For A Father's Love

by JoAnn A. Grote

  Mandy and Ellen went up the narrow old staircase together. The girls weren’t in the bedrooms.

  Mandy and Ellen stopped in the dining room where Jason and Gramps were discussing the successful Christmas tree season over another cup of coffee. “Have you two seen the girls?” Ellen asked.

  “Not since dinner.” Jason stretched back in his chair.

  “I bet they’re in the basement.” Gram started toward the basement door. “There’s an old sofa and chair down there we’ve never gotten around to throwing out. The girls like to play down there sometimes.”

  But they weren’t in the basement either.

  Mandy tried to push away the fear edging into her chest. “They’re probably playing hide-and-seek.”

  “That’s right,” Jason joined in. “They’re probably in some closet right now, giggling at the trouble they’re causing us.”

  The adults went through the house, calling to the girls, ordering them to appear, peering into every closet and cubbyhole and beneath each bed.

  The last closet Ellen checked was by the front door. When she turned from it, her white face and panicked eyes shot dread through Mandy’s veins. “Their coats are gone.”

  Mandy glanced at the rug before the front door. “So are their boots. Maybe they decided to start on their snowmen early.”

  “In this storm?” Jason reached past Ellen to grab his coat. He slid it on while stuffing his feet into his boots. “I’ll check the yard. Mandy, you and Ellen check the Christmas store.”

  The storm had blown a thin layer of snow across the porch floor. The dim rays cast by the porch light revealed two sets of small boot prints crossing the porch to the steps. Mandy pointed to them, excitement threading through her. “Look.”

  A few feet from the bottom of the steps the prints were blown over. Mandy’s heart sank at the unbroken snow. Their path was destroyed as surely as Hansel and Gretel’s path. She cast a glance at Jason. He met her gaze, worry thick in his eyes.

  Without a word to each other, Jason split off from Mandy and Ellen. For a short ways, Mandy could hear him calling the girls’ names, as she and Ellen were doing. Then his voice disappeared, swallowed up by distance and the storm. Or maybe he’s found the girls. Think positive, Mandy.

  I never realized how many places there are for a child to hide in here, Mandy thought as she and Ellen investigated the barn, calling for the girls. It was maddening how much time it took.

  Mandy had grabbed her cell phone before they left. No telling what the night ahead might hold.

  The helplessness she felt at the growing terror she saw in Ellen’s face added to Mandy’s own fears. She slid her arm around Ellen’s waist as they started back to the farmhouse. “Maybe Jason found them making snowmen behind the house.”

  He hadn’t.

  He, Grandpa Seth, and Grandma Tillie were pacing the living room. “Maybe we should call someone,” Grandma Tillie said. “The sheriff or the police.”

  Mandy stood beside Ellen at the front door, her mind tossing about for ideas and coming up with nothing. Her gaze rested on Beth’s doll, wrapped in Ellen’s improvised swaddling clothes, and the memory of Beth’s performance only hours earlier squeezed her heart.

  Something clicked in her mind. The doll. Something wasn’t right.

  Mandy started toward the sofa, forgetting to remove her boots. Frowning, she picked up Beth’s doll.

  Jason came up beside her. “What is it, Mandy?”

  “Beth wrapped the doll in the blue blanket.” Mandy raised her troubled gaze to Jason’s. “Where is the blanket?”

  “The nativity.” The realization hit Mandy and Jason at the same time.

  Ellen stared at them from beside the front door. “What are you talking abut?”

  Jason hurried toward her. “They’ve gone to the nativity to cover up the baby Jesus.”

  “In this storm?” Ellen’s eyes showed she refused to believe it. “In the dark?” She shook her head. “They’d never go without telling me. It’s the one rule they never break.”

  Jason snapped his fingers. “The card. Did you get the card Beth made for you, Ellen?”

  “She didn’t give me a card.”

  “On the dining room table.” Jason crossed the living room with long, determined strides, Mandy and Ellen in his wake. “Beth came in during the chess game. She laid a folded piece of paper with your name on it in crayon. I asked if she’d made you a Christmas card. She just smiled and left the room. Here it is.” He handed it to Ellen.

