“I thought he went up to the house with Tucker,” C.J. said. “Awhile ago.”
Mattie felt as if the strange quiet were expanding from someplace in the center of her, rippling through the kitchen.
The first thing C.J. did, as Sol went out to the barn to look for Danny, was to quietly slip out and run down to the pond. He was methodical in all things, and so in this endeavor he moved through standard operating procedure for Search and Rescue. He didn’t want to alarm Mattie or Sol, but in the confusion of the moment, he knew that the pond had to be ruled out first.
It relieved him that Tucker was with Danny. He whistled for Tucker, scanning the pond for any sign of the boy or the dog. He started to try to catalog details about Danny: the clothes he was wearing, what kind of boots he had on, whether the weight of his clothes would cause him to sink. He knew Tucker wouldn’t leave Danny, but it crossed his mind that they both could have drowned in the frigid temperatures, quickly and quietly.
How long ago had he seen Danny? He thought of Danny coming up to him, telling him that he wanted to borrow Tucker, right after Jaime got off the phone with her father. How long ago was that? He guessed it was twenty minutes, at least. Maybe longer.
He walked along the edge of the pond until he was satisfied that there was no sign of them. No tracks. No disturbance of the ice other than where the car was ripped out. He took a large stick and pushed the ice around where the car had been, until he was thoroughly satisfied. He threw the stick down and started looking around the yard to see if there were any fresh tracks. Every few minutes, he whistled for Tucker, then listened carefully for a bark in return.
Nothing.
If Tucker heard his whistle, he wouldn’t ignore it. He saw Sol cross from the barn to the house, no sign of Danny and Tucker. Concern started to spike inside of C.J. He looked up at the sky. The clear blue of an hour ago was beginning to change. Some gray clouds were starting to gather in the north—a portent of that second storm.
Jaime met him halfway down the lane. “Mattie and I have looked all through the house. Where could he be?”
C.J. blew air out of his mouth. “He’s a bright boy. He knows this farm.”
She glanced at the pond. “Did you think he was down there?”
“I just wanted to make sure. There was so much going on. He could have slipped and fallen in without anyone seeing.”
“Tucker would have barked.”
C.J. nodded.
“Mattie’s terribly worried.”
C.J. started back up to the house. “Little boys wander off all the time. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”
She hurried to catch up to him. “So then, maybe . . . do you think . . . maybe we could leave pretty soon?”
C.J. stopped in his tracks. “With Danny missing? With Tucker gone?”
She studied her feet. “If you feel they’re not in any trouble, don’t you think it would be okay to leave? We could come back and get Tucker when we get back. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind watching him for the week. We could pay them, instead of the kennel.” She lifted her head, a pleading look on her face. “I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t so important.”
C.J. looked at his wife, stunned. When C.J. first met Jaime, he knew this was the girl he’d been waiting for. He’d always thought love at first sight was a tired cliché, but that’s what happened to him. It was like getting hit in the gut, a right cross to the chin. She was funny, fascinating, quirky, ridiculously insecure. Beautiful—and completely indifferent to it. He knew she was young, a little immature, with some lingering issues from her father’s abandonment. Even more issues since James had shown back up—and what was the deal with James promising to set her up with a big-time agent? He’d overheard enough of their conversation to know he’d eventually have to clean up that mess too. Why couldn’t her father behave like a father instead of a manager?
But not a day had gone by that C.J. hadn’t looked at Jaime with love in his heart. Right now, though—at this very moment—he didn’t like this person who stood before him. “You go ahead and go, if it’s that important to you. But I’m not leaving. Not until I know Danny is safe.” He started back up to the house.
“C.J., I’m not meaning to sound heartless,” she called out. “You said yourself that Danny will be back soon.”
C.J. didn’t stop walking, even as Jaime caught up with him. “I’m not going to leave until Danny and Tucker are home, safe and sound.” With a grand sweep of his hand, he added, “But you are free to go.”
