The Biscuit Rule Is Broken

"Sometimes it’s the tiniest things — a fourth biscuit, a missing shoe — that tell you the whole world’s shifted."

"Mummy, there's chocolate on my fingers!" Sammy announced with the particular urgency of a three-year-old facing a minor catastrophe.

The interruption was so perfectly timed, so wonderfully mundane, that I almost laughed. Here I was, poised on the edge of confession, ready to unburden myself of thirty-six hours of accumulated terror, and my son's greatest concern was sticky fingers. It was a reminder that life continued in parallel tracks—adult crisis running alongside childhood's simpler emergencies.

"Here, darling," Rowena said smoothly, producing a damp cloth with the efficiency of someone who'd raised three children and taught piano to dozens more. She wiped Sammy's hands with gentleness, each finger cleaned with the same precision she'd once applied to scales and arpeggios.

I watched them together—my mother and my son, the past and future of our family line—and felt something shift inside me. The need to protect Sammy from the harsh edges of truth warred with the desperate need to share my burden, to not carry this alone. Rowena caught my eye over Sammy's head, and in that glance was a lifetime of maternal understanding. She knew I was struggling with how much to say in front of him.

"Sammy, love," she said, her tone bright with manufactured enthusiasm, "why don't you go check if that big cat is back in the garden? I thought I saw something moving by the rhododendrons."

His face lit up with excitement. "The orange one?" he asked, already sliding off his chair.

"Could be," Rowena said mysteriously. "You'd better investigate. Take your biscuit with you, but stay where we can see you through the window."

He grabbed another biscuit—his third, despite the one-biscuit rule—and raced towards the back door, his earlier sadness temporarily forgotten in the thrill of potential cat spotting. The door banged shut behind him with the particular violence that small children seemed to reserve for doors, and then we were alone, the kitchen suddenly feeling larger, quieter, more serious.

Rowena moved back to the table, settling into her chair with the deliberate grace of someone preparing for a long performance. The afternoon light had shifted whilst we'd been talking, casting longer shadows across the worn wood, turning the familiar space into something more theatrical, more charged with possibility.

"Now then," she said, her voice carrying that particular maternal authority that could make even grown children feel twelve years old again. "Why don't you tell me exactly what happened at the police station?"

The weight of her question brought me back to the stark reality of the day. I wrapped my hands around my mug, the tea now lukewarm but still offering the comfort of something to hold, something solid whilst everything else felt ephemeral. Through the window, I could see Sammy creeping around the garden with exaggerated stealth, hunting for cats that may or may not exist, his small form a reminder of everything I had to protect.

"They... they weren't very helpful at first," I began quietly, my voice carrying the exhaustion of repeatedly explaining something that should have been obvious. "Linda was there, at the front desk."

I paused, remembering the shock of seeing her, the family member who'd become a commoner in the space of a single interaction.

"She treated me like a stranger, Mum. Like I was just another hysterical wife overreacting."

The words came out bitter, edged with hurt that went deeper than professional dismissal. This was family choosing protocol over blood, choosing the safety of procedure over the risk of compassion.

Rowena's eyes flashed with indignation, her lips tightening into the thin line I remembered from childhood—the expression that preceded either a magnificent performance or a magnificent row, sometimes both.

"Linda? Your sister-in-law Linda? Well, I never! Just wait until the next family gathering. I'll give her a piece of my mind—"

Her voice rose with each word, building towards the kind of righteous fury that had once made council members quake and piano examiners reconsider their marking criteria. I could see her already composing the precise words she'd use to eviscerate Linda's character whilst maintaining perfect social propriety—a skill she'd perfected over decades of Hobart society functions.

"Rowena, please," I cut in, shaking my head.

The last thing I needed was for Mum to launch into one of her legendary tirades. They were magnificent to witness when you weren't the target, but they had a tendency to create scorched earth where there had once been relationships. And despite everything, Linda was still Kevin's wife, still Sammy's aunt, still part of the complex web that made up our family.

"It's not important right now. The thing is, she refused to file a missing persons report. Because of the text message."

Rowena's brow furrowed, creating lines that her expensive face cream couldn't quite prevent. Her fingers tightened slightly around her own cup, the delicate china clicking against her wedding ring—the one she still wore five years after Dad's death.