  Mandy noticed the Christmasy red crayon in which the card was written. No wonder Jason thought it a Christmas note. She glanced over Ellen’s shoulder. The note wasn’t long and was filled with scratched-out and misspelled words which would otherwise have caused amusement.

  The paper shook in Ellen’s hands, and her voice trembled as she read:

  Mommy,

  Bonnie and me are going to the baby Jesus. We took our jackets and a flashlight, so don’t be scared like when J. P. was little.

  Beth

  Ellen pressed her fingers to her lips to stifle a sob.

  A gust of wind shook the windows as the knowledge of the children’s danger blew into Mandy’s heart and chilled it.

  Nineteen

  Jason pushed his fingers through his hair. It chilled him to the marrow to find his and Mandy’s assumption was correct. “I should have told you about that note right away, Ellen.”

  “You had no way of knowing what it contained,” Gram reassured him as she hurried toward the kitchen. “I’ll call the police.”

  But Mandy had already punched 9-1-1 on her cell phone.

  Fifteen minutes later a plan was in place. The sheriff was on the way out to the farm. His office was making calls to volunteers experienced with hunting the mountains for missing persons. Everyone knew without it being said that it was unlikely the girls would find their way to the nativity in the storm. They could be anyplace on the mountain.

  The farmhouse already felt like a command center. Gramps had dug out detailed maps of the mountains in the area, including an up-to-date map of the Christmas tree farm. Gram found the two-way radios used on the farm before the advent of cell phones. Mandy started coffee and hot chocolate for thermoses and collected blankets from the linen closet.

  Ellen made a quick trip to the Christmas store for a change of clothes for herself and Mandy and for Beth and Bonnie. “They’re out there in their Christmas dresses and tights,” Ellen reminded Mandy.

  Jason called Tom Berry and explained the situation. After hanging up, Jason turned to Mandy and Ellen. “Tom’s heading up to the nativity from his place.”

  A shade of relief passed over Ellen’s face at the realization one more person was looking for her girls.

  Gram put in a quick call to the pastor and received his assurance he’d immediately arrange a prayer chain among the congregation.

  Jason put chains on the tires of the farm’s Jeep and attached a trailer behind it to carry a snowmobile. He made certain there was a first-aid kit, a flashlight, and extra batteries in the vehicle.

  When he finished, he returned to the kitchen where Mandy was pouring hot chocolate into a thermos. A sense of urgency made his chest hurt. “I’m heading out in the Jeep. I think it’s important someone is out there looking for the girls as soon as possible.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “Don’t you want to stay with Ellen?”

  “Grandma Tillie and Grandpa Seth will be with her. And the sheriff will have others here.”

  It had already been agreed that after the sheriff arrived, Ellen and Grandma Tillie would go down to the Christmas store to wait in case the children returned there. Grandpa Seth would remain at the farmhouse where volunteers would headquarter.

  Mandy changed quickly into jeans, a turtleneck, and a sweatshirt, then slipped into her practical winter parka. Jason and Mandy carried a radio, cell phone, thermos of hot chocolate, and blankets out to the Jeep. They took backpacks in case the
y needed to travel by snowmobile later. Ellen handed them the set of clean, dry clothes for each of the girls.

  Jason’s heart contracted. He took a moment to hug Ellen. “Keep praying.”

  She nodded, and he felt her tears hot against his cheek.

  Tom would be headed up the path he’d made from his place to the nativity, but the girls started out from the farmhouse. Jason’s plan was to approach the nativity as close as possible from the roads through the Christmas groves, go beyond as far as possible in the Jeep, then take the snowmobile.

  At one point, Jason reached over and squeezed one of Mandy’s gloved hands in an attempt to reassure her. He wished he could give her true comfort, assure her the girls were fine and would be found safe and sound.

  He couldn’t even hold her hand for long, let alone calm her fears. Even with the Jeep’s four-wheel drive and ability to travel over rough terrain, the way was difficult and demanded his full attention, with both hands on the steering wheel.

