Before her husband's death, she had never been an insomniac. It had always been him that she found in the kitchen at all hours of the night—sometimes sipping at a cup of coffee and staring out the window into the dark, sometimes working on his latest novel—he was a horror writer, after all, and it was the dark that inspired him. Now that he's dead, it's she that can't sleep at night; it's all that she can do to stay away from the table, keep away from the windows at night, stop herself from staring out and—what? Whatever it was that he saw in the dark, she cannot see it.

Tonight is another sleepless night. She goes to bed after the eleven o'clock news, same as always, and lies awake for an hour before she accepts defeat, and slides her slippers on, walking from the semi-darkness of the bedroom into the warmth and light of the kitchen. The stove light is always on; she leaves it on, to remind herself of him, of how he used to leave it on, knowing he wouldn't be able to sleep, not wanting to fumble in the dark for the switch, too stubborn to carry a flashlight, for fear of waking her up with the beam. She had always been a light sleeper; she tried to convince him that the flashlight beam wouldn't wake her, that it was his absence from the bed, the half-asleep realisation that he was gone, the cold spot and the sheets, neatly folded back, that woke her. She would wake regardless; what did a few hours' difference make? He didn't see things as she did, though, and so it was the stove light that was left on, and the flashlight on his nightstand untouched.

Sitting at the table long after midnight, she gazes out the window, wondering it was her husband saw. There's nothing to be seen from the window—just the jagged black of the trees, and on a clear night, the few stars that can be seen through the heavy woods that surround their house. She contemplates the darkness, considers what he might have seen in it, and after a while, stops dwelling on what he might have seen, and starts thinking about him. She misses him, and a year later, still expects to wander out to the kitchen, and see him sitting at the table, staring out the window at whatever he saw in the blackness.

There is something sinister about the darkness outside the window tonight, or maybe it is only her imagination again. She's had this feeling many times, but being brave and going out to investigate in her robe and slippers always yields the same result—nothing unfamiliar, nothing where it does not belong. A feeling of being watched, of oppressiveness—of something outside her window, waiting for her, just out of sight. She never felt this way before her husband died. It was only after reading one his unfinished manuscripts that she began to fear the dark.

She doesn't investigate tonight. She's not really afraid, after all, it's just her imagination—and it's cold out. There's frost forming on the window already. There is no need to step outside the door, or so she tells herself. She's more afraid than she'd like to admit—she's so alone now—and this is her way of coping, pretending that nothing is wrong. This seems to work, and around three o'clock, she puts her head down on the table, and sleeps.

Eventually dawn breaks, and the sunlight streaming through the window wakes her. She starts a pot of coffee, and slowly begins another day, still no nearer discovering what outside the window could have driven her husband to suicide.