"The one from Nial saying he'd be home late?" she asked, her tone sceptical.

I nodded, frustration bubbling to the surface like water coming to boil—slow at first, then all at once.

"Yes. Linda said it counted as contact. That he wasn't really missing because of it."

The absurdity of it hit me fresh, the idea that a few typed words could negate the wrongness of Nial's absence, could transform genuine crisis into administrative inconvenience.

"But you know Nial. He'd never just disappear like this. He wouldn't leave Sammy without saying goodbye. Something's wrong, I know it."

The certainty in my voice surprised even me. Despite all the doubt others had tried to plant, despite the reasonable explanations and statistics about men who simply walked away from their families, I knew—in that deep, bone-level way that bypassed logic—that this wasn't voluntary.

Rowena reached across the table, her hand covering mine. Her skin was soft from years of hand cream—a pianist's necessity—but her grip was firm, anchoring. The simple gesture was enough to steady me, if only for a moment. It was the same hand that had soothed childhood nightmares, applauded school performances, held mine as we'd watched Dad take his last breath.

"A mother's instinct is rarely wrong," she said softly, her eyes searching mine. "But if the police won't help, what are you going to do?"

I opened my mouth to tell her about Detective Jenkins, about the unexpected ally who'd emerged from the bureaucratic machinery, when Sammy's voice broke through the moment like sunshine through storm clouds.

"Mummy, can we call Daddy? I want to tell him about the big cat I saw in Grandma's garden."

The innocent request felt like a punch to the gut, sharp and unexpected. My breath caught, lungs forgetting their basic function for a moment. I had to fight to keep my voice steady, to not let the pain show on my face where Sammy could see it.

"Oh, sweetheart," I began gently, forcing a smile that felt like lifting weights with my facial muscles. "I don't think we can call Daddy right now. His phone... it's not working properly."

The lie burned in my throat like acid, corroding something essential with each repetition. How many more times would I have to lie to my son? How many more questions would I have to deflect with half-truths and misdirection? And what would happen when the lies stopped working, when even a three-year-old could see through the fabrication?

Sammy's face fell, his whole body seeming to deflate like a punctured balloon. The light in his eyes—Nial's eyes—dimmed, replaced by a confusion and hurt that no child his age should carry. He set down the biscuit he'd been holding, the chocolate chips suddenly unimportant in the face of larger disappointments.

Seeing his disappointment was almost too much to bear. How could Nial do this? The anger that followed the thought was sharp and all-encompassing, momentarily overtaking the fear. If he was choosing this, if he was somewhere safe whilst we suffered, I would never forgive him. But even as the anger flared, doubt followed—this wasn't Nial, couldn't be Nial. The man who'd spent three hours assembling Sammy's train set on Christmas Eve, who'd read The Gruffalo seventy-three times without complaint, who'd cried when Sammy took his first steps—that man wouldn't choose this.

I reached out, brushing a crumb from Sammy's cheek with the same gentleness I'd used when he was a baby, when touch was our only language.

"Daddy loves you so much, Sammy," I said, my voice thick with emotion I couldn't quite suppress. "He misses you terribly. And I promise, we'll find him. Okay?"

The promise felt reckless, dangerous. What if I couldn't keep it? What if the searching led nowhere? What if Nial was already beyond finding? But looking at Sammy's trusting face, I couldn't offer anything less than certainty, even if it was certainty I didn't possess.

Sammy nodded slowly, processing my words with the serious concentration he usually reserved for building block towers. His little hand reached out to clasp mine, his fingers so small against my palm, yet their grip was fierce with need.

I glanced at Rowena, whose expression mirrored my own mix of determination and heartbreak. She'd been here before, in different circumstances—waiting for test results that would confirm what we already suspected about Dad, maintaining normality whilst everything crumbled. She knew the weight of carrying fear whilst projecting strength.

"Jenny," Rowena said softly, her voice cutting through the stillness that had settled over the kitchen like dust. "What aren't you telling me?"

The question was gentle but inexorable, like water wearing away stone. Rowena had always been able to see through my attempts at concealment, from hidden report cards to secret boyfriends to the early signs of pregnancy I'd tried to hide until I was ready to share. Her eyes, so like my own but sharpened by additional decades of observation, missed nothing.

