Chapter 17
SARAH
Sarah still had to talk to Rhys and be honest with him.
But right now, sitting here in the cosy lounge room with Grumps, Nanna and her mum, a fire roaring in the grate, and the big oval snack plate still there for the taking – Nanna and Grumps always over-catered – Sarah had a feeling that everything was going to be okay.
Christmas was only a few days away and right now they were laughing over a second game of Scrabble, feeling a togetherness and a bond that Sarah embraced.
She’d just thrown both hands up in the air with a big cheer because she’d beaten Grumps at Scrabble, ending with the word wheeze and incorporating a triple letter score, when there was a knock at the front door.
Nanna frowned. ‘Who could possibly be out in this weather?’
‘I’ll get it.’ Sarah sprang to her feet with gusto after her win. She was still grinning when she got to the door. ‘Jonathan, come in.’ The wind outside felt brutal, even standing here in the hallway, and although he’d only walked from next door – she assumed – his coat was covered in snow.
‘Is everything okay?’ Grumps had come out of the lounge with her mum.
‘Yeah, all good. Just checking Meg is here with you,’ said Jonathan.
‘Here?’ said Grumps. ‘I thought she was at yours.’
‘She was.’ He waved a hello to Astrid as she joined them. ‘She went out for a walk earlier.’
‘You mean when I came to meet Sarah?’ Chrissie asked.
He confirmed it with a nod. ‘She went out then, but she hasn’t been back since.’
Grumps and Nanna exchanged a look of concern.
‘That was hours ago,’ said Chrissie. ‘I’d assumed she would’ve come back when the weather turned.’
‘I’d been watching the change of the conditions, assuming she’d stopped off at yours,’ said Jonathan, ‘but then began to wonder, what if she hadn’t?’
‘Does she have her phone with her?’ Grumps picked his up from the side table in the hallway.
Jonathan looked worried now. ‘I tried calling it already. I didn’t hear it ring in the house, but she’s not answering wherever she is either.’
Grumps looked out of the window next to the door. ‘The weather is terrible. She can’t be out in this. She would’ve found shelter, stopped in town perhaps.’ He pulled his iPad from the table.
‘Maybe,’ said Jonathan.
But Sarah wasn’t so sure. She went to Grumps’s side because she already knew what he was doing – he was checking the weather and the avalanche bulletin.
‘There are warnings in place,’ he said almost in a whisper, his fear showing through.
Sarah felt her breath catch in her throat.
Meg liked to walk, especially when she needed to think.
She’d told Sarah she’d always done it, sometimes covering miles as a teenager, disappearing for hours.
What if she took a trail that was closed, either on purpose or by accident?
What if she got lost and her presence and weight caused unstable snow to start moving?
She turned as her mum said emphatically, ‘We should call the authorities.’
‘I agree,’ said Jonathan. ‘But I can’t just wait around. I’ll go and look in town and the surrounds. She told me last night about a favourite hike – into town, then up past the shops and onto the trails.’
‘Don’t put yourself at risk,’ said Nanna as Grumps picked up the phone to make the call. ‘We should leave it to the experts.’
‘I won’t stay out too long. I’ll go as far as I think is safe and then come back. I’m used to weather like this.’ He didn’t have to add that Meg wasn’t. They were all thinking it; nobody needed to say it out loud.
When Sarah’s phone rang and she saw it was Rhys she quickly answered it and then took it upstairs.
‘That didn’t sound like a happy hello,’ he said as she carried on talking when she reached her bedroom.
She closed the door and sat down on the edge of her bed before she explained what was going on.
‘The weather is awful. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
’ The snow swirled outside the window and above the skylight.
‘It’s like something from a movie set, it almost doesn’t feel real. It’s not pretty right now, it’s scary.’
‘I’m sorry, Sarah. How are the family holding up?’
‘We’re trying not to panic.’ She exhaled. ‘It feels good to be up here, to talk to you. The tension down there, the worry, it’s a lot.’
‘I’ll bet. If one of my family was missing…’ He didn’t need to add anything else.
