A Lancaster County Christmas

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  You want something from your father that he can’t give you. No one can. Only God gives perfect love.

  Jaime’s chin lifted. “What did you say?”

  Zach turned to face her. “I didn’t say anything.”

  She looked around her. “Did you hear something? A voice?”

  Zach’s forehead wrinkled. “Uh, no.”

  She heard it again. You want something from your father that he can’t give you. No one can. Only God gives perfect love. She could hear it as plain as day. Where had that voice come from?

  A thought came to Jaime then—a thought so luminous it made her feel flushed. It made her heart move in her chest as though it were trying to escape. Something clicked inside of her. Or unclicked.

  She needed to talk to someone about The Voice. She needed to think long and hard about it, to examine it and ponder it.

  But there wasn’t time! Zach stood in front of her, strawberry haired, ruddy faced, handsome, sad. She felt drawn to Zach—she felt paired with him—they were so similar. She couldn’t wait; she had to tell him what The Voice said. Part of it anyway.

  “That dream—of getting your father’s love—it isn’t going to come true. Not today, maybe not ever. Sometimes, we want more from people than they can give us. They simply don’t have it to give.”

  It made so much sense! But she didn’t add what The Voice said about God’s perfect love. That . . . she did not understand.

  Zach was listening so earnestly, concentrating so carefully on what she said, that she wanted to throw her arms around him and give him a big smacker right on his cute little mouth. But she knew he would misinterpret that so she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. The lightest kiss.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “For what?”

  “For the offer to go with you today. For everything.” Jaime took the keys out of her pocket and handed them to him. “If you want to leave, go ahead and take my car. But only to meet up with your friends. Take them for a ride. Not to the ocean, mind you! You know that Friendly’s Ice Cream Parlour at the edge of town, right before the highway entrance? Leave the car in the parking lot, put the keys under the mat.”

  He couldn’t have looked more surprised if she had handed him an airplane ticket to the moon.

  She walked past him and stopped. “Just know that you will never find anything out there”—she pointed to the road—“that comes close to what you’re giving up here.” She swung her arm to point to the farmhouse, like a weathervane turning in the wind. She started up the hill toward the house.

  “Wait a minute!” Zach caught up to her. “Where are you going? I thought you needed to be someplace.”

  “I do,” she said. She pointed to the kitchen. “In there.”

  Zach had never imagined himself behind the wheel of a car like this. Old beaters, yes, like the one he had hidden away on a seldom-considered corner of Sol and Mattie’s wooded property. He bought the 1983 yellow Toyota Corolla from a man as old as Noah, and this guy wheezed when he talked, the way Zach imagined Noah might wheeze after climbing a deck or two on the Ark. He paid the old guy $500 plus cleaned out his garage. The car didn’t even run, but Zach fixed it up by buying used parts from a dealer. The car had no turn signals, and even in December when it was ten below zero, he had to crank down his window and stick his arm out so that oncoming traffic would know he was turning. There was something wrong with the ignition—sometimes it started, sometimes it didn’t. Many a time he had to run alongside that car to get it started, and Susie Blank—bless her—was right there with him, running, pushing, hopping into the passenger side.

  It wasn’t much of a car and it smelled like a polecat had expired in the trunk, but at least it got him places faster than a buggy. And it gave him time alone for . . . well, time alone with Susie Blank. At least, it could provide a little privacy and transportation until his little cousin got into it. When he went to check on it, he had to shovel snow out of it because Danny left the windows open. And then when he tried to turn the key to get the engine started, the key snapped off in his hand. Frozen solid.

  As a kid, Zach used to love winter. Sledding, skating, bonfires, snowball fights.

  Now? He hated snow. Hated it! It was nothing but a nuisance.

  A loud, rumbling noise startled him and pulled his thoughts back to the present. He watched the snowplow head down the road. The driver tipped his head at Zach as he went past, and even turned the plow forward so it wouldn’t leave a drift in front of the car. Zach was sure he detected a hint of admiration in the man’s eyes. He probably thought Zach owned this car. Such an assumption made Zach grin from ear to ear.