I sighed heavily, running a hand through my hair—a gesture I'd inherited from Dad, one that appeared when I was trying to buy time to think. The familiar motion felt strange without his presence, like performing only half of a duet.

"There was one detective," I began cautiously, testing the words like stepping stones across uncertain water. "Detective Jenkins. He seemed to believe me, at least more than the others did."

Saying his name aloud in this safe space felt different from thinking it, made him more real, more significant. The memory of his steady gaze, his careful questions, his moment of genuine anger at the system's failure, gave me something to hold onto.

"He's opened a case file, but..."

I hesitated, unsure if voicing my doubts would make them more real too, would transform possibility into probability.

"I don't know, Rowena. I feel like there's something he's not telling me."

The understatement felt almost laughable. Jenkins knew something, had recognised something in my story that went beyond domestic drama. His reaction had been too specific, too controlled, like someone who'd found a piece of a puzzle they'd been working on for longer than our brief interaction.

"He asked about someone named Luke Smith, but I've never heard of him."

As I spoke it, that nagging sense of familiarity intensified, like trying to remember a dream that dissolved the more you reached for it.

Rowena's eyebrows shot up, disappearing beneath her fringe, and she tilted her head in that particular way that meant she was accessing her considerable mental archives—sixty-two years of names, faces, conversations, and connections stored with the same precision she'd memorised concert pieces.

"Luke Smith?" she repeated, her voice tinged with curiosity and something else—recognition?

The way she said it, rolling the syllables around like wine she was trying to identify, made my pulse quicken. She knew something, or thought she did, was reaching for a memory just beyond grasp.

"That name sounds familiar, but I can't quite place it."

Her brow furrowed deeply, creating a map of concentration across her forehead. I watched her chase the memory, could almost see her sorting through decades of acquaintances, students, friends of friends, people mentioned in passing at parties or gatherings.

A flicker of hope ignited in my chest, warm and dangerous. Could she know something? Could this lead, tenuous as it was, finally give me some direction? After hours of dead ends and dismissals, even the possibility of information felt like oxygen to someone drowning.

"You know him?" I asked urgently, leaning forward so quickly that tea sloshed dangerously close to the cup's rim. "Rowena, this could be important. Think hard—where have you heard that name before?"

The desperation in my voice was naked, undisguised. I needed this, needed something concrete to grasp, some thread to follow through the labyrinth of Nial's disappearance.

Rowena pursed her lips, the expression she wore when playing a particularly challenging passage, when muscle memory and conscious thought were battling for control. Her gaze grew distant, turned inward, travelling through time and memory with the focus of someone who'd trained their recall through decades of memorising complex musical scores.

"I'm not sure, dear," she admitted after a moment that felt like hours, her tone apologetic but frustrated, as if her memory had betrayed her. "It's right on the edge of my memory, but I can't quite grasp it. Give me some time. It might come to me."

She shook her head slightly, annoyed with herself. Rowena prided herself on her memory, on her ability to recall names and faces from decades past. This failure, small as it might seem, was a personal affront to her mental acuity.

I nodded, trying to temper my disappointment, trying not to let her see how much I'd been counting on this potential lead. It was something, at least—a glimmer of hope in a sea of uncertainty, a suggestion that Luke Smith wasn't entirely unknown, wasn't some figure from shadows with no connection to our life.

"Alright," I said, forcing a small smile that probably looked as unconvincing as it felt. "Just... let me know if you remember anything, no matter how small it might seem."

Rowena reached out and squeezed my hand again, her grip warm and steady, carrying the promise of someone who wouldn't give up, who would worry at this memory like a terrier with a bone until she'd retrieved it.

"Of course, Jenny."

As the warmth of the kitchen pressed around us, filled with the lingering scent of biscuits and the particular comfort of generational spaces, I couldn't shake the feeling that the name Luke Smith was more than just a random detail. It felt like a key, but to what lock? The certainty of its importance sat in my stomach like something indigestible, something that would make itself known whether I wanted it to or not.

My mind churned with questions, each one spawning three more like some mythological hydra of uncertainty. Who was Luke Smith? How did he connect to Nial? Why had Jenkins asked about him with such deliberate casualness that screamed significance? And why—this question quieter but more insistent than the others—did the name feel like something I should remember, like a word in a language I'd once spoken but forgotten?

