voice carried a steel I hadn't heard before. "We demand answers. We push until they can't ignore us anymore."

Her conviction was intoxicating, pulling me towards action when every instinct screamed to retreat into helplessness. "What are you suggesting?"

"I'm suggesting we stop waiting for the police to do their jobs. We stop accepting their empty reassurances and their condescending sympathy. We force them to treat our husbands' disappearances with the seriousness they deserve."

The boldness of it—the sheer audacity—took my breath away. But she was right. We'd been passive for too long, trusting in systems that had failed us repeatedly. Perhaps it was time to become something else. Something more active. More dangerous.

"I'll call them," Sharon said decisively, already reaching for her mobile. "Right now. We deserve answers, and I'm tired of being dismissed."

I watched as she retrieved her phone, her movements sharp with barely contained fury. The staffroom seemed to shrink around us, the walls pressing closer as the stakes of this moment crystallised. Each ring of the phone felt like a hammer blow against my skull, anticipation and dread warring in my chest.

Around us, my colleagues continued their oblivious routines—marking papers, sharing gossip, complaining about parents. They couldn't possibly understand the precipice Sharon and I were balanced on, the chasm of grief and desperation that yawned beneath our feet.

"Hello, this is Sharon Pafistis," she said, her voice crisp and professional. "I'm calling for an update on my husband Adrian's case... and on Nial Triffett's as well."

She glanced at me, her expression set with determination. I nodded, throat too tight for words, as Sharon listened to the response on the other end. Her features shifted subtly—brow furrowing, lips thinning, shoulders tensing. Even before she spoke, I knew we were being given nothing.

"They're saying it's an ongoing investigation," Sharon muttered, half-covering the phone. "That they're following leads. But it's all vague. Meaningless platitudes."

My nails bit into my palms as I clenched my fists. The mounting frustration felt like acid in my veins, corrosive and unbearable.

Then, without fully intending to, I heard myself say: "Ask them if they've found any bodies."

Sharon's eyes widened, shock flickering across her face. For a heartbeat, I regretted the words—the awful, terrible possibility they represented. But we needed to know. We couldn't keep existing in this limbo, suspended between hope and horror.

Sharon's expression hardened. She relayed the question, her voice steady despite the tremor I could see in her hands.

The pause that followed stretched into eternity. Every second felt like an hour, the silence pressing down with suffocating weight. My heart hammered against my ribs, each beat a desperate plea: Please. Please, no.

Finally, Sharon's expression shifted slightly. "No bodies recovered at this time," she repeated flatly, clearly parroting the official response.

The words should have brought relief. Instead, they felt hollow, meaningless. No bodies. But also no leads, no answers, no hope. Just an endless, agonising unknown.

Something inside me cracked. The dam I'd been maintaining through sheer force of will suddenly gave way, and a torrent of grief crashed through. My breath came in ragged gasps, my vision blurring with tears I could no longer contain.

Images assaulted me—Nial's smile as he swooped Sammy into his arms, the warmth of his hand against my cheek, the way he'd hum whilst making breakfast on Sunday mornings. All of it felt impossibly distant, separated from me by a void I couldn't cross.

What if he was gone? What if I'd already lost him, and I was simply too stubborn to accept it?

Sharon's hand found mine, her grip firm and grounding. "Breathe, Jenny," she said softly, her own voice thick with emotion. "We don't know anything for certain. Until we do, we have to believe they're alive. We have to keep fighting."

I nodded mechanically, trying to anchor myself to her words. But the darkness felt so vast, so consuming. How could we fight something we couldn't see, couldn't name, couldn't understand?

"I'm going to try Detective Jenkins directly," Sharon said, her determination cutting through my despair. "He seemed more... invested than the others. Maybe he'll actually give us something useful."

She dialled again, and I held my breath as the phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times.

Then voicemail. His recorded message, professional and impersonal, offered nothing.

Sharon's shoulders sagged, disappointment carving deep lines into her face. "He's not answering."

The small flame of hope I'd kindled guttered and died. Of course he wasn't answering. Why would he? We were just grieving wives, inconvenient reminders of cases he couldn't solve.

But Sharon wasn't finished. Her jaw set with renewed determination, her grip tightening on the phone. "If he won't answer now, we keep trying. We don't stop, Jenny. Not until we get what we need."

Her persistence sparked something in me—a flicker of defiance against the darkness threatening to consume us. I wiped my tear-streaked face, straightening in my chair.

"We won't stop," I echoed, the words quiet but charged with intent.

