by Nancy Warren
Trish took one look at his face and said, “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.” She came over and gave him a hug and he found that even though he towered over his mother, he wasn’t too old for the comfort of a hug.
“Why?” she asked at last.
She sat down at the kitchen table, the coffee forgotten and he sat down across from her.
Why? It was a question he’d wrestled with all night ever since he’d dropped Erin off at her place and driven home to a cold, empty house. He hadn’t even had the dog for company.
“She said she’s married to her business, basically. She doesn’t have time for a family.”
Trish stared at him, her face creased in a frown. “I don’t believe that,” she said suddenly. “Erin strikes me as a young woman who could juggle her business with a family no problem.”
“Well, that’s what she said. Maybe she was letting me down lightly.”
“But it doesn’t make sense. Do you think you startled her? Perhaps she needs more time.”
“I offered her more time. She said it wouldn’t make any difference.”
“But she’s perfect for you, and you two are clearly in love. And Sadie adores her. She’d be the perfect step-mother for your poor motherless child.”
He was saved having to reply when the dancing tap of claws on his hardwood floors announced the arrival of Cupid looking for food. Sadie was right behind him. He hoped to hell his daughter hadn’t heard any part of his conversation with his mother.
Seemed she hadn’t when she said, “Cupid wants a cookie.”
A low woof and wagging tail suggested Cupid agreed with that statement.
“And so do I.”
He smiled and rose. If there was one thing he’d learned it was that heartbreak didn’t kill you. There were always moments of lightness even in the darkest times.
Sadie and Cupid were good reminders of that.
“Let’s see,” he said, “A dog bone for Miss Sadie and chocolate chip for Cupid.”
His daughter’s full-belly laugh exploded, bringing life to the kitchen. “No, Daddy! Cupid gets the dog bone. I get the chocolate chip.”
CHAPTER SIX
Sadie told her dad she was going to read to Cupid. He wagged his tail and trotted happily behind her. Cupid followed her around like that a lot. She thought maybe it was because they were both little and didn’t always understand what was happening. At least they had each other.
When they got to her room the dog flopped on her pink rug and watched as she went to the bookcase and drew out a book.
She was a pretty good reader if there weren’t too many big words and all the books in her book shelf – except for some that had belonged to her mother and her Dad had told her she could keep until she got older – were books she could read.
Her Grandma had said Erin would make a good stepmother to Sadie.
She’d stood quietly and listened. She’d known her dad and grandmother were talking about serious things and experience had taught her that if she waited until the serious talk was over she was more likely to get what she wanted.
So, she’d waited, half listening, and then realized that her wanted to get married to Erin. And Erin would make a great stepmother. Except that Erin had said no, she didn’t want to marry Sadie’s dad. And she didn’t want to be Sadie’s stepmother.
She pulled out one of the books and showed Cupid. “Look, Cupid. You know who this is?”
He glanced at the page and yawned.
“It’s the wicked step-mother. She tries to kill Snow White.”
She pulled out another book. “Cinderella.” She turned pages trying not to get too distracted by the princess dresses. “See this lady?” she showed the dog who sniffed the page. “She’s the wicked step-mother. See those two girls? Those are her real daughters. That’s why she hates Cinderella and makes her wear rags and do all the housework. Because she only loves her real daughters.”
Over the next few days Sadie watched how sad her father was. He tried to make jokes and act like he usually did, but he stared off into space a lot of the time. She didn’t see Erin and nobody mentioned her name.
Sadie understood what was going on.
Erin wouldn’t marry her dad because she thought Sadie would be in the way. But Sadie wouldn’t hate having stepsisters. She thought she might even like it. When kids at school got baby brothers and sisters she always wished she could have one too.
It was Saturday morning and they were doing their chores. She dusted in the living room and her Dad got out the vacuum cleaner. Cupid took one look at the machine and ran for the kitchen. He was scared of the noise.
There was a picture in the living room in a frame she’d made at school. It showed Dad and Sadie and Erin in the back yard building a snowman. Cupid’s nose was covered in snow where he’d been making snowballs with his nose. When she saw her Dad take the picture and put it in a drawer she decided she had to do something.
“Dad,” she said later that morning.
“Mmm-hmm?” He was reading the paper, which was always good for getting him to say yes to things because he wasn’t really listening.
“Can we go see Erin today?”
He didn’t say ‘yes’ and go on reading like she’d hoped he would. He looked up and he looked sad. “No, honey. Not today.”
When her grandmother came over later that day, Sadie said, “Grandma, can we go see Erin?”
“Oh, honey,” her Grandma said giving her a hug. “Erin’s really busy. Why don’t we bake some cookies instead?”
So they baked cookies, peanut butter ones that she got to put little squares on by pushing a fork into the dough.
And then, after Grandma went home, her dad let her watch a movie while he went into his office. She knew he wasn’t going to drive her to Erin’s and her Grandmother wasn’t going to take her. She really needed to see her and tell her that it was okay for her to marry Sadie’s Dad. She wouldn’t get in the way. She’d be good.