  He thought he might drive by Susie Blank’s farmhouse and see if she happened to be outside now that the storm had passed by. He wondered if she was still mad at him. He had climbed up on the Blanks’ roof last weekend, to rap on Susie’s window, like they had planned. She was going to sneak out with him for a midnight drive. He had no trouble climbing up the rose trellis onto the porch. He had no trouble finding a window. Unfortunately, he rapped on the wrong window, and next thing he knew, the sash slid up with a loud screech and Zach was suddenly nose to nose with someone who had salt-and-pepper bushy hair and a weak chin.

  “Why, Susie!” Zach said, blinking his eyes in surprise. “You’ve gone and gotten ugly on me!”

  The bushy hair and weak chin belonged to Susie’s father.

  Susie was no longer allowed to run around with Zach. The next day, after a singing, she told Zach he was an idiot.

  “I told you which window to go to!” she told him with eyes narrowed. “I even drew a picture for you!”

  “I lost the drawing!” he tried to object.

  “Du ware gsoffe!” You were drunk!

  That, he couldn’t deny. And it was at that moment that she called him a Dummkopp! An idiot! “My father thinks you will always be a reckless fool. In your heart and in your head. I’m starting to think he’s right!”

  Whatever happened to mercy? To Christian grace? What about love covering up all sins and not being steamed at a fellow forever, and forgiving that same fellow for a few measly trespasses? What about that, Susie Blank? Huh? But he didn’t say it out loud. Even he wasn’t that big a fool.

  She ended up going home from the singing in Raymond Troyer’s buggy, a pimply faced boy who would never risk the wrath of Susie’s father.

  Maybe Susie was right. Maybe he would always be a reckless fool. He himself couldn’t grasp what it was inside of him, where it came from, this terrible urge that drove him to have things he shouldn’t have, to want things he shouldn’t want. Like this longing to sit behind the driver’s wheel in such a car as this red convertible.

  Ah, well, why worry about that little spat with Susie on a day like today? He fiddled with a few buttons and switches on the dashboard. The windshield wipers worked like a charm, and suddenly, he had a clear view of the open road.

  What if he just took it for a quick spin? Just down to Susie Blank’s house and back. It was the chance of a lifetime, the chance for pure happiness. He knew he was standing on a precipice here, that he should think this over very carefully, very thoroughly. Should he drive off in this wonder car? No, never.

  But he might.

  C.J. picked up the map Sol had left on the table and mentally split it into sections. “Show me the most likely areas that Danny would head to.”

  “I doubt he’d be in the fields. He must be heading uphill.” Sol pointed to the ridge behind the farm.

  “Okay, then we’re going to take this grid first.” C.J. circled that area.

  “Let’s go,” Sol said.

  As he started for the door, C.J. stopped him. “Sol, bear with my questions for a few more minutes. Help me reconstruct the last time we saw Danny. Do you remember anything he said? Whom he spoke to last?”

  Sol shook his head. “I left him with you when I took Dixie into the barn. What did he say to you?”

 
C.J. scratched his head. “He wanted Tucker to go with him someplace. He said . . . he said, ‘I know what could help.’” C.J. saw Jaime slip behind the men into the kitchen. He tried not to look as shocked as he felt to see her. He assumed she had left.

  Jaime looked around the kitchen. “Where’s my camera?” She looked at C.J. “Maybe Danny took it.”

  “Danny would never just take your camera,” Mattie said. “Besides, he doesn’t even know how to use it.”

  Jaime winced. “He does,” she said. “I showed him. This morning, in the barn. He took some pictures of the baby lamb.”

  “What would he be trying to photograph?” C.J. asked. “What would ‘make it better’?” He looked at Jaime. “He was talking about you. He wanted to find something to make you feel better after you talked to your father.” He walked up to her. “Think, Jaime. Did you have any conversation with him that could be a clue?”

  Jaime looked baffled. “We talked about all kinds of things. Danny talked . . . a lot.” She frowned, then her eyes lit up. “He showed me his box of arrowheads and tomahawks. Indian artifacts. He said that the amazing thing is when you find an arrowhead, the last person who had touched it was possibly an Indian.”

