— TWENTY —
“HOW many more days now, Mommy?”
“Three more days.” Faith pointed to the calendar on the side of the fridge. They’d been counting down the days until Zander finished his arctic exercise. There was no cell reception where he was, they only had satellite phones. He’d had his turn to make a call home at the end of the first week, and that had re-doubled Eric’s interest in knowing everything about what Zander was doing.
“How much snow is there?” he’d asked five times, at least.
Each time she said a variation on the same answer. “More ice than snow. But it looks like snow. It’s white in all directions. Rocks and dirt, too, here and there. We can look it up on my computer.”
Each night they looked at YouTube videos of life in the far north.
It was early November, and snow had yet to come to the peninsula, but it would soon. Every day was a little bit colder. The bright burst of autumnal colour that had greeted Zander’s last visit was now gone. The leaves were still crunchy on the ground, but brown now, and the cloud-heavy sky looked greyer each day.
Or maybe that was just her mood.
If you fall in love with a soldier, this is the life. She told herself that over and over again. And two weeks wasn’t so bad. She was selfishly grateful that she hadn’t had to love him through his tours in Afghanistan and Bosnia. Her heart ached for the women that made that quiet sacrifice right along with their spouses.
“And when is it going to snow here,” Eric asked next.
“That’s harder to say,” she answered, trying to be patient. His endless questions were really a mask for wanting to know when they’d return to their new normal. Zander calling each night, planning for the holidays. In less than six weeks, they’d have fifteen days all together. And they just needed to hold their breath and be brave until then.
It sounded melodramatic when she said it out loud—to Olivia and Dani when she met them at the diner in Pine Harbour for coffee, to her mother one late night when Faith couldn’t sleep. But every time Eric asked another question, something twisted inside her. A dial of worry.
Three more days. Maybe the worry would ease when they got to see Zander’s face on the iPad again.
— —
Faith yawned and blinked at the white stuff falling from the early morning sky. Eric would be happy, at least. She needed another cup of coffee.
She had a phone meeting with her editor as soon as she dropped Eric at school, and then, if her courier guy showed up early enough in the afternoon, fifty hot-off-the-presses novels to sign for giveaways. And Zander was coming home for a surprise visit.
He’d been back at his base for a few days, and he had another three day weekend which he finagled into four somehow. She wasn’t going to question their good fortune. Two months apart would have been too long.
Her mother had left the day before for a week-long vacation with her “friend”, Bill, who Faith had only met twice, and briefly at that. Miriam seemed content to keep that relationship separate from their lives.
As opposed to Faith, who had gone from flirting to dating to moving in with her boyfriend in what felt like the blink of an eye.
A very happy blink, but still.
And yet every time she thought of Zander, a happy calm settled over her. He was ridiculously good for her, and she wasn’t going to sabotage those feelings in any way.
She poured herself another cup, then finished making Eric’s lunch. He still wasn’t up yet, so she grabbed her mug and went to wake him. When she knocked on his door, half-open, she was surprised to see him already dressed. He had his backpack on his bed. She set her coffee on his dresser and zipped it up for him. “What’s in this thing, rocks?”
“Show and share today,” he said as he crawled under his bed. He came back out with a plastic toy from a fast food restaurant, which he tucked into the outside pocket. “All set.”
She’d made oatmeal, which he tucked into with more enthusiasm than he’d had for any meal all week. And before her alarm could go off, he cleared his bowl to the sink and was rifling through the front closet for his snow pants.
“I’m not sure you need them,” Faith started to say, but that was silly. Better warm than cold, even for the short recess breaks.
He kept taking gleeful peeks out the window at the fluffy flakes now sticking to the window. The temperature was hovering right around freezing. A degree or two warmer and all of that would melt into slushy, muddy yuck.
At the very least, the snow pants would keep the rest of him clean and dry.
As they headed out the door, her phone vibrated with a text message from Zander. Heading to the airport soon. See you tonight. XO
Drop off was extra quick, just a kiss on the cheek and a rushed encouragement to have a good day, and then she scurried home again for her phone meeting, which ended up being more than an hour long. By the time she hung up her head was spinning from the mile-long to-do list for the new series arc. She tried to open her project file on the computer, but she couldn’t focus, so finally she pushed away from the computer and put on laundry. Zander would be arriving in Calgary soon. He couldn’t get a direct flight, so he had a two hour stop-over. At least he had a direct flight home.
She stopped mid-transfer of laundry from the washer to the dryer and closed her eyes. She needed to cut herself some slack if she didn’t get any work done today. It was okay to just be excited and distracted sometimes.
Like Eric and the snow.
Her phone vibrated on the kitchen counter at the same time as someone knocked at the front door. She ran for the door first—it was the courier, and she signed for the box of books. It was heavy enough to just leave on the foyer floor, and she wandered back to the kitchen to see who had texted her.
It hadn’t been a message, though. She’d missed a call from the school.
Before she could dial back, it rang again.
The school calling back. Worried, she answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Davidson?” an unfamiliar male voice asked.
“Yes?” Was Eric sick? Why wasn’t the secretary calling?
“This is Will Kincaid, the principal of Tobermory Public School. Did you by any chance pick Eric up for an early lunch?”
White hot fear thundered through her body. “What? No…Where is Eric?”
A single, painful beat of hesitation was all she needed for that panic to explode. “We can’t locate him, Mrs. Davidson. I’m sorry to tell you this over the phone. We’re calling 911 right now,” he said over muffled conversation in the background. “You should perhaps stay home until the police arrive, in case Eric is heading there…”
She didn’t hear the rest of what he said, because she was already out the door, her phone still in her hand.