But if she wanted to talk to Erin, she’d have to walk to her house.
She’d gone with her Dad and Cupid a few times. It was kind of a long walk, but Sadie was a good walker.
She put on her warm pink boots and her blue jacket with the pink and purple hearts on it, and the scarf her grandmother had knit her.
Then she remembered the necklace Erin had made her. She took everything off again and went back to her room and put the necklace on. Then she went back to the back door and put on her boots and her jacket and the scarf Grandma had knit and finally her hat.
Then she thought she might get hungry on the way so she took two peanut butter cookies off the plate on the table and put them in her pocket.
She opened the door as quietly as she could, but Cupid must have heard her because he came running up to her looking all excited like he was going for a walk.
“Shhh,” she said. But Cupid wasn’t very good at being quiet, especially when he was excited. He was jumping around and his tongue was hanging out and her Dad would come out in a minute to see what was going on, so she said, “Okay, you can come but you have to be quiet,” and then she opened the kitchen door and Cupid rushed out.
When she got out and closed the door behind her she was glad she had the dog.
She’d never walked so far by herself.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Sadie, what do you say to pizza for dinner?”
Jared knew he wouldn’t get any ‘world’s best Dad’ awards for today. He’d let Sadie watch a video all afternoon so he could work, but he’d found himself composing an email to Erin instead.
It had turned into one of those really long letters that a person is much better off not sending. He’d written a few to his wife after she died. It sounded insane to him now. Well, it had seemed insane to him then as well but the grief counselor had suggested the idea as a way to express all the things he found he needed to tell her now that she was no longer in the world to hear them.
Some of it was about raising their daughte
r alone. He’d asked her advice, shared funny anecdotes. Then, to his shock, he’d written long, angry diatribes. How dare she go off and leave him? He needed her. Their daughter needed her.
The stages of grief, he’d discovered, were real. And anger had been the toughest one for him. Being angry at the woman he loved for dying, when she’d wanted so badly to live, had seemed brutal. Cruel. Now he could look back and understand that he’d been processing his pain in the classic pattern.
So it hadn’t seemed so crazy today when he’d written Erin that long email. He wasn’t angry. Mostly he was simply confused. And sad.
Why? Why had she turned him down? Her claim that her business came first didn’t ring true somehow. The expression in her eyes when he’d first surprised her with the ring had been full of love and he was sure he’d read Yes in her eyes before her mouth had said No.
Or was that his ego seeing what it wanted to?
He supposed he wasn’t the first man in history who ever wished he could understand women.
And now he had a very small woman growing up in a motherless household and he needed to feed her.
Pizza was a once-in-a-while treat that he figured they could both use.
“Sadie?” He entered the den to find the TV on and nobody there.
He switched off the set and headed up to his daughter’s room. She wasn’t there, either, but when he switched on the overhead light he saw a fan of open books on the floor near her bed. He walked over and saw that each of them were fairy tales. He recognized Snow White and Cinderella, and a few others. Strange she’d read so many books at once. Then, as he got closer he experienced the first twinge of anxiety. Each of the stories was open to the part about the evil stepmother.
Had his daughter heard him and his mother talking? He remembered his mom saying that Erin would make a good stepmother because the term had struck him as odd. Stepmother.
Sadie must have heard it too. In her young mind, stepmother equaled an evil person who persecuted young girls.
But Sadie knew Erin. As far as he could tell they adored each other. Why would she think Erin would hurt her?
He was probably imagining things. He’d talk to her, explain what had happened in terms she could understand. He’d have told her before but somehow he’d hoped Erin and he would work things out.
He quickened his pace as he searched the rest of the house.
In less than five minutes he knew that Sadie was gone.
Only when, in his haste, he kicked the dog’s water bowl and drenched his stocking foot did he realize that Cupid was also missing.
Don’t panic, he told himself.
Sadie’s coat and boots weren’t in their usual spot by the back door. Unlike her to go out in the backyard without asking permission, but, as he slipped on his own coat and boots he resolved to talk to her right away about what had happened with him and Erin. He didn’t like thinking about her upstairs perusing her entire collection of fairy tales featuring evil stepmothers.
But Sadie wasn’t in the backyard. He called for her and for Cupid and there was no answer. The February day was cool and overcast. The afternoon, already far advanced, would soon fade to evening.
Jared had a moment when he simply stood there, rooted to the wet grass staring out at the empty yard and not knowing what to do. It was a paralysis born of bone-deep fear mixed with too many possibilities of where his daughter might have gone and what might have happened to her jumbling in his head.
Then he snapped out of the terrible moment and started moving. Fast.
Back to the house. First call was to his mother, even though he couldn’t imagine she would pick up Sadie without bothering to tell him.
Sadie wasn’t there. When she heard that his daughter was missing, his mom said, “I’ll be right there.”
“No, Mom. Stay where you are. She knows your phone number. You need to be there in case she calls you.”
“I don’t understand, why would—”
“No time, Mom,” he cut her off, knowing that nothing could be gained from talking. “I’ll call you when I find her. You call me on my cell if you hear anything.”
