by Ann B. Ross
“Yes, I do,” I said, “but the necklace is for her birthday, because I don’t want to have to come out here again.”
“When’s her birthday?”
“I don’t know but whenever it is, I’ll be ready.”
* * *
—
After an interminable time waiting in line, we were finally able to check out and slog to the car with me pushing the cart piled with sacks of gifts, and Sam still pushing the bicycle. With the car full, the bicycle just barely fitting into the back seat, we collapsed in the front seats to catch our breath.
“I’m glad we only do this once a year,” Sam said. “My back is killing me from leaning over that bicycle.”
“Yes, and for just a penny I’d skip the midnight service and go to bed.”
“No penny,” Sam said, firmly. “You can nod off during the anthem.”
“Yes, well, they’re long enough sometimes.” Then we smiled at each other, knowing that we’d be in our usual pew regardless of how tired we were.
As we neared Polk Street and home, Sam said, “How’re we going to do this? Shall I go straight to Mildred’s and unload there, or do you want to take everything in at our house?”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” I said, and proceeded to do so. “Let’s unload at Mildred’s. Surely Penelope is asleep by now, and we can pile everything up in the foyer for her to see when she comes downstairs in the morning. That is, of course, if Mildred hasn’t come up with an idea of her own.”
When we turned onto Polk Street, our best-laid plans had to be re-laid. Mildred’s house was in total darkness, not even the soft glow of a night-light could be seen anywhere. And not only that, but her architecturally designed landscape lighting hadn’t been turned on, either.
“I don’t suppose we want to wake anybody, do we?” Sam asked, even as he turned into our driveway.
“No, we’ll just unload here and call Penelope over in the morning. It’s not the best idea in the world, but it’s all we can do. Mildred,” I went on a little defensively, “had a hard day, you know.”
So we unloaded the gifts from the car, tromped through the house with each arm full to the living room, and placed them around the tree just as Santa might have done. Then we perked a pot of coffee and ate a quick sandwich, supper having been foregone in favor of the Walmart trip, and hurried across the street to the First Presbyterian Church of Abbotsville in time for the midnight service, which began before midnight. We just made it.
* * *
—
Stepping outside through the double doors onto the church portico, the organ recessional soaring out into the silence of the night, I looked up at the brilliant display of stars above us. After the warmth of the church, the midnight air seemed to penetrate the heaviest of coats, yet the small congregation lingered, passing along softly spoken Christmas wishes to each other.
Muting our responses to each other, the crowd gradually dispersed in various directions. It seemed to me that we were all once again awed by what had occurred so many centuries ago.
Sam took my hand as we walked along the side of the church toward our house straight ahead across Polk Street. It looked so welcoming in the chilly air with the few lights left on inside and the small gas lights flickering by the front door.
But as we passed the back of the church, a glare of lights from Mildred’s house hit us full-force. Every light she owned must have been on.
“Uh-oh,” Sam said as we stopped short of the street. “Something’s happened again.”
And surely it had, for a sheriff’s car with bar lights flashing came zooming around the corner and pulled into our neighbor’s driveway.
“Oh, my,” I said, wondering how in the world Horace could have gotten out. But then with a sudden tightening in my chest at the squawk of an EMT vehicle headed our way, I choked out, “It could be Mildred. A real heart attack this time. Hurry, Sam.”
He nodded, squeezed my hand, and glanced quickly about for oncoming traffic. As another siren began to wail in the distance, Sam hurried me across the street and onto our walk. As we gained the three steps to the porch, a large, shadowy shape flew at us from the dark corner of the porch. Sam threw his arm in front of me, as I yelped and almost fell off the steps as the creature enveloped me in its furry arms.
Almost smothered in Chanel-scented fur, I struggled to free myself as Mildred Allen cried, “Julia! Is she with you? Did you take her with you?”
“What? What?” Stunned, I could only turn to Sam and try to understand what was happening.
“Penelope!” Mildred cried as she flung out her arms. “She’s gone, I can’t find her anywhere! Tell me, tell me she went to church with you!”
Sam reached out to her, clasped her arms, and calmly said, “Slow down, Mildred. It’s all right. She didn’t go to church with us, but we’ll find her. Now, come on inside and tell us what happened.”
He unlocked the door and led Mildred, sobbing by this time, into the living room. I followed, still trying to slow my heart rate after having been accosted from out of the blue, or rather, from out of the dark corner of the porch.
Sam got Mildred seated in one of the wing chairs, gave her his clean handkerchief, then said, “Now tell us what’s going on so we can help. But you have to hurry, deputies are pulling in at your place and you need to be there. What about Horace? Is he all right? Is it only Penelope who’s missing?”
Mildred took a deep, shuddering breath, wiped her face with the handkerchief, and said, “Something woke me, I don’t know what, but I got up to check on Horace, because the next sitter didn’t show up, and, you know, he was alone. I’d made sure to lock his door before I went to bed, but well, you never know.”
I sat down beside her and took her hand, noticing that she was still in one of her costly nightgowns with her full-length mink coat over it. “Take your time, Mildred,” I crooned, although I wanted to shake the whole story out of her—where was that child?
