At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories) - By Barbara Bretton Page 0,110

been a terrible mistake, one she would pay for, for the rest of her life. It was easier to live with the absence of happiness than it was to lose it again. They had come so close, so painfully close, to making their dreams come true at last. If only she hadn't let herself believe they could bend reality to fit their needs, then maybe this wouldn't hurt the way it did.

She was halfway to the door when she realized her coat and the car keys were upstairs in Noah's room. She didn't want to see him again or his mother. She wanted to run out the back door and disappear. I understand why you do it, Sophie. Sometimes there's just no other way.

Noah was in so much pain. She remembered how it had felt when she first discovered that there could be no future for them. The enormity of it, the finality, had been devastating. How do you come to terms with the fact that nothing you could do, nothing you could say, could ever make things right again. Not even love was powerful enough to change this central fact of their lives.

"Oh, it's you, Gracie." Darnell poked his head into the hallway. "I heard the back door slam and I was wondering."

She struggled to regain a degree of composure. "I wasn't anywhere near the back door, Darnell."

He frowned. "That's strange. I could've sworn I caught sight of someone running by, then heard the door slam shut. Must've had too much white zin with dinner."

"Didn't we all. That's part of the Thanksgiving—" She stopped. "Oh my God," she said. "Sophie!"

She tore back through the hallway, past Noah and Ruth, and ran upstairs to Sophie's room. The door was ajar. Her heart was racing with apprehension. "Sophie," she whispered, pushing the door open wider. "Sophie, are you asleep?"

The bed was empty.

She flew back downstairs to Noah and Ruth. "Sophie's gone. Her bed is empty. She's not in the bathroom." She told them about Darnell and the sound of the back door slamming.

"Call the cops," Noah told his mother, "then call Sage and Morocco and ask if they'll help."

"Get some flashlights," Gracie said. "I'll tell Darnell and Rachel and the others to start combing the house and the yard."

"She's a little girl," he said, aging before Gracie's eyes. "She couldn't get very far."

Gracie didn't have the heart to tell him how wrong he was.

#

Storm and two of her siblings began searching the house from basement to attic for Sophie. In a big house like that there were a thousand places where a little girl could hide. Ruth was in the kitchen talking to one of the local policemen while Rachel brewed pots of coffee. Darnell had gone out in his truck to search the local roads while his sons headed off into the woods. That left Noah and Gracie to check the yard, the garage, the tool shed, and the carriage house.

"She can't have gone very far," Gracie said. "We'll find her very soon."

"I should have seen this coming." Noah paced back and forth in front of Gracie. "You did."

"Where does she usually go when she runs?" Gracie asked.

"No place special. For the most part she just runs." He struggled to corral his thoughts into something useful. "Whatever caught her eye earlier: the bridal shop, Patsy's—"

They looked at each other.

"Jesus," he said. "The beach."

#

Sophie followed the path that twisted and curved behind the garage and led down the slope to the beach. The closer she got to the beach, the rockier the ground became until she found herself stopping from one slippery perch to another. She wished she had put on her shoes and socks and maybe even a heavy coat. There wasn't a single bird out tonight. In fact, the water seemed to be coming closer, lapping over her ankles and sliding up her legs.

She felt very small out there alone in the dark. The world was bigger here than it had been in England. Even the smells were different. During the day she didn't mind so much but now all of those things seemed to be lurking in the shadows, laughing at her.

She wished she had stayed in her nice warm bed in the pretty pink room with the Barbie Dream House. It was scary being out there all alone. Even the moon looked spooky as it slid behind some dark clouds. She didn't like the slithery feeling under her feet or the way something long and feathery kept