Angels in the Snow (23 page)

But Charles did not give voice to his irritation. When Jennifer shot him an accusing look, he only forced a smile. When Alex roughly shoved his mother's Pullman bag back to make room for his guitar case, Charles simply leaned forward to straighten the suitcase and settle the guitar case more securely in the trunk of the car. Alex was back to sullen glances and indecipherable muttering, words not meant to be heard by his father but nonetheless clearly conveying his anger.

And Judith. She was dressed and ready to go, wearing a false air of cheerfulness that only made the situation more depressing than ever.

His phone rang, and he fumbled to fit his earpiece in place, aware that both of his children were glaring at him.

“The meeting is set for three at Garrington's office,” Doug informed him without benefit of greeting. “Will you be able to make it?”

Charles sighed and ran a hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end. “We're leaving now. The morning news said all the roads are open. Even though it will be slow going, we should be there in time.”

“We? You planning on bringing the whole family straight to the meeting?”

“No, they'll drop me off and you can give me a ride home.”

“Good. I'll see you there.” Doug hung up.

For some reason, that brief conversation stayed with Charles. They closed up the house—making the beds up with fresh linens, cleaning out the fireplace, emptying the refrigerator of perishable foods. Charles checked the doors and windows, turned down the thermostat, and closed the curtains. Yet even as he pulled the front door closed, locked it, then turned to follow his family to the big automobile, he couldn't get the conversation out of his head.

He'd said
we,
but he'd meant
I.
He'd always kept business separate from his family—or so he thought. Yet he was beginning to see that business always infringed on his family life. He was the one going to that meeting with the wishy-washy Garrington, yet his whole family was being affected. Their Christmas was being ruined.

A weary sigh escaped him and he rubbed his eyes. He'd spent a nearly sleepless night thinking about it, but had come up with no solution. Judith had slept with her back to him. In the morning the kids had been disbelieving at first, then furious.

Yet what choice did he have? He could only cling to the knowledge that he would somehow make it up to them. Maybe he could surprise them with a trip to Disney World—if he could get things settled with Garrington in time. If not . . .

“I'm hungry,” Jennifer complained from the backseat as Charles negotiated the snowy driveway and approached the highway.

“I told you to eat breakfast,” Judith reminded her daughter. It was the first thing she'd said since they'd started packing the car.

“How about if we stop at that grocery store?” Charles suggested. “We can load up on snacks for the drive home.”

There was only silence from the backseat, but Charles took it as agreement. Still, he couldn't help being troubled. On the surface, his family's unhappiness with him was no different than it had been on the way up here. They'd gotten over it then; they'd get over this, too.

Yet somehow this was much worse. For these few days they'd been so happy, and the loss of that happiness was devastating. He clenched the leather steering wheel and blinked back an unexpected stinging in his eyes.

“Watch out!”

Charles veered sharply to the right at Judith's cry, just missing a bright orange cone placed in the middle of the road. He braked when he saw the tow trucks and the highway police vehicles that were parked at the edge of a sharp drop-off.

“What happened?” Jennifer asked, sitting up straighter in her seat.

“Somebody must have crashed,” Alex said sarcastically. Then his tone changed. “Hey, you don't think the Walkers . . .”

“Mom?” Jennifer unfastened her seat belt and reached forward to put her arms around her mother. “It isn't
them,
is it?”

Charles felt an ominous shiver up his spine as they slowly inched past the cordoned-off area. But he shook it off. “No, they were heading in the other direction. Remember? Edgard's in the opposite direction. Anyway, their van didn't go over the edge. They said it was stopped by a tree.”

“Yeah. That's right,” Alex said with a sigh of relief. “I wonder where they are right now.”

“Safe in their own home,” Judith reassured them. “No matter how they got home, they're okay. We should be worrying about the people in the car that
did
go over the side.”

The ride was very quiet after that, but it wasn't a sullen, angry silence any longer. It was more thoughtful.