Mattie rushed upstairs from the basement when she heard Sol’s footsteps in the kitchen. When Danny was four, he had gone missing and she had found him down in the basement. He had gone down to sample the deer jerky that had just come out of the smoker and fell sound asleep.
“Was he in the barn?”
Sol shook his head.
“Did you look everywhere? The hayloft? You know how he likes to play up there. Could he have fallen?”
“I looked every place in the barn that I could think of.”
Mattie held on to the counter to steady herself. She felt as if the world had become very fragile. At any given moment, anything at all could happen. “I have a terrible feeling inside, Sol. I can’t explain it. Something is wrong.”
Sol put his hands on her shoulders. “Mattie, you think something terrible is going to happen every blessed day. You’ve been thinking that way for a long time now.”
She buried her face in his shoulder. “I know. But this feels different.”
Sol squeezed her tightly against him. “You have to get ahold of yourself and let him be a normal boy, Mattie. Knowing Danny, he probably wandered off for a hike in the woods with the dog. It’s good he has that dog with him too.”
She pulled back. “Why? Why is that good?”
“Because he’s not alone. That English dog won’t leave him.”
Mattie felt her fear lighten a little, but she couldn’t let go of a foreboding. Was it just her mind playing tricks on her? “Didn’t you say another storm was coming in? Right on the heels of this one, you said so yourself, at breakfast.” She looked over at the windows in the living room at the sky. A few gray clouds were sailing across the blue.
“He’s fine. He’ll be back long before then.”
“You don’t know that, Sol. Just by saying something doesn’t make it so. You can’t fix everything! People are not machines, like a table saw that just needs a new part. You can’t give out new parts!”
Sol looked confused. “Are we talking about Danny?”
“Yes! No! I don’t know.” She sniffed and wiped her cheeks with her hands.
“He’ll be back soon, safe and sound.” He put his arms around her and pulled her close to his body. “I don’t want you to fret about this.”
But both of them knew she would.
Jaime watched C.J. walk into the farmhouse kitchen. She couldn’t believe he told her she could leave without him! Those words pierced her. Jaime was sure he would insist on going with her. Didn’t he want to go with her? Did he mean it? Would he really let her leave without him?
She glanced back at the car. The snowplow was coming the other way now, clearing off the side of the road that led to Mattie and Sol’s driveway. She could leave now. She could make it to the airport and catch an afternoon flight to Miami. Maybe she should call C.J.’s bluff. He was always so hard on her father. He never tried to see things from her father’s viewpoint. Maybe her father was just trying to hide his disappointment that they weren’t able to make the trip. Maybe the tickets were nonrefundable and her father was just too thoughtful to say so. It might be easier to take that trip without C.J. Maybe they both needed time apart, to think. But what would it mean to them if she left now? She rubbed her face with her gloves. Why did it feel as if he had left her?
She felt the sting of C.J.’s words, that she thought she was entitled to things. He wasn’t wrong. She did want more. Was it so wrong to want a house and a car and nice things to go along with it? Or
what about wanting a husband who didn’t get phone calls from a woman named Eve? She looked up at the farmhouse. It was so simple and plain. There was nothing fancy about this Amish home, cheerful and bustling with activity. They may not have much, but they had love. What would her father say about a house like this? Not long ago, he told Jaime he had the Italian marble torn out of a bathroom because he didn’t quite like the color. What would Mattie and Sol think of that?
Then an odd thought crossed her mind. Her father’s home was empty. And lonely. And now he was going on his fifth marriage.
She noticed Mattie looking out the kitchen window as Sol came up behind her, putting an arm protectively around her shoulders. C.J. stood nearby. Could Danny really be in trouble? Boys wandered off all the time, C.J. had said so himself.
Stop me! she wanted to shout to C.J. Come and get me! Don’t let me leave! As it was, she was going to have to take this step of her own free will. The decision was hers.
Jaime turned and walked down to her car. Zach had the hood up and was hovering over the engine like a surgeon puzzling over his patient in an operating room. “Zach, have you seen Danny? Or Tucker?”
