Michael didn’t respond.
“I’m trying to forgive myself like you are.”
Michael stood. “Your problems are the least of my concern right now.”
“I understand. But I believe we are being connected to each other for another miracle. There has to be a reason for all this.”
“Are you saying you believe something more might happen?”
“What I’m saying is I don’t believe your journey is finished.”
There was a period of silence between the two for what seemed like several minutes. In reality, it lasted a few seconds. “How can I believe anything you tell me?” Michael asked.
“Let’s put our animosity aside. You don’t have to forgive me. You can hate me and end our friendship. But for now, let me help you try to find Elizabeth.”
Michael took a few steps toward the stairs.
“I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand the diary,” Dennis continued. “I’m starting to see a pattern of sorts. I think I’ve discovered at least one.”
Michael stopped as he put his foot on the stairs and turned around. “Are you trying to suck up to me now that I know the truth about you?”
“This has nothing to do with what I told you about myself. We need to put that aside.” He held out his hand. “Truce for now?”
Michael stared at his hand for a few seconds. He put his own hand in his pocket. “How will I know when it’ll happen?”
Dennis put his arm down. “I haven’t been able to figure that part out. But there hasn’t been a night where I haven’t fallen asleep reading and re-reading it.”
“Why should I trust you?” Michael asked, anger lingering in his gut. “I wonder what your motives are. Do you want my forgiveness?”
Dennis’ eyes filled with regret. “You don’t have to trust me as a friend. But I can help you as a pastor. I believe your story and I know I can help you,” he said, his tone solemn. “I’ll go through the book again. While I do this, would you please do me a favor?”
Michael looked up at the ceiling, shaking his head. “You have some nerve asking me for a favor. What do you want?”
“Can you stop by Mrs. Farmer’s house and pick up something she’s giving to the church?”
Michael clenched his jaw tight. “Do I have a choice?”
“We all have choices.”
Michael stood in the doorway of the living room, ignoring the cup of tea and biscuits Mrs. Farmer put in his hands.
“Sit down, Michael.”
“I can’t. I’m a mess, Mrs. Farmer.”
“Please. Call me Cecilia.” She poured herself a cup of tea and dropped a cube of sugar in it. She looked up and he felt her intense stare as she stirred her tea. “I’ve lived long enough to see enough pain to know when someone is bottling up their agony.”
“How are you able to stay so strong?”
“I’m not.” She took a sip from her cup. “I’ve cried a great deal. But anger wears you down, takes away your energy.”
“Then I have no energy.”
“You should be angry, Michael. Your daughter is so young. I have no reason to be upset. We’ve had a wonderful, long life here. Now it’s time for me to honor George’s life by smiling every day.”
“How do you do that?”
“You just do.” She placed her hand over her heart. “He’ll always be here.”
She smiled, her eyes filled with understanding. “I know George would be upset with me if I wasted precious moments, crying and being sad. I remember him telling me after he was gone to dress him in his dungarees, sweatshirt, sneakers, hat and winter coat and put him in the garbage can out front.” She laughed. “He told me to make sure to tip the garbage men because he was such a load to pick up.” She shook her head, smiling. “But he would also say ‘I’m worth the tip.’”
She laughed harder. He wasn’t sure how to respond to the story. Taking a small bite out of a biscuit, she asked, “Has there been any news about your daughter?”
“No. The police are still looking for her.” He blew out an aggravated breath. “I feel helpless.”
She stood. “Stay here.” She made her way up the stairs slowly, holding onto the railing, each step defined with its own unique creak.
He walked to the stairway and waited at the bottom to ensure she didn’t fall. He heard her rummaging through a closet, pushing boxes on the floor.
“Do you need any help?” he called up to her.
“No. I’m fine. Have some tea and a biscuit. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
He shrugged, wishing he could get back to the church and dig. He crept back into the living room, intent on examining George and Cecilia’s pictures. Many of them looked to be about twenty or thirty years old, including one of them holding hands on Crab Meadow Beach, much like he and Vicki used to do when they first got married.
Why did we stop doing that?
He turned to his right to glance again at the picture that hung on the far end of the wall in the dimmest part of the room.
I have to look at this again. What is it?
He put his fingers on the picture, feeling the texture and outline of the images. He turned his fingers sideway as he scanned the top, then the bottom.
This is so bizarre.
Men and women ran in a field filled with tall grass, surrounded by mountains. Many of them carried a small clothed figure. Their faces expressed horror as red lines dripped down. One man in the painting was dressed in armor, his head encased in a helmet and his arms holding a spear. There was another red line protruding from his weapon.
Michael focused on the man in armor.
He looks like a Roman soldier. Is it possible? No, it couldn’t be.
“You are fascinated by that picture, aren’t you?” Cecilia said from behind him.