Yet Charles couldn't shake the eerie feeling that something wasn't right. He drove hunched over, squinting into the bright reflection off the snow and holding on to the wheel so tightly that his hands hurt. When the Ruddington General Store finally came into view, he was enormously relieved.

The parking lot was nearly deserted. Only one car and a solitary pickup truck were parked in the partially cleared area. The plowed snow encircled the parking lot like a thick white fence. Beyond it the forest waited, layered with a blanket of pristine snow.

He parked near a frozen-over watering trough and for a moment they all just sat there. Charles had to force himself to move.

“Okay, time is short. Let's get what we need and get going again.”

Outside, the silence was absolute. No wind rustled the trees. No birds flitted about. It was too cold for the snow to melt and drip. The dull thuds of the car doors slamming, and then the squeaking crunch of their boots in the snow, were the only sounds to be heard.

Inside, the store was much as it had been four days earlier. The Christmas decorations were still in place, and it smelled of wood smoke and bayberry candles. Alex and Jennifer headed over to the snacks. Judith picked out a six-pack of fruit juices. Out of habit Charles picked up some breath mints and the local newspaper. In less than five minutes they were back in the car.

“Put on your seat belts,” Judith instructed the children. “Who wants apple juice? Charles, let me pass out everything before you pull onto the highway. That road is really dangerous today, and I don't want anything to distract you.”

Their eyes met for a moment, and Charles recognized the worry on her face. The accident they'd passed had them all upset. He nodded and adjusted his own seat belt. Then he started the car and just let it idle.

Once everyone was situated, Judith sat back. “I think you should finish your juice before you start driving.”

“Don't worry, Jude. I'll be extra careful today.” But he could see she was still edgy. “Here, take a look at the paper. That might take your mind off the road.”

With a sigh she did as he said. Alex and Jennifer sat quietly in the backseat, eating their make-do breakfast. Charles was silent, too, as he forced the apple juice and doughnut down.

Then Judith gasped. “Oh, my God!”

When he looked over at her, her face was white with shock, and the paper was trembling in her hands. He frowned in concern. “Judith? What is it?”

“Oh, my God,” she whispered again. Then she turned to face him, and he saw the tears in her eyes.

“What's wrong, Mom?” Alex asked. Jennifer leaned forward in apprehension.

“It can't be true. It can't,” Judith mumbled, shaking her head. “Oh, Charles . . .”

Truly alarmed, Charles grabbed the thin rural newspaper from her. He searched the page, looking for he knew not what. Then his eyes stopped at a headline in the lower left corner:

FAMILY OF FIVE KILLED ON RUDDINGTON HIGHWAY

Charles's heart stopped. It couldn't be! But he forced himself to read on. Then he fastened onto one fact, and drew a shaky breath of relief. “It's not them. It can't be. See?” He thrust the paper at Judith. “See? It says they were found three days before Christmas. Three days! It was someone else, Jude. It was someone else.”

“Daddy? What's the matter? You're scaring me,” Jennifer said through frightened tears.

Alex snatched the paper and found the article. “A car wreck? But it doesn't say who they are,” he whispered. Then his voice broke. He looked up at his father and Charles saw tears well up in his horrified eyes. “They were—” Alex took a harsh breath, and the tears spilled over. “They were in a yellow van.”

Charles shook his head. “That can't be true. It
can't
. Those people were found days ago.” He grabbed the paper back from Alex. “Look. This paper is dated December twenty-fourth. The Walkers were with
us
on the twenty-fourth. There's no way it's them.”

Judith looked at the date as well, and he saw relief flood her face.

But the same eerie feeling came over him again, like an icy finger drawing down his spine. He suddenly felt short of breath.

“Could the paper be wrong?” Jennifer asked fearfully, wiping at her eyes.

“It
could
be wrong, Dad.” Alex looked from his father to his mother, then back again. “Let's go ask the man at the store.”