Sammy's cheerful voice broke through my racing thoughts, bright and immediate as only a three-year-old's enthusiasm could be.

"Mummy, can we go look for the big cat again?" he asked, standing in the doorway with his hands on his hips in unconscious imitation of Nial's thinking pose.

His face was still smeared with chocolate despite Rowena's earlier cleaning efforts, evidence of the fourth biscuit he'd somehow acquired. His eyes—those devastating blue mirrors of his father's—sparkled with the excitement of the hunt, temporarily freed from the shadow of loss.

I smiled despite myself, grateful for the brief distraction.

"Of course, sweetheart," I said, ruffling his curly hair, feeling its silk between my fingers. "Why don't you go get your shoes on?"

As he bounded away with the particular thunder of small feet on old floorboards, Rowena leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that transported me back to childhood secrets shared after bedtime.

"Jenny," she began, her tone serious yet tender, carrying the weight of years of complicated love. "I know we've had our differences, but no matter what's going on with Nial—whatever trouble he might be in—you know I'm here for you and Sammy, right? No matter what."

The words hit me with unexpected force. We had indeed had our differences—about my career choices, my parenting style, my marriage to Nial whom she'd deemed "charming but unambitious,". Years of small tensions and larger disagreements, of careful navigation around sensitive topics, of love expressed through criticism and criticism disguised as love.

But here, in this moment of genuine crisis, all of that fell away like old paint revealing solid wood beneath. Her words were unconditional, absolute, carrying the fierce protection that had always been there underneath the complications.

Tears stung my eyes, hot and sudden, as I nodded, swallowing hard against the lump in my throat that felt like years of unsaid things trying to escape at once.

"I know," I whispered, my voice trembling with emotions I couldn't quite name. "Thank you."

Thank you for not asking if Nial had left me. Thank you for believing something was wrong. Thank you for taking Sammy without question. Thank you for being my mother when I desperately needed one, despite all the times I'd pushed that relationship away.

The moment was interrupted by Sammy's triumphant shout, piercing through the emotional thickness like a bell.

"I'm ready, Mummy!" he called, stomping back into the kitchen with his shoes on the wrong feet and a gleeful grin plastered across his face.

The simple error—left shoe on right foot, right shoe on left—was so perfectly Sammy, so normally abnormal, that it almost broke me. How many times had Nial patiently taught him the difference, using elaborate stories about Mr. Left and Mrs. Right shoe who could only be happy when they were on their proper feet? Who would teach him these things if Nial didn't come back?

We stepped out into the crisp Tasmanian afternoon, leaving the warm cocoon of the kitchen for the garden's wilder embrace. The temperature had dropped whilst we'd been inside, winter asserting itself with sharp fingers that found every gap in clothing.

The light was beginning to fade, that particular winter afternoon quality where the sun seemed to give up early, exhausted by the effort of pushing through grey clouds. Everything was painted in muted tones, like a watercolour left in the rain. The garden, usually riot of colour even in winter, seemed subdued, watchful, as if it too was waiting for something.

Sammy ran ahead, resuming his hunt for the possibly mythical cat with the dedication of someone who believed absolutely in the reality of his quest. He stalked through the flower beds with exaggerated stealth, occasionally freezing when he thought he'd spotted something, only to discover it was a shadow or a bird or his own imagination made manifest.

I watched him, this small person who carried half of Nial's genetic code, who had his father's eyes and stubbornness and unexpected gentleness. Every gesture was a reminder—the way he pushed his hair back when concentrating (pure Nial), the way he hummed tunelessly whilst searching (that was me), the way he believed so completely in the possibility of magic hiding in ordinary gardens (that was both of us, once).

"Sammy," I called gently, "we should go back inside soon. It's getting cold."

He turned to me, his face serious with three-year-old determination. "But Mummy, the cat might be cold too. We need to find it and make sure it's okay."

The simple compassion of it, the assumption that our responsibility extended to all creatures, possibly real or imagined, was so essentially Sammy that I had to look away, pretending to examine one of Rowena's rose bushes to hide the tears that threatened.

