Love Redeemed (8 page)

“What happened?” Phoebe tried to work out in her mind what they would do next. They would find Lydia and she would be properly punished for running off. And then they would go for a swim and eat fried catfish and watermelon and catch fireflies and let them go. “When did you notice she was gone?”

“Sarah's diaper was so stinky, I couldn't stand it. I glanced toward the playground when I came back, I'm sure I did, but I changed the diaper and the baby was kicking and cooing at me and I was cooing at her.” Hannah's voice wobbled. “She was so cute. I made raspberries on her fat little belly and pinched her chubby cheeks and she giggled and giggled and made me giggle right back.”

Hannah's voice broke entirely then. She lifted her apron to her face and sobbed.

“It's all right, it's all right.” Molly reached across the blanket and put an arm around the younger girl. “We'll find her.”

“I heard one of them crying—I thought it was Caleb.” Hannah's words were so muffled Phoebe could hardly understand. She tugged the apron from her sister's face. Hannah looked up at her, bewildered, the mirror image of Lydia. What Lydia would look like eight years from now. “But it was Philip. He was sitting in the dirt by the swing, fussing. He kept calling her name.”

“So you went to look for her?”

“As much as I could, just right around here. I had the kinner and I
couldn't take them all with me.” Her voice rose. Phoebe could hear the barely contained accusation in it. If she'd been here, it wouldn't have happened—or she could've gone immediately to look for Lydia. “I was thinking of trying to walk with them to the next campsite when Rachel and Molly got here.”

“Get your cell phone.” Michael jerked his head toward the tents. “Do you have it in the tent?”

Phoebe hadn't even thought of the cell phone. How did he know she had one? “I don't…”

“You do. I saw you with it once. Get it. Hurry!”

She ran, stumbling, to her tent, and burrowed with shaking hands through her clothes to the bottom of the bag where she'd tucked the small, shiny rectangular phone with its pink rubber cover. She ran back to Michael. “Here, here it is.”

“Call 911.”

“What?”

He tugged the phone from her hand. “Let me.”

“You've used one?”

“I have one, but I left it at home. I couldn't imagine using one here.”

Truth be told, Phoebe couldn't imagine Michael with a cell phone anywhere. Of course, she'd never seen him at any of the Englisch parties she'd attended over her long rumspringa. She thought of him as the keeper of the rules. Until today. Until that kiss. Now a cell phone seemed right. It seemed God-sent. They could call for help. Get the park rangers. They would know what to do. They probably looked for lost children all the time.

Michael growled. “No service.” He smacked the phone against his leg in exasperation. “No signal out here.”

“What do you mean? What good are those things if they don't work in an emergency?”

“No towers around here.”

Towers? She had no clue what he was talking about. And how did Michael know about these things?

He swung around, facing the lake, his back to her. As if he couldn't bear to look at her. Phoebe's throat went dry. Horribly dry. She tried
to swallow the lump lodged there but found she might choke on it. “Michael?”

“I'll look along the shore. She can't have gone far on those short legs.”

He was right. They had to think only of Lydia right now. Nothing else. Not about what they were doing when this happened. Were they being punished? Surely not. It had been an innocent kiss. She forced the lump down in her throat and sucked in a long breath. Think about Lydia.
Gott, protect her and keep her until we can find her and bring her home safe.

“I'll go east toward the highway.” She didn't want to think about Lydia in the water or on the highway. They both posed terrible threats to a little girl who didn't know about big cars or deep water. “Molly, you go west toward the other campgrounds.”

Molly shook her head. “Rachel said to stay here until she returns with our daeds and bruders. She said we might get lost and then they'd have to look for us too. Besides, I'm not leaving poor Hannah alone with the kinner again.”

Hannah shifted closer to Molly, who gave her another quick hug. From the look on her little sister's face, she might never accept a hug from Phoebe again. Phoebe didn't blame her.

“We can't just stand around here waiting. Every minute we wait is another minute…”

Hannah's face crumbled again. She hid her face behind Sarah's bonnet, her sob small and wet and strangled.

Phoebe fought back her own sobs. This was her fault. All her fault. The memory of Lydia, swinging higher and higher, her round face split wide with a grin, shrieking with laughter, played itself in Phoebe's mind's eye over and over again.