  C.J. turned to Sol. “Any idea where he would go to find arrowheads?”

  Sol grabbed his hat. “There are a few places that we’ve found them.” He pointed to a top section of the map. “It’s this northern area.”

  C.J. held up the map and pointed to sections. “We’ll split into three. Cover more territory.” He looked around the room. “Where’s Zach?”

  “Um,” Jaime said, “he had something he had to do.”

  “Is he coming back?” C.J. asked.

  Sol narrowed his eyes. “Don’t count on him.”

  Something was going on with Zach that seemed to involve Jaime and Sol, but C.J. didn’t have time to wonder what. There was so much drama going on in this little farmhouse! He turned to Sol. “Never mind. We’ll split the farm into two, with four quarter sections. Remember to call out Tucker’s name too, as well as Danny’s. Whistle for him, call his name, then listen for a bark. Call, then listen. Call, then listen. It’s important to be quiet long enough to be able to hear a response. The snow muffles sounds.” He held the map out to Sol. “If you feel confident that you’ve searched an area completely, then take this next quarter section. I’ll take the lower areas and go north.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “We’ll meet back at the house in two hours. No matter what. Meet me back here at four thirty.”

  “What do you mean, no matter what?” Mattie asked. “What then?”

  He turned to Mattie. He saw the dread in her eyes. “We’ll need to regroup and cover another area. But chances are we’ll find him long before then.”

  Mattie grabbed a coat. “I’m coming with you.”

  “No, Mattie,” C.J. said, his voice kind and indulgent. “It’s important that someone remains here. If Danny comes home on his own, he needs to find someone here waiting for him. Otherwise, he’ll just go out again.”

  She stopped putting on her coat. “Bring my boy back. Please.” Her mouth was a line.

  “That dog won’t leave him alone, Mattie,” C.J. said. “Tucker is the best chance Danny has to stay warm and get back to you before the storm hits.”

  Sol and C.J. moved toward the door. Jaime stopped C.J. on the porch. “Do you want me to come too?”

  He didn’t look at her. “I thought you had a plane to catch.”

  “No, I don’t,” she said. “I’m not leaving, C.J. I’ll go searching with you.”

  Sol interrupted. “Stay with Mattie. Keep her mind from worrying.”

  Mattie joined them on the porch. “What if Danny is truly lost? It can happen to the best of woodsmen, you said. You said it just this morning when you were talking to Danny about your work. You said that even experienced woodsmen get disoriented.”

  “I also told Danny other things about Search and Rescue—about how to survive in the woods if you get lost,” C.J. said. “Remember? Hug-a-tree. Sit-and-stay. He heard those things just this morning.”

  “It’s true, Mattie,” Sol said. “God was watching over him, even then.”

  “Mattie, it’s not time to worry yet,” C.J. said. “He hasn’t been gone that long.”

  “How often have you found children alive?” Mattie’s voice was eerily calm. She was looking deep into C.J.’s eyes.

  He tried to think of something to say to her, something that was truthful, and hopeful, and positive. “All the time, Mattie. Clever kids—ones like Danny—are smart and resourceful.”

  But Mattie kept looking at him, as if she was reading his thoughts. She had that way about her, of reading a person’s soul. Then she pressed her eyes closed for a long second, like she was praying.

  For C.J., the silence that followed was studded with guilt. He couldn’t tell her about the twins who died last fall, who might have been saved if he had been better skilled at his job. He couldn’t tell her the truth, that he felt a spike of worry himself. He had expected Danny and Tucker to have come flying through the kitchen door while he and Sol were dividing up the farm to search for them.

  Jaime stepped between them. “C.J. is good at what he does, Mattie. The best, best, best. He’s had dozens of successful searches. He doesn’t give up.”

  Relief crossed Mattie’s face like a ray of light.

  Jaime put her arm around Mattie. “We need to let these guys get started.”

  As she steered her inside, into the warmth of the kitchen, she looked over her shoulder at C.J. She mouthed the words, “Go find him.”