No.
No, no, no.
She starting screaming the word over and over again as she backed her car out of the drive, rocking wildly onto the curb. Her wheels spun on the snow-slick road as she gave it too much gas, and she jerked her foot back. Get it together, Faith. Heart pounding so hard it hurt her chest, she drove the two minutes to the school, eyes peeled for any sight of her son.
As she pulled into the lot, so did two O.P.P. cruisers. The police officers followed her inside. The principal was standing right inside the entrance. All the doors were closed, and two teachers were moving quickly down the hall away from where their boss stood. He held up his hand. “We’re searching the school right now. All classrooms are locked down, and our staff members are going room by room—”
“When was he last seen?” Faith interrupted. “When did you lose my son?”
“He had gym class—that’s right now, just ending. So we last saw him forty minutes ago. Lunch is next, so our hope was that…”
“Are you the mother?” one of the police officers asked.
She nodded. He introduced himself but Faith didn’t catch his name. He asked for a description, which she gave with some prompting, then he started talking into his radio as the other officer ushered them into the school office.
She watched him through the glass pane in the office door as the principal started talking again. “My understanding is he asked to go to the washroom, and approximately fifteen minutes passed before it was noticed that he didn’t return.”
She spun around. “Aren’t they supposed to go with a buddy?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “Yes.”
“So that didn’t happen?”
“Mrs. Davidson, I am so sorry—”
“I don’t give a fuck if you are sorry. That didn’t happen?”
His voice shook and at any other time, she’d have cared about his obvious pain. “It was an oversight.”
The first police officer returned to the office. “We’ll need some recent pictures…”
The next twenty minutes passed in a blur. A fire truck arrived, then more police. She was holding it together okay until Dean Foster strode in. He was in uniform, and everyone else looked his way, but he didn’t stop and talk to anyone. Instead he bee lined to her, concern written all over his face, and at the sight of someone familiar, something inside her chest cracked open.
“I’ve got you,” he said roughly as she clung to him. “We’re going to find him.”
“He packed some extra stuff in his backpack,” she choked out. “I didn’t realize it this morning, but it was heavy.”
“Okay. Okay.” He squeezed her shoulder and lifted her chin with the tip of his finger. “Zander’s brother is the best Search and Rescue organizer I’ve ever met. They’ve already set up a command centre and they’re gathering teams together. Can you think of anywhere Eric might want to go?”
She shook her head, trying to shake away the panic. She couldn’t think. “He likes hiking.” Her mind flashed with a memory from the morning. She’d gone to put a granola bar in Eric’s lunch box and there weren’t any left. “He took some snacks from the kitchen, I think. They were missing this morning and I didn’t think anything of it….”
“No, you wouldn’t. But it’s good that you’re remembering that now. There are snowmobile trails that run behind the school and out of town. We’ll start there. And I’m going to be right here, right by your side, and any time you remember anything, you just tell me. Doesn’t matter how random it is, got it?”
She nodded numbly.
“I tried to reach Zander,” he continued. “His phone keeps going to voice mail.”
Another bubble of pain rolled through her chest and lodged in her throat. “He’s in the air. He’s flying home for the weekend.”
“Did Eric know that?”
She shook her head.
“Could he have overheard something?”
No. They’d only texted about it. “It was a last minute plan.”
Dean pulled out his phone and fired off a message to someone. “We’ll get a hold of him. When and where does he land?”
“Umm…” She closed her eyes. “He’s got a connection in Calgary. He’s probably going to land soon.”
Someone came up behind Dean and handed him a coffee, which he pressed into her hands. “Drink this.”
“I don’t—”
“I’m also going to make you eat things from time to time.” He guided her to a pair of stiff plastic chairs and sat them both down. He gave her a serious look that part-terrified, part-reassured her. “If Eric’s taken off on a little adventure, it might take us all day to find him. You’re going to need your strength. It’s my job to make sure that you keep it.”
She took a sip of coffee.
“And I want you to go home. I’m going with you, but right now there’s a constable standing guard there, and if Eric makes his way home, it’s better that he finds you than a policeman.”
“I want to join the search party.” She was losing her voice, and it came out in a rough whisper. Maybe he hadn’t heard her. “Dean?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. Let’s let the S&R teams do their thing.”
He held out his hand and guided her outside. He wanted to take her back to her place in the cruiser, but that was ridiculous. It was a few blocks, and she’d driven her car here.
Reluctantly he agreed to follow her, and she had a few moments of stunned, surreal silence as she drove home. There was a cruiser in her driveway so she parked on the road and stumbled out.
It was cold, she suddenly realized.
She’d left the house without a coat or her purse.
Dean met her in the middle of her lawn and pushed her up the stairs and past the uniform standing guard at her front door. She hadn’t locked up—was pretty sure she hadn’t even closed the door, although the police officer must have done that when he showed up.
“Thank you,” she whispered as she passed. She wasn’t feeling very grateful for anything, but the ingrained reaction took care of itself.
She didn’t realize her phone was ringing until Dean stopped her and reached for her hand. He held it up in front of her.
Zander.
“He’s just landing in Calgary,” she whispered.
Dean looked at the screen. “Can I…”
She nodded, then shook her head. “No. I’ll tell him.”
She took a deep breath, but it didn’t help her be brave after she answered.
“Zander…” Her voice broke into a dozen pieces as she interrupted his greeting. “Eric’s missing.”