  “I wish the girls had a dog with them, the way you had Old Butch.” Mandy gave him a tight little semblance of a smile.

  “Me too. Maybe we should override Ellen’s veto and give the girls a puppy for Christmas, after all.”

  “A Saint Bernard might be a good choice.”

  He forced a chuckle. He didn’t feel like laughing but appreciated her attempt at humor. “Can you imagine one of those in the Christmas store? Its tail would take out every Christmas tree in the place.”

  She gave him a small smile, then turned her gaze back to the windshield. “I’ve always liked a white Christmas, but I’d be just as happy without one this year.”

  Jason drove slowly, and they both tried to watch for the girls as they went along, but it was almost impossible to see anything but shadowy, lumpy shapes in the curtain of snow. They kept the windows partially down and stopped about every hundred feet to call to the girls and listen intently for an answer they never received. He sent prayers up constantly and knew Mandy did the same.

  At one point they received a call on the radio from the sheriff, who’d arrived at the farmhouse. Jason told him where they were and reported they’d seen no sign of the girls. The sheriff told him the Highway Patrol was closing the highways and asked him to keep in touch.

  When Jason could go no farther with the Jeep due to the thick growth beneath the snow, he stopped. “I figure we’re within a quarter mile of the nativity,” he told Mandy. “The snowmobiles are too noisy. If we walk, we can keep calling for the girls and have a chance of hearing them respond.”

  “Maybe Tom has already reached the nativity,” Mandy said. “Maybe he’s found the girls.”

  “Maybe.”

  “If he’d found them, he’d let the sheriff know, wouldn’t he?”

  “Tom took a cell phone with him, but he doesn’t have a radio. He might not be able to keep in touch with the sheriff all the time. There are dead-air places in the mountains where the cell phones don’t work, as you know.”

  They packed the thermoses, blankets, phones, first-aid kit, compass, extra batteries, and children’s clothes into the backpacks and started out on foot. They each carried a flashlight, and Jason carried the radio in a holster over his shoulder.

  The trees cut the force of the wind, but it was still hard going uphill through the storm, the tangled underbrush and rocks beneath the snow making their footing tricky. Jason and Mandy held hands as they trudged along.

  His admiration for her grew. She was a trooper. No complaints from her at the conditions, though he could hear her labored breathing. The chill bit at his cheeks, and he pictured the girls’ legs protected only by tights and high boots. He was certain Mandy had similar thoughts, but she didn’t voice them. Likely she felt as he did, that expressing their fears wouldn’t do any good. Better to put all their energy into trying to find the girls.

  Twice he reconnoitered and changed their direction, and still he wondered whether they were headed the right way. Would they become lost and not find the nativity until the storm let up? He sent up a prayer of gratitude when Mandy leaned close and said, “There it is.” He followed the direction she pointed with her flashlight, and saw a dim glow farther up the hillside.

  Their pace quickened. They resumed their pattern of calling for the girls, listening, and calling again.

  Soon they reached the nativity. The wind was stronger, coming up the ridge from the highway, which Jason knew lay below, though they couldn’t see it. He climbed onto the platform and flashed his light around. Disappointment cut through him like a knife blade. He hadn’t realized the extent to which he’d hoped to find the girls huddled in that make-shift stable in the hay behind the statues.

  He concentrated the light on the manger. Snow mounded over the statue of the baby Jesus. No blue blanket covered it.

  Jason jumped down off the platform. “Not there,” he announced to Mandy unnecessarily.

  Mandy shone her light beneath the platform, which stood two feet off the ground. They both bent down to look beneath it. The girls weren’t there either.

  A man’s shout greeted them as they straightened up. It was Tom Berry, arriving on foot at the top of the rough path he’d cut through the woods for his truck.

  It took only a couple minutes to exchange information. Tom’s truck had become stuck a ways down the mountain, in spite of the chains on his tires. He’d seen no sign of the girls, though he’d kept a close watch and called for them regularly.