  It was all Mattie could do to keep herself from running after the men. How was it possible that Danny would be out in that dangerous and unpredictable world? She stood for several minutes, staring out after them. She pressed her hand flat against the window and shook her head to clear it. Outside, there were now more clouds than sky.

  She stepped onto the porch, where she lifted her face to the sky. Where was Danny? she wondered, sudden tears in her eyes. Where could he be?

  Jaime brought out her coat and wrapped it around Mattie’s shoulders. “C.J. will find him, Mattie.”

  Mattie was almost shivering with frantic energy. She was holding herself together with a thin layer of skin and teeth-gritting determination. She had to think about something else, or she’d simply explode. “Where’s Zach? You said he had something he had to do. Where did he go?”

  As she saw Jaime’s hesitation, she was suddenly furious. Why were people keeping things from her? Why did everyone assume she would shatter like a teacup at the first sign of trouble? She wasn’t made of spun sugar. “Tell me what you know.” She stopped, interrupted by the sudden tightness in her throat.

  Jaime’s gaze shifted down the driveway. Mattie hadn’t noticed before, but that car of hers was gone. “When is he coming back?”

  Jaime’s eyes darted nervously. “Let’s go inside and get warm.”

  They sat at the kitchen table and Jaime told her what she did know—that Sol had asked Zach to leave, and that Zach had taken her car to meet some friends. Mattie tried not to show it but she was livid with Sol. How dare he do such a thing without talking to her first! It troubled her to see how rigid and unbending Sol could be with Zach. She never imagined Sol would become this kind of man, but he was acting more like Zach’s own father every day. Stiff and rule-bound. And she knew it was because Sol didn’t want Danny exposed to Zach’s errant ways. Sol accused her of babying their son—well, he was trying to create a cocoon of his own making for their boy.

  She felt so badly for Zach—she was sure he must have left their home hurt, feeling abandoned. And because of Sol’s ridiculous declaration, they had one less person on the farm to help look for Danny.

  Mattie rubbed her forehead. How had this happened? She wanted to start this day all over again, to rewrite the way this day had gone. One moment they were all safe, the next moment not.

  Mattie blamed herself for D
anny’s disappearance. She had not been watching him. She had been absorbed in her own thoughts, her own sadness. She had been sleeping . . . while her son wandered into danger. She felt preoccupied, muddled, distracted. She put her hand to her forehead. It was hot and damp, like she had a fever. The tears started up again, out of her control.

  Jaime reached out and covered her hand with hers. “It’s okay, Mattie,” she said soothingly.

  But, of course, it wasn’t okay.

  A cloud smothered the sun, and the kitchen darkened.

  Sol tried to think the way Danny’s mind worked and went up a trail they’d traveled many times over the years. If Danny wanted to find arrowheads, this would be the path he would have taken. Sol looked carefully for tracks, for any sign of Danny’s footprints, or of a dog’s pawprints. Every fifty feet or so, he would stop and call out Danny’s name. Then Tucker’s. Then he would wait for an answer. And pray.

  It was not reasonable, at this point, to panic, because there might be a simple answer to his boy’s whereabouts. Since Danny learned to walk, he had been one to wander. He would get absorbed in following something—a bird, a squirrel, and he would follow its trail. Sol used to say he wanted to put a cowbell around that boy just to know where he had gone to.

  He passed a place where he and Mattie and Danny had once had a picnic, when Danny was just a toddler. Mattie had led them off the main path and through the trees, following a creek, until they emerged in a sunstruck place she remembered for its wild blackberries. Wind moved lightly in the long grass and the dark green leaves of the blackberry canes shimmered against the earth. The air was full of sweetness and the hum of insects. It was a perfect summer day.

  They had spread out their picnic: sandwiches and lemonade and homemade cookies and clusters of Concord grapes from their garden. Sol sat down on the blanket and held Danny in his lap, holding his hands—those plump, dimpled hands—to keep him from pulling off his knitted socks. He remembered thinking idly of his own father’s hands, stocky and strong, with skilled, blunt fingers that covered Sol’s hands as he taught him to heft an ax or milk the cow or pound a nail. Was that how Danny would remember Sol’s hands?