As we made our way back to the house, Sammy's hand in mine, his small fingers cold despite the mittens Rowena had insisted on, that name echoed again in my mind: Luke Smith.

I didn't yet know how significant it was, how it would change everything, how it connected to the impossible truth of Nial's disappearance. But I could feel its weight, its importance pressing against the fragile structure of our lives like water against a dam, waiting for the smallest crack to burst through and sweep everything away.

---

The afternoon wore on with the peculiar elastic quality of crisis time, minutes stretching like hours whilst hours collapsed into heartbeats. We settled back in the kitchen, that heart of Rowena's domain, and attempted something like normality. But it was performance, all of us playing roles we only half-believed: Rowena the cheerful grandmother, me the calm mother, Sammy the carefree child. The script was familiar but the delivery was off, like actors who'd forgotten their motivation.

Sammy's energy, usually inexhaustible, began to flag as afternoon dissolved into evening. He'd been running on adrenaline and chocolate biscuits, but even those powerful fuels had their limits. His questions about Daddy became less frequent but more pointed when they came, each one a small knife finding the gaps in my armour.

"When's Daddy coming home, Mummy?" he asked for the dozenth time, but now his voice carried a tremor that hadn't been there before.

He was learning, I realised with horrible clarity, learning that sometimes questions didn't have answers, that adults didn't always have solutions, that the world could change without warning or reason. It was a lesson I'd hoped to delay for years, decades if possible.

I knelt down to his level, taking his face in my hands with the same gentleness I'd used when he was newborn, when he'd seemed too fragile for the world.

"Soon, sweetheart," I murmured, forcing my voice to remain steady through will alone. "He's just... working late."

The lie rolled off my tongue again, each iteration heavier with accumulated guilt. I stroked his curls and held his gaze, willing him to believe me even as I struggled to believe myself. The trust in his eyes was absolute, uncomplicated by adult understanding of deception. He believed me because I was Mummy, because Mummy wouldn't lie, because in his world parents were pillars of truth.

How much longer could I maintain that fiction?

Rowena, reading the situation with her uncanny maternal radar, stepped in with practiced grace. She launched into another story, this one about a runaway piano that had somehow ended up in the Derwent River (the truth, she insisted, though I'd heard three different versions over the years). Her voice took on the particular cadence of storytelling, rising and falling with dramatic emphasis, drawing Sammy into the narrative despite his worry.

The kitchen grew dimmer as evening approached, shadows lengthening across the floor like fingers reaching for something just beyond grasp. The warmth from the Aga couldn't quite combat the chill that seemed to seep through the windows, winter pressing against the glass with patient persistence.

I stared out at the garden, now more suggestion than reality in the gathering dusk. Every movement in the bushes made my heart race—was someone there? Was I being paranoid? The line between reasonable caution and unfounded fear had blurred beyond recognition. The world had revealed itself to be far less safe than I'd believed just forty-eight hours ago, and now danger seemed to lurk in every shadow.

The need to act was becoming unbearable. Sitting here, waiting for news that might never come, for Jenkins to solve a puzzle he might not even understand—it was suffocating. I felt like an animal in a trap, gnawing at its own leg to escape. The metaphor was perhaps too apt; I would damage myself if necessary, would sacrifice whatever was required to find Nial.

As Rowena continued her story, now involving the police, a crane, and an unfortunate misunderstanding about a whale, I made my decision. The clarity of it was almost shocking after hours of circular thinking. I couldn't remain here, suspended in this terrible limbo whilst others determined my family's fate. Nial needed me to act, even if action meant making mistakes, even if it meant stepping into danger I didn't understand.

"Rowena," I interrupted, my voice cutting through her tale of marine confusion.

She turned to me, and I saw in her eyes that she'd been expecting this, had been waiting for me to reach this moment of decision. She knew me too well, had perhaps been preparing for this since I'd arrived with my world in tatters.

"I need to ask you a favour."

The words were steady, certain in a way I hadn't felt since yesterday morning. This was right, this was necessary, this was what Nial would do if our positions were reversed. He wouldn't wait, wouldn't delegate his family's safety to strangers, wouldn't sit still whilst I was missing.

"You want me to keep Sammy for a bit longer, don't you?" she said gently, no surprise in her voice.

The relief of not having to explain, of being understood without words, was almost overwhelming. This was what family could be at its best—support without judgment, understanding without exposition.