Zach shook his hands at his sides, loosely, as if to release leftover energy. “Not for a little while.”
“Think it’s true that another storm is coming in?” She scanned the clear blue sky for clouds but didn’t see any.
Zach shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Mattie thinks he’s gone missing.”
Zach scratched his head. “Mattie . . . she tends to be a little . . .” He made a clockwise motion with his hand. “She tends to worry a lot. But then, I might worry about a boy like Danny too.”
“Does he go missing very much?”
“Danny’s always getting into something or other. He’s six . . . and he’s just . . . Danny.”
Jaime’s gaze shifted up toward the house, then back to her car.
“You leaving soon?” he asked.
She let out a soughing sound. “I think so.”
“Would you mind dropping me off in town on your way out?”
“Where are you headed on Christmas Eve?”
Zach looked away. “I’m leaving. Sol told me that it’s time I make it on my own. The car was the last straw. He wants me to leave.” He thrust his hands to the bottoms of his pockets and hunched up as if he were in a hailstorm. “Says he thinks I’m a bad influence on Danny.”
“Are you?”
He wiggled his eyebrows in that way that made her laugh. “Sometimes.” He took a step closer to her and lowered his voice. “Have you ever seen an ocean?”
She nodded. “Sure. A bunch of times. My mom and I used to go to the Jersey shore for a week each summer.”
“What’s it like?”
“The ocean?” She smiled. “The biggest thing you ever could imagine. Water that stretches as far as your eye can see, until it slips off the horizon. And every day is different. The water changes color! Sometimes, the ocean is a glassy sea, a shimmering blue, one shade lighter than the sky. Other times, it’s gray-green, all churned up, with whitecaps and heavy surf. But the best part of the ocean is the air. It has a salty tinge to it. It feels as if you can’t breathe it in enough. As if you’re flushing your whole system with that oxygen-rich air.”
“What does it feel like to have the sea mist on your face?”
“Not unlike spitting rain.”
A satisfied look covered Zach’s face, a matter decided. “I’m going. Today. I’m headed to the ocean. I’m done here.”
Sol answered C.J.’s questions about Danny’s habits and favorite places to go as patiently as he could, but he knew that time was passing. He tried to be calm, for Mattie’s sake, but he was starting to worry himself. Mattie was right—something felt ominous. That sweet blue sky didn’t fool him—he knew a brewing storm was due in. He knew how fickle weather could be.
Mattie was barely holding herself in one piece. He could feel her worry vibrate through the air. Finally, he held up a hand. “C.J., I know you mean well, but time’s a-wasting. I need to just go on out and start looking for my boy.”
“Look here, Sol,” C.J. began slowly, the steadiness of his voice some kind of anchor. “You’re right that time is of the essence. But we’re not wasting time right now. We need to go about looking for him in a logical way. Do you have a map of the area?”
Sol realized C.J. was being deliberately calm, deliberately soothing, and it felt condescending.
“Sol! Answer him!” Mattie said firmly.
Sol frowned. “No map. Never needed one.”
“Then can you draw one for me?” C.J. asked. “Pretend you’re a bird in the sky, looking down at your farm. I want to divide it into grids.” He scanned the kitchen counters and Mattie quickly went to a desk and pulled out a paper and pen for Sol. “Give me an idea of how long it would take to get from the house to the edge of the property. Take into consideration the snow.”
Sol leaned over the kitchen table and started to sketch out the farm, the fields, the hillsides that surrounded the level land, and the ridges beyond that. He paused for a moment. Where could his boy be? Danny did wander off without telling them what he had planned. Sol hadn’t even told Mattie half the times Danny had wandered off. But why now, through this heavy snow? It just didn’t make sense. He was half furious with his son for causing his mother such worry, half terrified that something had happened to him.
“Finish, Sol,” Mattie urged.
“Mattie, while Sol is drawing the map, describe to me what Danny was wearing.”
“He had on a black coat, a black felt hat, a gray sweater,” she said.