“It’s interesting. I can’t seem to take my eyes off of it.”
“I didn’t want to hang that picture. But George insisted. So I told him to put the darn thing all the way over there. He said it reminded him about the value of life.”
Michael’s eyes stayed with the painting. “Did he ever talk about why he drew this particular scene?”
“When I asked him the same question, he said he painted what he experienced.”
His heart beat a little faster. “How could he live through something like that?”
“I think he lived through it in his imagination.” She sat in her chair and poured some more tea for herself. “He was gifted that way.”
“He certainly had an artistic gift. I think artists place themselves into situations whether fiction or non-fiction and paint or write their point of view so that people can feel as if they were there.”
“George said he would never paint anything fictitious.”
“Really?” Michael touched the frame around the picture. “Did he tell you how he experienced this and where?”
She reached down and pulled out a bottle of brandy, pouring a few ounces into her tea. “Would you like some?”
“No thanks,” said Michael, surprised. “I have to drive, I mean walk. What about the painting?”
“I believed he lived through it,” she said, sipping her loaded tea. “For the past three years, right after Thanksgiving he would paint a portrait of some kind. He scared off the few friends we had when they’d come to visit and ask him the same questions you’re asking and he’d tell him that it was his life he painted.” She shrugged, her cheeks warming from the tea. “He insisted it was real to him. Who was I to say it wasn’t.”
Michael swallowed hard and wondered if Mr. Farmer was eccentric or if by some miracle he had traveled back in time too. “Did you ever hear back from the cops about George’s death?”
“Oh yes. They said it was…” She paused. “What was the word? Incon…”
“Inconclusive?”
“Yes. That’s it. I told them no one knew George like I did. He was a happy man. He loved life. He would never take his life. He would defend life if it meant giving up his own.”
“I wonder if he did,” Michael said in a hushed tone.
“What was that?”
He turned around and noticed Cecilia was dabbing her eyes again.
“Oh nothing. I was just thinking to myself.”
She smiled. “George did that often, especially when he was painting. I guess it was a release for him.” She sighed. “Sit down. Let me show you something. I know this always cheered George up.”
Cecilia opened a box filled with Christmas memorabilia. She took out a couple of wooden ornaments and an old angel, its white wings dirty from dust and put them onto the side table. “Usually George handled the decorations so I have no idea what else is in here.”
As she dug deeper into the box, her face lit up. “Here,” she said, pulling out a stunning replica of the baby Jesus. “George always smiled when we took this out. He said it brought him back to what was most important during this time. He would take it to the church to be displayed and come back to paint.”
“He’s beautiful,” Michael said. “What do you want me to do with Him?”
“Bring it to Pastor Dennis. George would be happy to know that we have kept up the tradition of having the baby in the manger.”
“I will. How old are the decorations?”
“Oh, they were handed down to us by George’s great-grandfather. It meant so much to him to have the baby in the church every Christmas.”
“I’ll bring it over to the church tomorrow. Is that okay?”
She nodded. “Thank you for doing that. I don’t feel much for walking alone.” She looked at the vacant chair. “I haven’t slept alone in over fifty years. He would snore a bit. At first it would keep me awake and I would turn the hair dryer on to drown him out. But then I got used to it. It was a comforting sound. Now the past couple of nights have been so silent and quiet. I thought I would never say this. I miss his snoring.”
Michael half-smiled, filled a bit with gloom.
“I talk to him at night. I wonder if he hears me?” she asked.
“I think he does.” He spotted a pen and paper on the coffee table and picked them up. “Here’s my phone number.” He wrote it down and handed it to her. “Call me if you need anything or if you just want to talk.”
“How kind. But I don’t have a phone.”
“Right. Sorry.”
She gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek. “I’ll say a prayer for you and your daughter.” She escorted him to the door, holding the box. The contents jingled, sounding like chimes in a gusty wind. He stopped.
“Is there anything wrong?” she asked.
“No.”
He stepped outside and a cold, brisk spurt of air greeted him as he cradled the baby Jesus in his arms, cuddling him inside his overcoat. It was a good night for a walk.
The porch light was lit when Michael arrived home. Connie’s vehicle was parked by the curb so he stood outside, watching a stray cat and a raccoon looking for a meal in his next door neighbor’s garbage can. A light dusting of snow skirted from the heavens, drawing a breathtaking view, reminiscent of a Thomas Kincade painting that hung in the living room when Vicki was alive.
It was a beautiful, crisp night, the surrounding chimneys sending their smoke signals into the air while stars sprinkled blue streaks across the black sky.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Connie knocked on the living room window. “What are you doing?” she mouthed.
Michael put his finger to the top of his head. “Thinking.”
She shivered as she came outside, hopping up and down. “What is that?”