“But,” Mildred went on, “his door was wide open and he wasn’t there, so I went to wake Penelope to help me look for him. In the house, you know. I didn’t even think that he could’ve gotten outside. I mean, all the windows and doors were closed and locked. And, and, she wasn’t there! I called and called her, got Ida Lee up to help me look, and . . . and, Julia, that’s when we found a side door unlocked, and I hoped, prayed that she’d gone to church with you.”
“Wait a minute,” Sam said, “did you think they both went to church with us? I mean, if Horace is gone, too, did they leave together? Or separate, or what? It’ll make a difference in how we look for them.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know.” And Mildred wept, then strangled out, “Maybe he took her or she took him, I just don’t know.”
“All right,” Sam said with some urgency, “let’s get you home. The deputies will want to talk to you.”
“Ida Lee’s there,” Mildred said but she rose at Sam’s urging. “She knows all I know, and I was so sure Penelope would be with you.” And she broke into full-fledged crying again. “Because if she was, I knew she’d be all right.”
As Sam led Mildred toward the door, I, shaken and fearful, whispered to him, “Check on the little Steiff bear. If it’s gone, too, that might tell us something.”
What it might tell, I didn’t know, except that Penelope would not have left it of her own accord.
Chapter 53
Lord, it was a wretched thirty minutes of waiting and worrying while I, just in case, searched every room in our house, knowing all the while that Penelope could not have gotten in even if she’d wanted to. Looking out the side window in the kitchen every time I passed, I watched as the traffic increased in and out of the driveway next door. I had about decided to go on over there, hoping to be given something to do besides wring my hands over that child’s whereabouts. And Horace’s? Well, like Mildred, I barely gave
a thought to his whereabouts.
But then Sam, looking drawn and concerned, returned. “Just getting some boots,” he said, as I met him in the kitchen. “I’m on foot patrol down by Lily Pond Lake.” As I gasped at what that might mean, he went on. “The deputies are well organized, just covering all the bases because it’s fairly plain they’re not walking. Or at least, Horace isn’t. His car is gone, that little red Boxster, which should be easy to spot, and they’ve got Be-On-the-Lookouts all over the police radio bands. Highway patrol, too.” Sam stopped and dropped into a chair, his shoulders sagging.
“How,” I asked, “did Horace get that car? Not only was the garage locked up tight, but Mildred had the car keys upstairs in her room.”
Sam shook his head. “I don’t know about the car keys, except Mildred may have left them lying around. He broke a window to get into the garage as Grady Peeples did the last time Horace got out. I guess that proves his memory isn’t completely gone. It’s just,” he said and stopped to rub his hand across his face, “they still don’t know if Penelope is with him. They could’ve gone their separate ways. And I don’t know which would be worse.” He looked up at me. “Do you know where my boots are?”
“Oh, in here,” I said and went into the pantry to retrieve them, hoping as I did that if Penelope was out on this cold night, she was wearing her fur-lined boots. “Sit down and I’ll help you get them on.” I stooped down to help, but my hands were shaking almost too much to lace up boots, but then so were his.
“Oh, Sam,” I said and began to cry on his shoelaces.
“Don’t, honey. Don’t give up hope this early. Listen, they’ve put out a double alert, both Amber and Silver, so every driver in four states will be watching for them. Off-duty officers and people from all over are pouring in to help. We’ll find ’em.” He stood up and buttoned his coat, then found a cap in his pocket. “I’d better go, but I’ll have my phone. Call if you hear anything.”
I stood up, too, but not very quickly or as easily. “I guess I’ll go sit with Mildred. She’s really shaken by this, and I won’t be able to sleep anyway.”
Sam opened the door to leave, then said, “Go if you want to, but the EMTs gave her a sedative. Probably,” he said with a touch of irony, “so they can do their jobs.”
He gave me a quick kiss and left me thinking that Mildred had shown more concern over Penelope’s absence than Horace’s. In fact, she’d been close to hysteria, fearing for the child’s safety and overwhelmed with a feeling of loss, proving once again that we often don’t value what we have until we lose it.
* * *
—
Lights still blazed next door, but parked vehicles were down to one official car, as it appeared that everybody was out cruising the streets and beating the bushes. Mildred, I assumed, was sleeping through the agony of waiting for news.
But I wasn’t. Alone in the quiet house, my fearful thoughts began to run amok. To keep busy, I heated up the leftover coffee then tried to drink it, as images of Penelope, alone and frightened, perhaps hurt, sprang up in my imagination.
Had she been kidnapped? Certainly, Mildred was a likely target—she made no secret of her wealth and she lived accordingly. If someone had gotten in while Mildred slept her routinely medicated sleep, could Horace have tried to follow them? As attached to the child as he seemed to be, it would’ve felt to him to be the sensible response to an abduction. If, that is, he could still understand the connection between cause and effect.
But was Horace able to drive? So many pathways in his brain had shut down that he might no longer be able to depend on the habits of a lifetime. Obviously, though, he thought he could because the car was gone, and Penelope couldn’t have driven it. Actually, I had severe doubts that Horace still knew which side of the highway he should be on.
