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Okay, so even if she learned the routine in two weeks, there was still transportation to consider. He’d have to fly her to Chicago from wherever she was now. His eyes narrowed as his mind scrambled through the calculations. Basically, he had about six weeks to find Addisyn.
What should he do? Where should he even start? Calling wasn’t an option. He’d tried over and over, only to have his calls sent straight to voicemail. Either she’d turned off her phone permanently...or she’d blocked his number. The last possibility wasn’t one he was ready to consider.
He thought for a moment, then pulled out his iPhone and tapped Facebook. She’d never been good about posting regularly, but maybe—
Her account was gone!
His breath caught. He flicked madly through the list of results, but the truth was obvious—her account had disappeared.
Just like her.
He sighed. She must have deleted or deactivated it. No help there.
His mind skipped madly through all possibilities. Should he phone the police? Hire a private investigator? No solution was too expensive or far-fetched—not in view of what the payoff would be.
Slowly an idea began dawning in Brian’s mind. It was a radical option, yeah. But this was a ridiculously huge opportunity for both of them. Why not try it?
After all, he told himself as he closed his Facebook app and pulled up Google Maps, desperate times called for desperate measures. He snickered a bit. Sure, the phrase was overworked, trite even. But as he typed “Hudson Apartments” into his Google Maps search bar, the hackneyed old aphorism had never seemed so apropos.
Because for the first time ever, Brian Felding was truly desperate.
DARIUS WISHED THEsun weren’t shining today.
It wasn’t that he was normally a fan of rain. He had more than his fill, living in the notoriously soggy Pacific Northwest. Usually he would have welcomed a sunshiny day, especially in June, with summer taking its first steps.
The light made him squint as he flipped on his blinker and turned left at the intersection. He frowned, yanking his visor down.
No, Darius wasn’t opposed to sunshine in general. But it was too bright, too annoyingly hopeful, for his mood today. He glanced down at his own attire—somber maroon shirt, black pants. Even his usual beanie was black today.
The donut-shaped green of Spruce Park flashed by on his righthand side, followed by the Whistler Waldorf School. He was on his way out of town, driving into the countryside where things were freer, cleaner.
He glanced around at the mountains. Blackcomb, Brandywine, Mt. Weart, The Spearhead—he knew all their names as if they were old friends. It was comforting at a time like this, the familiarity he had with this place.
On this day, five years ago, his parents had passed away in a car wreck. Nobody’s fault, really—his dad had apparently swerved to avoid a deer crossing the road and lost control. The car had been found upside down in the ditch, slammed against a tree. The investigator had assured Darius that they’d more than likely died quickly and painlessly, and at least they had died in a beautiful place. Darius had always been thankful for that. They’d been exploring one of the winding mountain roads, out for a late-afternoon wildlife watching expedition. Spending time together, the two of them. Sharing their love.
If he was being purely unselfish, Darius had to be grateful that his parents had gone to the next world together. They had loved each other deeply, and he couldn’t imagine one being taken and the other left. They’d died in the way they would have chosen—together.
At times like this, he wondered if he would ever have someone to love, the way his dad had loved his mom. At one time, it had seemed possible—but a lot of things had seemed possible then.
His mind drifted to Addisyn. What a girl she was. Charming, fun, but gentle, too—not loud and giggly like the young women who sometimes came to the climbing center. Their incessant chatter made Darius’s ears ring. But Addisyn only said what was worth saying, in a way that was kind and thoughtful.
The tightness in his soul eased as he pictured her flawless face. Absentmindedly he rubbed one hand over his beard. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why he liked her so much. Maybe it was the way she seemed to dance effortlessly through life, with a view only for the bright parts. Maybe it was the way she balanced on the line between utterly sweet and a little playful. He grinned. He guessed that she had a bit of a temper—and he found that quite charming, actually.
For a second, he dreamed of actually walking up to her and asking her out on a real-life date. Somewhere romantic, somewhere out of the ordinary. No “dinner and a movie” for him. He’d decided that early on—from the time he was an introverted teenager. Funny, he’d been Canada’s sweetheart, with no lack of attention from young female fans, yet he’d never had the courage to ask a girl out. And now, he was anything but the put-together paragon of a man who could do so in good conscience.
Shame clogged his soul. If only he could. If only he could envision a future without the dark cloud of guilt that clung to his spirit. He smacked his palm on the steering wheel, suddenly frustrated. Addisyn thought he was a hero. What could be further from the truth? And how could he look her in the eye and tell her about the other side of himself—the side without the roses and trophies? He couldn’t—that was all.
Enough.Darius exhaled. Today was a day set apart to honor the past, not wallow in the misery of the present. Every year, he took off work and spent this day quietly remembering his parents—and his grandfather. Since his parents were buried in the cemetery of the little church Grampy had pastored, it felt right to include his grandfather in his remembrances on that day. He visited their graves and spent his time in reflection. The first year, he’d also included prayer. Just not anymore.
He pulled into the spacious dirt parking lot and turned off the motor. He’d arrived—Somerset Christian Church, at the margin of the mountains. He studied the church he’d known as well as his own house for his growing-up years. It looked the same, really—a squat tan brick building with a white steeple, now a bit greyish with wear. There were a few more cracks in the sidewalk where the roots of the pointy evergreens had tunneled under the concrete, and a letter missing from the sign out front, but other than that, the place was ageless. Even down to the vile lime green paint in the youth activities room, probably.
He took his time getting out of the car. No need to rush the moment, to skip over the memory. His hands in his pockets, he strolled across the gravel, breathing the cleaner air. Somerset Christian was nestled in the pines, at the edge of civilization. Past the cleared area that marked the boundaries of the church property, mountains rolled their enormous shoulders. The road that had brought him to this place lost its way shortly thereafter in the thickness of nowhere.
Darius tilted his head back to watch a brown-headed crow—a common British Columbia bird—slice its way through the sky. Besides the birds, the church was deserted at ten o’clock on a Thursday morning. Here, a man was alone—alone with his thoughts and alone with his Maker. Both of those made Darius squirm.
He gently lifted the latch on the iron fence around the cemetery—built as tall as he was to prevent mule deer from entering—and made his way through the rows of gravestones. The cemetery was well-maintained, but some of the older stones were wearing away. He paused in front of one whose name he could no longer decipher. All that was legible was something about “our beloved father” and the date of death—either 1952 or 1956, he couldn’t be sure. A wave of shadows fogged his soul. When he’d been dead over sixty years, would people still visit his grave? For that matter, would anyone remember him at all?
And what would they say if they did?Darius Andrew Payne, failed Olympian. Wasted his potential. Died alone and lonely.