Judith got out. So did the two children. But Charles sat there in the big luxury sedan, staring blindly into the snowy woods.

He knew with certainty exactly what the storekeeper would say. He should have known all along, but especially on Christmas morning. They'd left no tracks in the snow.

He'd seen them walk away, all five of them. But when he'd looked later, there'd been no sign of their passing. It had been as if they'd never existed at all.

He'd tried to explain it away. He'd been mistaken about which way they'd gone. He'd still been groggy with sleep. Anything to avoid facing the unbelievable truth.

Yet now it was clear, and he was both repelled and drawn to that truth. The Walkers were dead. The knowledge sickened him, and more than anything, he wanted to run away from it, to make it not be real.

But he couldn't make the truth go away, he realized with painful clarity. Just as he hadn't succeeded in making the truth about the people he loved go away. He'd always refused to see the problems between him and Judith. Between him and his two children. Only now was he beginning to understand how blind he'd been. Now, when it was too late.

Yet it
wasn't
too late for them. Or was it?

In his mind's eye, he saw Marilyn holding Josie. He remembered how he had peered through the kitchen window as Joe had taught Alex to chop wood. And he recalled how Jennifer had looked to Joe for help when her own father had been right there. How consumed with jealousy he had been.

And then there was Judith. All she wanted from him was more of his time and attention. That was all any of his family wanted from him. That was the proof of his love—nothing else.

Was
that
why the Walkers had come to them—come to him? But was it possible? For if they had died before Christmas, as the paper said, then the people they'd shared the mountain house with had been . . . Had been what? Ghosts? Angels?

Charles swallowed hard, unable to quite believe it, yet unable also to deny what was now so obvious. They'd come to help him and his family. And they had helped. They had.

He looked up, searching for his family with a new sense of urgency. They were huddled on the porch of the store. The elderly man who worked there was standing beside them. He was shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other while Judith clutched Alex and Jennifer close to her.

Charles made his way to them at a dead run, unmindful of the uneven snow or the slippery steps. He grabbed them in a desperate embrace.

“It was them,” Judith sobbed into his shoulder. “It was them.”

“I know,” he murmured, his throat thick with emotion. “I know.”

“The sheriff, he came by here earlier,” the old man said sorrowfully. “I'm sorry, mister. I sure am sorry it was your friends. He said their name was Walker. They were artists.”

“They were angels,” Charles whispered.

“Are you sure, Daddy? Are you sure they're in heaven?” Jennifer sobbed.

Alex met his father's eyes. “They
have
to be in heaven. Just like we talked about that time.” His eyes swam with tears, and it broke Charles's heart.

“I think . . . I think they were somewhere between earth and heaven when they came to us. I mean . . .” He cleared his throat. “They died before Christmas, didn't they?” he asked the discomfited storekeeper.

“They were found the same night the storm broke. Three days before Christmas.”

Charles looked down into Judith's wet face and then at his distraught children. “They came to us afterwards,” he began. “I should have guessed, but I ignored all the signs.”

“You mean they were angels? Really angels?” Judith stared at him disbelievingly. “But that can't be.”

“But it is. It's the only explanation.”

“Angels?” Jennifer breathed. Her face brightened as her father's words sank in. “All of them? They were all angels?”

“Our guardian angels.” Alex's voice was filled with wonderment. “That's so . . . man, it's so cool.”

“But Charles,” Judith said, still struggling to understand.

“Come on,” he said. “Let's get out of here.” He herded them away from the old man, who was beginning to stare at them suspiciously.

No one else would ever believe this—but no one else needed to. For some reason, God had seen fit to send a band of his newest angels to the Montgomery family—and Charles wasn't about to ignore their message.

At the car, Charles looked at his wife and children. Their faces reflected sorrow and an inability to comprehend what had actually happened.

He was just as grief-stricken, yet he was also filled with the most glorious new sense of happiness. If he hadn't known before what was important in life—which choices were right and which were wrong—he knew now.