Sharon's eyes suddenly lit with an idea, her entire demeanour shifting. "I need to go home," she said abruptly. "There's something there—something that might help us."

The cryptic declaration caught me off guard. "What? What do you mean?"

"I can't explain now, but..." She paused, seeming to weigh her words. "Adrian kept detailed records of his projects. Notes, files, contacts. If there's a connection to Luke Smith, to whatever was frightening him, it might be in his office. I need to look."

The explanation made sense, yet something in her expression gave me pause. A flicker of something—calculation, perhaps, or concealment—that vanished almost before I could register it.

"What are you planning?" I asked, my voice raw from crying.

Sharon rose, her movements brisk and purposeful. "Something that might actually get us answers," she said, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. "Trust me, Jenny. We're not beaten yet."

Before I could press for details, she was moving towards the door, leaving her enigmatic promise hanging in the air like a lifeline tossed into turbulent waters.

"I'll call you soon," she added over her shoulder. "Be ready."

Then she was gone, and I was alone with the echoing silence of the staffroom and the weight of a thousand unanswered questions.

I sat for a long moment, my colleagues' chatter washing over me like white noise. What was Sharon planning? Could she truly find something useful in Adrian's files, or was this another dead end, another false hope?

And why did some small, insistent part of me wonder if Sharon was telling the whole truth?

I pushed the thought aside as unworthy, born of paranoia rather than evidence. Sharon was grieving, just as I was. She was desperate for answers, just as I was. Whatever secrets she might be keeping, surely they were born of pain rather than deception.

Surely.

I turned my gaze to the staffroom window, watching the ordinary world continue its oblivious march. Students crossed the quad, laughing about inconsequential things. A delivery van pulled up to the administration building. Clouds drifted lazily across a sky that had no right to be so blue, so serene, when my entire world was collapsing.

On the notice board nearby, a flyer announced a community meeting about recent break-ins. The mundane concern felt almost laughable. Break-ins. Missing garden tools and stolen electronics. Such small problems, such fixable tragedies.

I thought of Sammy, my sweet boy who should be worrying about what creation to build in his sandpit next, not the absence of his father. How much longer could I shield him from the truth? How much longer before I had to sit him down and try to explain something I didn't understand myself?

The thought twisted like a knife in my chest.

No. I couldn't think like that. Not yet. Not whilst there was still a chance, however slim, that Nial was out there somewhere, alive, waiting to be found.

Sharon was right. We couldn't wait for others to solve this for us. The police had their procedures, their protocols, their limitations. But Sharon and I—we had something they didn't. We had desperation. We had love. We had the absolute, bone-deep certainty that our husbands wouldn't have simply walked away.

And perhaps, most importantly, we had each other.

Whatever Sharon was planning, whatever she'd discovered or suspected, I would stand beside her. We'd made an unspoken pact in this staffroom, two women bound by shared trauma, and I wouldn't break it now.

I thought of my students, of the countless plays and scenes I'd directed over the years. I'd always told them that a protagonist must drive the action, must seize control of their narrative rather than simply reacting to events. Passivity, I'd lectured, was the death of compelling drama.

It was time to take my own advice.

If this were a play, I wouldn't be waiting in the wings for someone else to deliver my lines. I'd be centre stage, demanding answers, pursuing truth, refusing to accept a tragic ending without a fight.

Sharon had gone to search for clues in Adrian's files. What could I find in Nial's? His office at home was filled with paperwork, invoices, project notes. I'd avoided it since his disappearance, unable to face the space that was so quintessentially his. But perhaps avoidance was a luxury I could no longer afford.

My mobile buzzed in my pocket, making me jump. I fumbled for it, heart racing with irrational hope. But it was just a reminder about this afternoon's Year 12 rehearsal. The mundane intrusion of my normal life, still expecting me to perform my role even as everything crumbled around me.

I silenced the phone and stood, my decision made. Whatever Sharon discovered, whatever path she was carving through this nightmare, I would follow. And I would forge my own path alongside hers.

Because the alternative—sitting here, waiting, slowly drowning in uncertainty—was no longer bearable.

The bell would ring soon, summoning me back to classroom and students and the pretence of normalcy. But after that, after I'd fulfilled my obligations and maintained my mask, I would go home. I would search Nial's office with the same desperate thoroughness Sharon was surely applying to Adrian's.

And if I found something—anything—that pointed towards Luke Smith, towards understanding, towards truth...

Well. Then we would see what two determined women, armed with knowledge and driven by love, could accomplish.

The darkness hadn't beaten us yet.