I nodded, words tumbling out in a rush of necessity and apology.

"Just for a day or two," I said, though we both knew it might be longer. "I need to... I need to do something. I can't sit here waiting for the police to figure things out. I need to start looking for answers myself."

The admission felt like confession, like acknowledging a truth I'd been circling since leaving the police station. The authorities had their procedures, their protocols, their priorities. But I had something they didn't—the desperate determination of someone with everything to lose.

Rowena didn't hesitate, didn't question, didn't offer warnings about safety or sense.

"Of course, dear," she said simply.

Then, turning to Sammy with the brightness that grandmothers could summon at will: "Sammy and I will have a grand time, won't we, my little prince?"

Sammy brightened at this unexpected development, his earlier sadness temporarily eclipsed by the promise of extended grandmother time.

"Can we make more biscuits, Grandma?" he asked, hope threading through his voice.

"As many as you like, sweetheart," Rowena replied, brushing a stray curl from his forehead with infinite tenderness.

Then, turning back to me, her expression grew serious, the performance dropping away to reveal genuine concern.

"Just promise me you'll be careful, Jenny. And keep me updated. I worry about you, you know."

The admission was small but significant. Rowena rarely acknowledged worry directly, preferring to express concern through criticism or unsolicited advice. This straightforward declaration of maternal anxiety was gift and burden simultaneously.

"I will. I promise," I said, though we both knew promises were fragile things in uncertain times.

As I gathered my belongings—handbag, phone, jacket, the business card Jenkins had given me—each item felt weighted with significance. These were the tools I'd carry into whatever came next, ordinary objects that might have to serve extraordinary purposes.

I gave Sammy a long hug, holding him with the fierce protectiveness that motherhood had awakened in me. His small body against mine was reminder and motivation—this was why I had to go, why I had to risk whatever lay ahead. His hands clung to me with the particular grip of a child who'd learned that people could disappear, who was beginning to understand that goodbye might be more than temporary.

"Mummy has to go away for a little bit," I told him, my voice calm despite the storm inside. "But I'll be back soon, and maybe I'll bring Daddy with me. Okay?"

The promise felt reckless, another cheque I might not be able to cash. But what else could I offer him? The truth was too terrible, too complex, too adult for his three-year-old understanding.

Sammy's brow furrowed as he processed this information, then he nodded with the solemnity of someone making a formal agreement.

"Okay, Mummy. I'll be good for Grandma."

"I know you will, sweetheart."

I pulled him close once more, memorising the feeling of his weight, his warmth, his particular scent that was fading from baby to boy. If something happened to me, if I didn't come back, I wanted this sensory memory burned into whatever remained.

Standing, I met Rowena's eyes. In them was understanding, fear, pride, and something that might have been recognition—of herself perhaps, of the lengths a woman would go to for those she loved.

"Go do what you need to do," she said simply.

There was nothing more to say. We both knew the risks, the possibilities, the potential for this goodbye to be more significant than we were acknowledging. But some truths were too large for words, could only be held in the spaces between what was said.

I stepped out into the evening air, now properly cold with the sun fully surrendered to night. The first stars were beginning to puncture the darkening sky, distant and indifferent to human crisis. The city lights spread below like a map of the normal world, the world where husbands came home and wives didn't have to become detectives and three-year-olds didn't have to learn about absence.

My car waited in the driveway, ordinary and patient, about to become my vehicle for extraordinary purposes. As I unlocked it, I turned back to see Rowena and Sammy silhouetted in the doorway, backlit by the warm hallway light. They waved, and I waved back, the gesture feeling heavier than it should.

The engine started with familiar reliability, and I reversed out of the driveway. The gravel crunched under the tyres, that sound of home that might never sound the same again.

As I drove away, heading down through the winding streets towards the city and whatever investigation I could manage, I carried with me the image of them in the doorway—my mother and my son, the past and future, standing guard over each other whilst I went searching for the present that had gone missing.

Luke Smith. The name pulsed in my mind like a heartbeat, like a summons, like a key turning in a lock I didn't know existed.

I would find out who he was. I would find out how he connected to Nial. I would find my husband.

Or I would discover why I couldn't.

Either way, the waiting was over.