Which brought up another fearful scene: If they were together, where was Penelope sitting? Horace’s car had no back seat, and I doubted that Penelope weighed enough to legally sit in the front seat. Was she strapped in? What if he hit another car? Ran off the road? Rolled over?
I jumped up from the table, almost upending the cup of undrinkable coffee. But I could no longer sit still while all the awful possibilities ran through my mind. I walked through the dining room, glanced at the table filled with silver serving dishes awaiting the food for our guests. Then I went on into the living room where I surveyed the pile of gifts under the dark tree. I knew that pots and pans ready for the oven waited in the kitchen, and perfectly appointed tables awaited hungry guests in the library.
It was already Christmas Day, the day for which we’d been preparing for weeks. I should have been happily anticipating the joyful hours to come, but now the day might be locked in my memory as one of the worst of my life. I shuddered, thinking that I’d almost rather be holding Mildred’s hand than alone and fearing the worst.
But, I suddenly thought, what if everything was just the opposite of what we’d assumed? What if Penelope had seen or heard Horace leave and, worried about him, she’d followed him? She knew his state of mind to a certain extent and had already assumed a caring, even motherly, attitude toward him. But if that had been the case, why hadn’t she awakened Mildred instead of following or going with him?
Well, if you’d been the target of Mildred’s searing criticism, how eager would you be to rouse her from sleep? It made perfect sense to me that Penelope would try to manage on her own.
Still, other than the fact that they were both gone, there seemed to be no hard evidence that the two of them had left together. And that thought brought up a picture of Penelope, scared and lonely, wandering around town by herself, not knowing where to go, yet fully aware that she was unwanted at the place where she’d been deposited.
Maybe, I thought as a chill ran down my back, she’d come to our house where surely she’d known she would be welcome. My heart contracted at the thought that she’d knocked at our door while we were sitting in church thinking of another child for whom there had been no room.
I couldn’t stand it any longer. I went back to the kitchen, picked up the phone, and tapped a number.
“Lillian . . .”
“What?” she asked, as I pictured her sitting up, immediately awake and alert. “What’s the matter?”
* * *
—
When Lillian’s car turned into the drive, I went to the back door to meet her. She came in with a worried look on her face and a heavy pocketbook under her arm. Latisha, still in flannel pajamas and wrapped in a trailing quilt, stumbled in behind her.
“Lillian,” I said, on the verge of throwing my arms around her, “I’m so sorry for waking you, but thank you, thank you for coming. I’m so worried I don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t worry ’bout wakin’ me. I’d be mad if you didn’t.” She put her hands on Latisha’s shoulders and turned her toward the library. “Go lay down on the sofa, honey, an’ go back to sleep. An’ don’t bother none of them tables in there.”
Latisha, still half-asleep, stumbled out of the kitchen as Lillian shook her head at the sight. “She goes ninety miles an hour all day long,” Lillian said, coming out of her coat, “but when she lays down she’s out like a light. Now,” she went on, “you heard anything? What’s goin’ on over there?”
“Nothing, it looks like,” I said, leaning against a chair. “At least, I’ve heard nothing from Sam and everything’s quiet next door. As far as I know, they still don’t know if they left together or separately. They have all kinds of bulletins out, and cars and trucks have been going and coming next door ever since we got home from church. I keep thinking, Lillian,” I said and stopped to catch my breath, “that Penelope might’ve come here, either with Horace or without him, and we weren’t here to let her in. It just breaks my heart.”
“Come on an’ set down,” Lillian said, taking immediate charge, “while I put on some coffee. An’ while I do that
, I wanta hear everything, don’t leave nothin’ out, an’ we’ll figure out where they might be. ’Cause they’re together, I b’lieve we can count on that. Neither one would let the other’un go off by theirselves.”
“Yes,” I said, gaining strength from Lillian’s practical approach, “I think you’re right. Which means that Sam is tromping around a lake for no reason except that it has to be ruled out. But that’s neither here nor there. The scary thing is the thought of them driving on the streets or on the interstate in the dark—I mean, is Horace aware enough to even turn on the headlights? And, if he is, why hasn’t somebody reported seeing that unusual car? Sam said they’d put out alerts all over the place. But what worries me most is that Horace might be headed home, which he’s tried to do before, and home to him is Virginia. Only he wouldn’t know if Virginia is to the north or the south. For all we know,” I went on, leaning my head on my hand, “they’re somewhere in Tennessee, if they haven’t already gone off the side of a mountain.”
“Don’t be thinkin’ like that,” Lillian said. “It’s not a bit of help. I’m thinkin’ they’re not on the road at all, ’cause like you said, somebody would notice that car. What if they stopped somewhere to get something to eat or to take a nap? Nobody would see that car if it’s parked somewhere in the dark.”
“Great-Granny?” Latisha, still draped in the quilt, stood in the doorway.
Lillian started to rise. “You need to be asleep, little girl. Now go on back an’ lay down.”
Latisha propped one foot on her opposite leg and leaned against the doorway. “I think I might know where they are.”
Chapter 54
We flew around putting on coats, grabbing pocketbooks and cell phones, unplugging the coffeepot, and running out the back door. I stepped on Latisha’s quilt and nearly unquilted her.