“How warm were those things?” C.J. asked.
Sol saw panic rise in Mattie’s eyes. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Are you worried he’ll get frostbite?”
C.J.’s voice stayed low and steady. “I just wondered what he had on his hands. If he had a scarf on. Anything colorful, something easy to spot.”
She closed her eyes tightly. “Red mittens.”
“Red. That’s good!” C.J. said. “That color is easy to spot. What else? Anything missing on the coat rack?”
Mattie walked over to it and looked through some of the coats. She looked over at Sol. “He’s wearing his boots.”
“That’s good too,” C.J. said. “They’re bigger than shoes and they’re sturdy. His tracks will be easier to follow. No chance of confusing boot tracks with animal tracks, in this deep snow.”
Mattie’s hands flew to her heart. “Animals! I didn’t even think of that. There’s a wounded bobcat prowling around the area.” Her calm broken, she began to tremble.
“Now, Mattie,” Sol said. “Bobcats don’t go after people.”
She spun toward him, her face contorting with anger. “Don’t ‘now Mattie’ me! You know how dangerous an injured animal can be!”
Sol blew out a puff of air. Mattie’s maternal instincts whistled like a tea kettle. He looked at C.J. “She’s right.”
When Jaime looked up at Zach, something had changed. He looked . . . weird. Nervous. He bounced on the balls of his feet and rubbed his hands together. Then he reached out and picked up Jaime’s hand and kissed her palm.
“You could come with me. To the ocean! Right now. Today! Let’s take your sports car and head straight to the beautiful Jersey shore!”
Jaime barely resisted laughing out loud at this ridiculous teenager and his silly fantasies but knew she would hurt him deeply if she laughed. She gently reclaimed her hand and worked to keep her face solemn. “Leaving is a big deal to your people, isn’t it?”
Zach shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t have much of a choice, do I? First my father told me to leave. Now Sol.”
“From the way I see it, it’s all about choices. Your choices. You want it all. You want your family but you want to keep your car.” She tilted her head. “Would you actually leave your family? The place you belong? You’d throw it all away because of . . . a car?”
“Yes! No! It’s not . . . that simple.” Gone was Zach’s usual peppermint breeze of self-confidence. Suddenly, he looked like a child.
Jaime’s voice softened. “But it is, Zach. What you have here—a family that cares about you—most people would give anything to have what you have. And you’re tossing it away like it’s worthless. You can’t have it both ways. You have to make some choices.”
His mouth twitched, and for a moment she could see him struggling within himself, trying to fight off the bitterness and resentment. “My father is the one who thinks I’m worthless! He’s the one who tossed me away!” His words grew louder and louder until he was shouting at her.
At first, Jaime felt bewildered by Zach’s strong reaction, as if she had struck a match and tossed it onto gasoline. She resisted the urge to back away from the blast of his anger. In the barn this morning, Zach had seemed so together for a boy his age, so mature and wise, but now she saw him for what he was: a hurt and lost child, desperately seeking his father’s attention. As he ran out of words, his eyes filled with boyish disappointment.
What was worse, she felt as if she were listening to herself. She saw herself in him!
Dear Lord, she sounded like she was seventeen again, as childish as Zach. She may be going about it in a different way, but she was doing everything she could to win her father’s approval and attention.
She took a step closer to him. “Zach, I understand.”
“No! I don’t think you do.”
“Listen to me. Tell me if this is what it feels like to you. It feels like having a space, you see, right here—” she tapped her breastbone—“and that space needs to be filled.” She let out a deep sigh. She didn’t want to chase her father’s love anymore. She didn’t want to pursue a futile dream. Just admit it, Jaime! It was time to call an end to her lifelong quest to be her father’s daughter. It was as if someone was rapping the gavel. Time to move on!
She looked down at her shoes in the snow. Her feet were getting cold. Maybe her father loved her in his own peculiar way—but it wasn’t the comforting kind of dad love she wanted. A love that didn’t have any strings attached to it. A love she didn’t have to work so hard to deserve.
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