Page 50 of I’ll Be Home for Christmas

Chrissie was in the bosom of her family, and she knew that coming here in the winter this year had been the best thing she could’ve done. Hopefully Sarah would talk to Rhys soon and the pair of them would work out where they went from here.

And perhaps this Christmas it was time she started trying to do that with Meg.

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.