The Light in the Window

Margaret lights the lantern at exactly 7:12 p.m. every evening.

She never misses a night. Not in twenty years.

Even when the town was swallowed in an ice storm, and power lines snapped under the weight of frozen branches, she bundled herself in layers, struck a match, and made sure the lantern glowed against the darkness.

A beacon. A promise. A plea.

She wonders, sometimes, if the neighbors see it and shake their heads. If they whisper about her behind closed doors, lowering their voices as though grief is contagious.

"That poor woman. She still thinks he’s coming home."

Margaret doesn’t care what they say.

Because he has to.

Jonah would be thirty now. The thought feels obscene, impossible, like some cruel joke. In her mind, he is still eight years old—forever preserved in a red winter coat with a stubborn cowlick at the crown of his head. She remembers the way his breath puffed in tiny clouds as he ran, boots slapping against the cold ground, tilting his head back to catch snowflakes on his tongue.

"Five more minutes, Jonah."

"Okay, Mama!"

That was the last thing he ever said to her.

She had turned her back for just a moment, fiddling with the zipper on her coat, distracted by the way the wind was picking up, already forming tiny drifts against the porch steps.

By the time she looked up, he was gone.

The Search

The search began immediately.

Flashlights cut through the dark, sweeping across frozen ground and skeletal trees. The night pulsed with the sound of voices calling his name—urgent, desperate, alive.

"Jonah!"

"Jonah, can you hear us?"

Strangers combed through the woods, their breath coming fast and ragged, boots crunching over brittle leaves and ice-crusted snow. Dogs barked in the distance, their handlers urging them forward. Helicopters whirred overhead, their spotlights carving desperate circles into the earth.

At first, people believed he’d turn up.

"Maybe he wandered too far."

"Maybe he got lost, but he’ll find his way home."

"Maybe someone found him and took him inside, out of the cold."

Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe.

But then the first night passed. And the second. And the third.

The temperature dropped below freezing. The wind howled through the trees, rattling branches, slamming shutters against siding.

And people’s voices began to change.

They started talking about other things.

Hypothermia. Animal tracks. The river.

Margaret refused to listen.

She told them all to keep looking.

She told them Jonah was still out there.

She told them he was waiting for her.

The Years That Followed

People cared, at first.

They brought casseroles, loaves of homemade bread, lasagna packed into tin trays. The fridge overflowed with food Margaret never touched. Her throat was too tight to swallow.

Neighbors checked in, hovering at the doorstep, hands wrapped around Tupperware lids, offering quiet condolences disguised as conversation.

"You should eat something, Margaret."

"You need to keep up your strength."

"We’re all praying for him."

She thanked them without really hearing them.

She just kept waiting.

She left Jonah’s room exactly as it was. His bed unmade, his Spider-Man pajamas folded neatly on the pillow. The books on his nightstand—The BFG, Where the Red Fern Grows, Captain Underpants—gathered dust. His school backpack slumped against the corner of the room, untouched.

The smell of him faded over time. She tried to stop it. She kept his jacket by the door, pressing her face into the fabric, inhaling deeply—until one day, it smelled like nothing.

Like absence.

And every night, at exactly 7:12 p.m., she lit the lantern.

"If you’re out there, come home."

The Town Moved On

The town changed. The seasons turned. The world kept moving.

The sheriff—who used to stop by weekly with updates—retired. The reporters stopped calling. New families moved in, young couples with babies on their hips, people who had no idea who Jonah was, who never thought to ask why the house at the edge of town always had a light in the window.

The candlelight vigils faded, too.

The first one was beautiful—hundreds of tiny flames flickering against the night, a hush falling over the crowd as Margaret stood at the front, clutching a photo of her son.

The second vigil was smaller.

The third had even fewer people.

And by the time the one-year anniversary came and went, only a handful of neighbors gathered. Their flames flickered, but Margaret saw it in their faces.

Pity.

Pity meant they had already let go.

Margaret never did.

She still made his favorite soup every Sunday—chicken and stars, with a little extra salt. She still bought his favorite cereal, even though it sat untouched in the cabinet, growing stale.

And every night, at exactly 7:12 p.m., she lit the lantern.

The Knock

It happens on a November night.

The anniversary.

The wind is bitter, curling through the trees, rattling dead leaves against the pavement. Margaret sits in her chair by the window, rocking slowly, eyes fixed on the lantern’s glow.

Then—a knock at the door.

Soft. Hesitant.

Margaret freezes.

Her heart stumbles, then slams against her ribs. No one knocks anymore.

Not at this hour.

Not on this night.

For a long, breathless moment, she doesn’t move.

Then, slowly, she rises.

Her hands tremble as she reaches for the knob. A voice in her head whispers don’t hope, but hope is a living thing, clawing its way through her ribs, pressing against her lungs until she can barely breathe.

She opens the door.

And—

Nothing.

No one.

The road stretches long and empty before her, bathed in the lantern’s glow. The trees stand motionless, their bare branches reaching upward, skeletal against the night sky. The wind whispers past, cold against her skin, but the porch is empty.

Margaret steps forward, searching the dark.

"Jonah?"

Her voice is hoarse, barely more than a breath. It vanishes into the wind.

There is no answer.

Just the trees. The quiet. The waiting.

She stands there for a long time, the cold biting at her cheeks, her hands.

Then—a flicker.

The lantern’s flame trembles, shivers, nearly goes out—before steadying again.

And for the briefest, most impossible moment, she feels something.

A shift in the air. A warmth against her fingers. A presence, just for a second.

Then, gone.

Margaret sways where she stands, breath coming fast and uneven.

Slowly, slowly, she exhales. Her hands fall away from the doorframe. Her shoulders drop.

She steps back inside. Shuts the door.

And, as always, she waits.

Outside, in the window, the lantern keeps burning.