  Jason pulled the radio out of his holster and called in to make his report to the sheriff. He slid an arm around Mandy’s shoulders and pulled her close while he talked. The transmission crackled and the conversation broke up, but he was able to make out most of it. The sheriff explained a large group of volunteers had arrived at the farm and were ready to head out in an organized search pattern.

  Jason’s chest ached unbearably. The chances hadn’t been great they’d find the girls here, but he’d kept a fierce hope up just the same. Now the area to search had expanded exponentially. An eight year old and a six year old in the middle of a snowstorm at night in the mountains. How could they possibly have any sense of direction?

  They could be anywhere in the miles of dark and cold.

  Twenty

  Jason was almost ready to end his radio contact with the sheriff when he felt Mandy straighten beneath his arm. He glanced at her, questioning her with his eyes.

  “The highway.”

  “Hold on just a minute, Sheriff.” He waited for Mandy’s explanation.

  “On the way back from church tonight, I pointed out the lights from the nativity to the girls as we drove by. I don’t think Beth would have known how to reach here by cutting through the farm and woods like we did, but—”

  “But she’d know how to follow the highway toward town,” Jason interrupted, hope taking fire within him, “and look for the light on the mountainside.”

  Mandy nodded.

  “And the highway’s been closed off, so no one would have seen the girls,” Tom added.

  Jason explained Mandy’s theory to the sheriff and signed off. “He’s alerting the Highway Patrol,” Jason told Mandy and Tom, “and sending some men out along the highway in a four-wheel drive and on snowmobiles.”

  Jason had always prided himself on being quick and decisive under fire, but the dilemma before him now made him appreciate every leader who ever made a decision involving another human life. Should the three of them stay together or split up? Should they head down the ridge to the highway and search for the girls themselves? Or stay at the nativity in case the girls showed up there?

  In the end, Tom offered to stay at the nativity. Jason and Mandy started down the ridge. It was steep and rocky with few trees. “Careful. Take it slow,” Jason warned Mandy. “It won’t help the girls any if one of us hurts ourselves.”

  Yet it was frustrating to take it slow. Once Mandy lost her footing and slid full length down the slope. His heart leaped to his throat until she came to a stop thirty feet
down. He wanted to shout for joy when they reached the highway where they could walk without the burden of rocks and underbrush beneath the snow.

  He and Mandy continued to call as they walked along the highway toward the farm. The wind seemed to delight in tossing their voices away. They flashed their lights across the highway and along the side of the road as they walked, hoping for a glimpse of something other than trees and rocks and snow.

  They rounded a bend, and the ridge became less steep, with more trees. Mandy played her light along the lower part of the ridge, where pines with sweeping, snow-covered branches stood proud.

  She stopped and grabbed Jason’s arm. “I thought I saw something move.”

  He watched her light play back over the area she’d just covered. “There. Do you see it?”

  “Yes.” He started toward the tree, which stood about ten feet away. Something wide and long appeared caught on a branch and swung in the wind.

  Mandy plowed through the snow beside him, keeping her light trained on the branch.

  As he drew closer, his certainty grew. A scarf was caught on the tree. Could it belong to Beth or Bonnie?

  He tried to call out the girls’ names one more time, but hope formed a lump in his throat, and he couldn’t shout. He ran the last couple steps and grabbed at the scarf. It was plum-colored chenille.

  His fingers clutched about the material, Jason turned to Mandy. He saw the joy in her eyes. She recognized it too.

  He pulled at the scarf, but it caught. Looking closer, he saw it had been tied around the branch.

  Mandy grabbed the scarf beside the knot. “Beth.” The name was barely a whisper on the wind.

  Jason swallowed the lump in his throat. “Beth.” It came out as soft as Mandy’s, but they both kept trying. “Beth! Bonnie!”

  Their voices grew louder.

  “Here! We’re here!”

  The lower branches swung aside, dumping lumps of snow. Two red-cheeked faces peeked out.

  Jason and Mandy dropped to their knees. Jason caught Beth to his chest, feeling his heart would explode through his rib cage in joy and gratitude. Beth clung to him. He saw Mandy drawing Bonnie into her embrace.