Higher, higher, Phoebe, higher. More, Phoebe, more.

The sound of her sweet, high-pitched voice sang in Phoebe's ears. She wanted to slap her hands over them, but it wouldn't do any good. The memory would play over and over again inside her head.

“We can pray.” Molly said, her hand rubbing in a circular motion on Hannah's back. “That's what we do. Pray.”

Michael didn't turn around. He seemed mesmerized by the expanse
of water in front of him, with the brilliant sun bouncing across it like a light hitting a sheet of ice and reflecting at odd angles.

“We pray.” Phoebe nodded.

They bowed their heads. She didn't peek to see if Michael joined them. The silence stretched, broken by Sarah's cooing and the other kinner chattering on the playground, oblivious. Safe and sound.

“Amen.”

Phoebe raised her head. Fear tightened in a knot between her shoulders. If she didn't do something now, she'd be twisted like a pretzel on the ground any minute. “We have to do something. We can't just stand here, waiting, while she wanders farther and farther away.” She marched toward the edge of the road and then stopped. “It could take them twenty minutes or more to get back here from where they're fishing with the time it takes Rachel to walk over there.”

“She wasn't walking, she was running.” Hannah's voice cracked. “Even so…”

“Michael.” Phoebe whispered his name. What had they done?
Gott, please, let him be the one to find her and bring her back.
It was a selfish prayer.
Let someone, anyone, find her and lead her home safely. Lord, I pray. And forgive me. Lord, forgive me.

“Tell them I'll take the route to the next swimming beach and then double back.” Michael's voice brooked no argument. He sounded much older now. Older than her Daed even.

“Don't get lost.”

“If I don't find her, it might be better if I did.” The words were distinct even as they faded into the heavy, humid air between them. “For everyone.”

Chapter 6

P
hoebe found she couldn't sit. So she stood. Waiting at the edge of the campsite, the lake shimmering in the distance. Waiting. Any minute now. Who would come first? Mudder or Daed? Which would be better? Mudder, definitely. Or maybe it was better to face Daed's fierce sternness than Mudder's infinite disappointment. She tried to pace but her legs wobbled, so she leaned against the closest tree and waited. How long had it been? Five minutes? Ten minutes? She couldn't tell. Each minute that Lydia didn't skip her way back into view seemed like a dozen years.

Gott, please, let her come back. Please bring her home. Show her the way, Gott. I know she's in Your hands. I know You'll keep her safe. You'll bring her home. You are Gott. Our Savior and Provider. All this is according to Your plan.

According to Your plan?

She drew a long, painful breath and let the smell of earth and decaying leaves calm her.

The sound of an engine revving made her jerk upright. Mudder or Daed? An old blue van rolled around the bend in the road and heaved to a stop, gears grinding. Daed was in the front seat with Mr. Lewis, their Englisch neighbor from New Hope, who loved to fish and came here every year. Daed thrust upon the front passenger door before the
engine died. His boots thudded against the dirt, little puffs of dust rising around him.

Luke, Thomas, and Tobias piled out, followed by all the children who had been with them. No one spoke. No jokes or chatter or
my fish was bigger than your fish
stories, no stories of the big one that got away. Her daed strode directly toward Phoebe, his eyes squinting against the sun, his glare unrelenting.

“What's this I hear from Rachel?” he demanded. “Where's Lydia?”

“She wandered off.” Phoebe began. Her voice quavered and she fought for control. “Michael's looking for her.”

“Rachel said something about Mudder going to the marina…” He let the sentence float away, waiting for her response. “Were you in charge of the kinner?”

“I was. I was, Daed. It's my fault.” Hannah tore across the open space and hurled herself into Daed's arms. He caught her against his chest with an
ooph
as if he hadn't seen her coming. Her tears stained his shirt a darker blue. “I had to change Sarah's diaper and I looked away for a minute, for only a second and then I couldn't find her—”

“Hush, Hannah, hush.” Daed's arms tightened around the girl, but his gaze remained on Phoebe's face. “Is that what happened?”

“Jah.” Phoebe chewed the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. “I mean, I didn't exactly see what happened.”

“Why not?”