“A baby,” he said, holding it to his chest and watching her eyes widen. “Not a real one.”
“Why are you holding a doll?”
“I have to take it to the church.”
“It’s cold out here, come in. I’ve got some hot chocolate ready.”
“I need some time alone.”
She smiled. “I have little marshmallows.”
”I’ll come in soon.”
She skipped back inside, her breath vaporizing into a frigid tranquil breeze.
He stayed outside until he felt the cold seep into his bones. He ran inside. The alluring aroma of chocolate intoxicated him as he took his coat off and placed the baby down on the couch.
“It’s hot, be careful,” Connie said as she handed him his favorite snowman mug that Elizabeth had given him a few years ago for Christmas. Five miniature marshmallows floated on top.
He inhaled the warm chocolate before taking a sip.
“Allison called again.”
Oh, joy.
“Did she leave a message?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“She was rambling. I stopped listening after a while.”
“Did any of Elizabeth’s friends call?”
She shook her head. “Sorry. So how are you doing anyway?”
“How I feel isn’t important.”
“Do you want something to eat?”
“I don’t feel like eating.”
“I can cook a burger, order a pizza, Chinese, popcorn –”
“The hot chocolate will do. Thanks.” He went into the living room and sat on the sofa, sipping his hot drink.
Connie sat next to him. “So what are you going to do?”
“For starters, I’m going to ask you to think real hard and try to remember every single detail of the last time you saw Elizabeth.”
Connie twisted sideways and put her mug on the coffee table. “Okay, shoot.”
“What was the last thing she said to you?”
She chewed her bottom lip. “She said she would come back upstairs after she cleaned up.”
He spoke slower. “This is real important. Are you one hundred percent sure that you didn’t see her come back?”
She rubbed her temple with her left hand. “Well, I did go upstairs briefly. But I’m sure I would have seen her come up the stairs if she came back. I was near the stairs.” She squeezed her eyes shut as if replaying the day in her head. “But then again, there were a lot of people coming and going and I could have missed her if she did come back up.” She opened her eyes. “I can’t say for sure that she didn’t come back before or after you.”
He put his cup down on the coffee table, covering his eyes with his hands and rubbing the weariness out of them.
“This is still too hard to believe,” she said.
Michael could feel the day’s events frustrating him. “Look, you can either believe me or not. Frankly, I don’t care what you believe right now.”
She put her hand on his shoulder. “Let’s not fight about this. I’m sure she hopped on a bus or train and took off to that concert. She’s not perfect so she could have disobeyed you. She wouldn’t be the first teenage girl to do this. I was a teenager and I know.”
He put his hand out and slapped himself on the head. “I know what happened. I can’t be in denial anymore. She didn’t go to the concert. I would have heard from her by now. She’s a good kid, not an angel. I know. I can’t keep telling myself this didn’t happen. It did.”
Connie picked up his half drunk mug of hot chocolate and headed to the kitchen. “I’ll get you a refill, and then…um…well, we have to talk about my conversation with the police.”
He followed her. “What conversation?”
Her hands shook as she topped off his cup. “The police called me today, asking all sorts of questions about you.”
“What kind of questions?”
“About you as a father.”
“Yeah. And?”
She spilled hot chocolate on the counter. “They asked if you ever hit her.”
“What did you say?”
She tore a piece of paper towel and mopped up the spill, her hands still shaking. “They know about the time you hit her at the zoo.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. But they knew.”
She averted her eyes. Her face flushed.
“I had to or she would have lost her hand. I was scared.”
“I know. I would have done the same thing. But it didn’t help that someone told an authority over there about it.”
“I explained it back then.” He paced. “What else did they ask?”
“They asked whether you two spent a lot of time together, how your relationship was and whether you enjoyed being around her, how you acted.”
“What did you say?”
She slipped her hands into her pant pockets and shrugged, keeping her head down. “I said I didn’t really know since we don’t see each other much. But they seem to think there were some problems at home.”
He bit back a harsh retort. “That’s just great.”
“I couldn’t very well lie to the police.”
“Lie?” Michael slammed his fist on the counter. The mug filled with hot chocolate toppled over and crashed on the floor. “You’re mind-boggling sometimes.”
“Why are you mad at me?”
He threw his hands up in the air. “You remember one time that I tapped her hand and bottom and by the way, that does
not
constitute hitting, but you don’t remember that she’s my whole life?” His voice broke. “It’s not a lie that I haven’t been to every school event, raised her alone, provided a roof over her head, put food on the table, put aside my own goals and took care of every single need she had. Yeah, I made my mistakes. Many. I’m not proud of them. I’ll probably have to live with a few until the day I die. I’ve been trying to avoid making them again. But I’m human. You know all this, you didn’t have to be here all the time to figure that out.”