Jane awakens, halfway, a little resentful, a little confused. The noise, she thinks, sounded like a suitcase closing. "Are you going somewhere?"
Daria's side of the bed is empty. Jane sees her, standing, silhouetted by the don't-trip-and-fall light they leave on by the closet. "No," Daria says. "Go back to sleep."
Jane grunts assent and rolls over.
Hours later, the alarm brings her out of sleep again, and Daria is not beside her.
Daria is not showering, or making coffee, or reading the day's webcomics on her laptop.
Half an hour passes, and Jane is texting Daria's colleagues, asking if she had gone in to work on campus. Soon they are texting back to say that they have not seen her.
Daria has not answered her phone.
Jane realizes that the sound had been Daria setting the framed photograph of their wedding day back down on the nightstand.
They find her before noon, on a park bench facing the sea, unprotected from the cold.