‘Take my mind off it for a few minutes?’ she pleaded.
It took him a couple of seconds. ‘Thanks for sending all the photographs. What was it like up the Jungfraujoch? You said it was amazing. Tell me about it.’
It calmed her down, especially thinking about Meg and how much fun they’d had that day. She told him all about the train ride, how the journey took them through a mountain, how she wanted to take him up there some day.
‘I’d really like that.’ She could hear his smile across the miles.
‘She’ll be okay, won’t she?’ Her mind was back on Meg, out there in this weather, the warnings on the avalanche bulletin that had made all the colour drain from Grumps’s face, the fact that Jonathan was out there now doing his best to find her.
‘I’m sure she will. How is your mum doing?’
Rhys knew that Sarah and Meg had been getting on quite well, but she was yet to explain what had happened when her mum showed up, so she told him all about it now.
‘It sounds as though it was pretty bad.’
‘It was. I hate that they’re like that. And it’s not nice for Grumps and Nanna, especially with Nanna’s health. She’s doing fine, but her heart troubles are always in the background. I’m afraid this…’
‘Don’t think that way, Sarah.’
‘I’m trying not to.’
‘I’m worried about you. You sound scared. I was already worried before this happened.’ He paused. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘You should. It’s fine. What were you worried about?’ She already knew, of course, and he deserved to be able to say what he had.
‘It feels selfish to talk about it under the circumstances.’
‘You’re not selfish.’ He never had been.
Why had that only just occurred to her? He’d always considered her.
Even when she felt out of her depth at large gatherings when she didn’t know anybody, even when she didn’t want the impressive wedding venue, he’d always listened to her and considered her.
She felt lucky to have him. ‘Please, Rhys. We need to talk about it. And I’ll go crazy if you don’t take my mind off things. ’
He hesitated before he admitted, ‘I’m worried about us.’
‘Rhys, I—’
‘I need to know what you’re thinking, Sarah. I need to know why you really went to Switzerland and where this leaves me.’
‘I’m sorry I did this to you.’ She really meant it, but only now, having been away, could she see it.
‘I should’ve talked to you rather than packing up and coming here.
I honestly felt desperate to see my grandparents.
But… well, there wasn’t a decorating job.
There is now, but there wasn’t. Not at first.’
He waited a beat. ‘I’m just sorry you felt you couldn’t talk to me. We’re supposed to be able to share things.’
‘I know.’
‘Did I do something wrong?’
The very question made her eyes fill with tears. ‘No, you didn’t do anything wrong, I promise. This is all me.’
His voice grew quieter as he asked, ‘Do you think we can fix it? Fix us?’
If he’d asked the question on the day she arrived she would’ve steered the conversation in a different direction, but she’d worked through things in her head enough to be able to piece her own thoughts together at last. And talking to her mum had helped.
She’d resisted confiding in her until now, knowing she’d just want to leap in and fix everything, but maybe everything that had happened was a step in the right direction for them too.
‘Yes, I think we can fix it,’ she said with more surety than she’d felt in a long while. She heard a sigh of relief across the miles.
‘I’m so glad you said that, Sarah. All I really wanted to know was that you weren’t ending this. Us.’
‘Never. Unless you—’
‘Never,’ he interjected quickly.
She was smiling for so long she almost forgot he couldn’t see her. ‘I miss you.’ She missed his smile, his warmth, his pale blue eyes when he looked at her the same way he had the first day they met. ‘But I should go.’
‘Go. Let me know when you have news.’
‘I will.’ Her voice caught when she said, ‘I’ve only just started to get to know Meg. She and Mum haven’t had a chance to mend anything. What if—?’
‘Sarah, don’t go there.’
‘I’ll try to stay positive.’
‘I love you.’
‘I love you too.’
Downstairs, Grumps and Nanna were staring out of the window, looking even more terrified. They’d heard nothing from the emergency services or from Jonathan.
Her mum was standing at the other end of the room, looking out of the window over the garden at the rear. She wasn’t moving an inch.
And the weather was getting worse.