“Yes, of course.” He heard her fear in the waver in her voice but she let him get off the phone.
He grabbed his phone and ran for his car. If Sadie and Cupid were out walking, he’d find them.
He had to.
Erin was having a terrifically lousy day. One of those days when she couldn’t design anything that didn’t convince her she was a fraud and a cheat to charge people for such uninspired designs. When she couldn’t get her cottage warm and no amount of techno pop playing could drown out the fact that she was alone.
And likely to remain that way for the rest of her life.
She’d spent every Sunday since she’d met him with Jared and often with Sadie and Cupid too. Her mind, body and heart all seemed to rebel at the idea of doing anything else.
Scratching out her latest terrible design, she rose to put on yet another pot of coffee. She was already jittery from too much coffee, too little sleep and not eating properly.
“Heartbreak sucks!” she said aloud, realizing that if she didn’t get out of the cottage she’d go slowly crazy. Maybe, she thought, she already had. She simply hadn’t noticed.
Forgoing more caffeine that she really didn’t need she decided to go into town. She’d go to Rosie’s and order a sandwich. Maybe she’d take a drive. Go shopping.
She dragged a brush through her hair, slapped on some lip-gloss and was putting on her coat when her phone rang. Her heart did a ridiculous leap when she saw it was Jared calling.
A strong woman would ignore the call, she knew.
As she reached for her cell she accepted she was not a strong woman. She was a weak woman who was in love with a man who loved her enough to want to marry her.
“Hello?” she said. She didn’t know what she was expecting on the first call he’d made to her since that dismal Valentine’s night when she’d turned down his proposal. But nothing could have prepared her for his first words, raw and cold.
“Sadie’s missing.”
“What?” Instantly her heart began to pound. Every terrible story she’d ever heard on the news involving a child abduction crashed around in her head. “What do you mean, missing?”
“She’s gone. She’d not in the house. I let her watch a movie and when I came to find her she was gone.” She could hear the panic he was trying very hard to hold in check. She knew she wouldn’t help anything if she added her own brand of panic to the mix.
Think, she ordered herself. “Her coat?”
“Coat, boots, hat, mitts. All gone. The dog’s gone too.”
“Did she take the dog for a walk?”
“She’s not even seven yet. She’s not allowed to walk him by herself.” He let out a breath. “I drove around the neighborhood, called my Mom, called a couple of Sadie’s friends but nobody’s seen or heard from her. I thought she might have called you.”
“Does she know my number?”
“Probably not. I – I’m clutching at straws.”
“Did you call the police?”
“My next call.”
Why would a sweet, happy child like Sadie go off like that? “Did you two have a fight?”
“No. She was fine earlier…” She heard hesitation.
“What?” she prompted.
“I told my mother about you and me breaking up. I think she might have heard some of it. When I checked her room she had a lot of books open on her floor. They were those books where the evil stepmother makes life hell for the princess.”
“But, why would she—“
“My mother mentioned how you’d make a great stepmother. I remember being struck by that term. I can only guess that it made Sadie start thinking about the stepmothers she’s read about.”
Fairy tales, she thought grimly, had a lot to answer for. But this was no time for a feminist rant. “What can I do?”
“I don’t know.” She he
ard his helplessness. Shared his fear.
“Jared, she’s got a Border Collie with her. Cupid’s smart and he’s bred to protect. It’s in his DNA.”
“I’m so scared.”
“I know. Me too. I’ll keep my phone with me. I’ll start looking.”
“But where? Where do you think she is?”
“I think she’s either running away to get away from the evil stepmother or she’s coming to me. My guess is she’s coming here.”
He and Sadie had often walked to her place. It was probably half an hour if you went by the path. The path that followed the river.
“It’s going to be dark soon. Take a flashlight. I’ll call the cops then I’ll start walking toward your place.”
“And I’ll start walking toward yours.”
And she prayed to God she was right.
CHAPTER EIGHT
She grabbed a flashlight on her way out the door. As she hit the path by the river she reminded herself that Sadie was young but she was also smart and she’d walked that path many times. She wouldn’t do anything stupid like get too close to the rushing water. She wouldn’t.
The path was gloomy and damp. Recent rain had left the needles and leaves underfoot soggy. The river sounded loud and menacing as she quickened her pace. The kind of river that could chew a child up and still be hungry.
Stop it! She ordered herself.
“Sadie!” she yelled. The river swallowed her shout.
She walked on, her eyes scanning the undergrowth, the path ahead already dimming as the day darkened.
She recalled all the times she and Jared and Sadie had walked this path, how Sadie would name the trees and Cupid would dash in and out of the undergrowth on adventures all his own but always, always he returned to them. Whether it was fear of getting lost or an instinct to keep his herd together she wasn’t sure. Right now, she really hoped his herding and protective instincts were strong.
Erin wasn’t Sadie’s mother but at that moment she couldn’t imagine feeling stronger if the child was hers.
Even if Sadie did find her way to that path it wasn’t safe for a child alone. There were bears in the area, cougars, and heaven knew how many other dangers.