He was sitting alone by the window
In hopes that the phone would ring,
Just as he’d sat there every day
Since she’d disappeared last Spring,
But snow now lay in the gutter,
Was glistening up in the trees,
And his thoughts would stray fom the words he’d pray,
‘Won’t you please come home, Louise!’

The phone lay stubbornly silent,
The snow untouched in the street,
There wasn’t a cart or a tyremark,
Nor even a sign of feet.
The sky was louring grey outside
As it was, the day she went,
He wished he knew, but hadn’t a clue
There had been no argument.

He’d thought perhaps she’d been taken,
Had struggled, against her will,
But there’d been no sign of a ransom,
The phone had stayed silent still.
He’d asked her friends in the neighborhood
What she’d said, could they recall?
But all of them said Louise was good,
That nothing stood out at all.

Her clothes still hung in the wardrobe,
And gave off their faint perfume,
As days went by he would sit and cry
Could barely go in the room,
The Police were as good as useless,
Inferred she’d taken a walk,
‘She’s probably got a new boyfriend,
If only your walls could talk.’

The only clue that he’d ever found
Was a script in a bag she’d left,
He found the word unpronounceable
But strange that the script was kept,
She wasn’t a one for keeping things
She said there were bins for that,
She’d thrown out even a friendship ring
And an old and beaten hat.

One day there were footsteps through the snow
Wound up at his own front door,
He raced to open the doorway up
But the footsteps stopped at the floor,
There wasn’t a sign they’d gone away,
There wasn’t a sign of retreat,
Whoever had come to his front door
Was still out there in the street.

He went back into the study then
And gazed through the sudden rain,
He never knew when the phone rang through
It would cause him so much pain.
A voice intoned, ‘If you’re on your own,
Sit down, are you Brian Drew?’
And then went on with its dismal song
‘I’ve a message to pass to you.’

‘This is the Somerhill Hospice, with
A body, ready to claim,
It’s up to you, but it’s Louise Drew
She left a note with your name.
She finally died this morning from
That tumour, found on her lung,
We didn’t know she was married, though,
That note was under her tongue.’

‘She didn’t want you to suffer, it
Was better she went away,
She wrote she hadn’t told anyone
But came in as Louise Grey.’
Brian’s face became bloodless at
The wet footsteps in the hall,
Then took in the silent nothingness,
And threw the phone at the wall.

David Lewis Paget