“Michael came over—”

A look of anger, pure and white-hot, whipped across Daed's face. Her breath strangled in her throat and Phoebe took an involuntary step back, hands clasped to her cheeks and neck.

“Michael was here? He stayed at camp this morning. Said he wanted to do some hiking.” Tobias, who'd been in the middle seat of the van, tromped over to stand next to Silas. “What was my boy doing here?”

“He came to…he wanted…”

Tobias's face shuttered. “Where is he?”

“Looking for Lydia.”

“I hate to interrupt, folks, but the closest visitor's center is several miles from here.” Mr. Lewis held up a cell phone. “I tried to call, but I
can't get a signal. We'll need to drive up there and contact the Corps of Engineers. They'll work with the Park Service and the sheriff's department to put together a search.”

The anger dissipated in Daed's face, leaving it white-gray with blotches of red on his cheeks. He rubbed Hannah's back for a second and then peeled her arms from around his neck. “Go help Molly and Rachel with the kinner.”

Hannah hiccupped a sob. “I'm sorry, Daed.”

“It's not your fault. Go on, the girls need your help. Phoebe, go with your sister.”

“Daed, I'm sorry—”

“Go.” He turned his back on Phoebe. “Luke, will you go with Brian to the visitor's center? Tobias, do you have the map we were looking at last night? We need to divide up the area. Everybody goes out in pairs. I don't want anyone else getting lost. Her legs are too short to have taken her very far. We'll have her back before the Corps folks can get out here.”

Back in no time. He sounded so sure of it. Daed was here. He'd find Lydia. He'd find her and all would be well. All would be forgiven.

Phoebe shuffled backwards, not wanting to take her gaze from him. He would fix this. He could fix anything. He might be mad at her now, but when he found Lydia, it would be fine. He'd forgive her. He always did.

Before she could make it to the picnic tables, Mr. Chester's green van rumbled into sight and pulled in next to Mr. Lewis's. A sledgehammer beat in Phoebe's chest. It banged against her ribs in a painful
bam-bam-bam
so hard she thought it might splinter the bones.

Mudder hopped out first. Her expression puzzled, she paused, the door still open. “Silas? Why did you come back so soon? Did you get any fish? I was planning a fish fry—”

“Rachel came to get us. We came back to look for Lydia.” He didn't sugarcoat the news. “She wandered off.”

Mudder took a step forward. The plastic grocery bag in her hand dropped to the ground and a loaf of sandwich bread spilled out. “Wandered off?”

Leaving Hannah frozen in her tracks, Phoebe rushed to her mudder.
“It's okay. Michael is looking for her. He's been out there at least half an hour. He'll find her. She couldn't have gone far.”

“Michael?” Comprehension flitted across Mudder's face. “Michael was here?”

“He came to see me. We…we took a short, short walk. Very short. A few minutes, really, only a few minutes, and Hannah was here.”

A strangled sob reminded her of Hannah's presence only a few feet away. “It's my fault, I know that, and I'm sorry. We'll find her. She'll probably wander back into camp any minute.”

“
Ach
, Phoebe.” There it was. That disappointment she'd seen so many times in her mudder's disbelieving face. She shook her head hard. “Phoebe.”

Chapter 7

M
ichael gritted his teeth and put one foot in front of the other. He wouldn't stop. More than eight hours of picking his way through rocks and sand and weeds in a broiling August heat that beat at his head and face and shoulders, burning him as he wound his way in and out of the trees that hugged the shore. His body had given out on him at least an hour earlier, but he'd forced himself to continue on. In and out of the trees. In and out.

Every few yards, he called her name. Again and again until his voice was hoarse and his throat ached. In between, he prayed.
Gott, let me find her. Please Gott, let me find her.
More like begging than praying. After a while, he couldn't remember what it felt like before the nightmare began. Like when he had scarlet fever as a kid. For the longest time, he couldn't remember not feeling sick and feverish and achy. Now all he could remember was the churning nausea in his gut every time he pictured the look on Hannah's face and the fear in her high-pitched voice.
Lydia's gone.
Nothing of what came before remained. Not even the memory of Phoebe's lips on his could bring back that lighthearted euphoria he'd felt earlier in the day. Every day since he realized he loved Phoebe. It was gone, covered up by this horrible mistake he'd made.