"Elizabeth, I'm very... sorry to bother you..."
"Archie! We've been so worried! Where are you? Did you find Jessie?" Elizabeth had so many questions, she didn't know where to start.
"Jes..Jessie? How in the world do you know about Jessie?" Archie said, incredulous.
"Nathan is in Spruce Grove. He came to find you, and found your note. He's staying in your room, and talked to Helen at the café..."
"Elizabeth, please slow down. I'm not... I'm not understanding..."
Elizabeth took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. We've just been worried sick about you. I am so glad you're okay. You are okay?"
"Yes, but..." Archie paused. "Nathan's not there?"
"No, right now he's at the Spruce Grove Mountie office. Please call him, Archie."
There was silence on the other end of the line. Finally, Elizabeth said, "Nathan couldn't reach you and he came up there to make sure you weren't hurt, or in trouble."
Archie's voice was breaking. "Now why would he do something like that? He's never done that before."
"Things are different now," Elizabeth said softly. "We think we know what you're doing. For Stella? Nathan wants to help you." When Archie didn't answer right away, she added, "Please give him the chance to help you."
Elizabeth heard him take a deep, shuddering breath. "I've made so many mistakes. Disappointed Nathan so many times, and I've made a promise to myself that I won't... do that again. Why does it always have to be trouble that... brings us... " Archie said, frustrated.
"It doesn't matter why, Archie," Elizabeth said.
"I wouldn't have called but it's not for me this time... I do need help." He was choosing his words carefully. "I didn't know where to turn."
"You turn to us. We're your family," Elizabeth said softly.
"Oh..." he said, almost in a whisper. From the sounds on the other end of the line, Elizabeth knew that he was crying. Finally, Archie said, his voice trembling, "I figured I gave up that right a long time ago."
Elizabeth said softly, "When you were here, I saw so clearly how much love there is between you and Nathan. He wants you in his life. We want you. When this is over, please come here and stay with us. We would be so happy to have you and we have plenty of room. Just for a while, to see how you like it."
"You're a very kind person, Elizabeth... and... and I'd like to visit if that's what Nathan wants. But there are some things I have to do here first," Archie said.
"We know you're trying to help Stella. Will you call him, or can he call you where you are?"
"If you think... he'd be willing to help? Why would he come up here? After all I've done." Archie said.
"Because he loves you and you're his father. Please call him. I know he's there because I just talked to him. He's so worried about you," Elizabeth said.
She heard Archie take a deep breath. "He's really at the Mountie office in Spruce Grove?"
"Yes." Elizabeth could hear that he was open to the idea, and she wanted to make sure they got to Nathan before he left the office. "Just hold the line for a moment Archie, will you? Please don't go away."
Elizabeth jiggled the holder on the telephone and Fiona came back on the line. "Hope Valley operator, how may I help you?"
"Fiona, are you able to connect Mr. Grant to the Spruce Grove Mountie office? And if Nathan is no longer there, can you direct him back to me?"
"Absolutely. My pleasure."
"Okay, Archie. I'll wait here by the telephone until I'm sure you've been connected to Nathan. If he's already left, then you come back and talk to me and we'll figure out what to do next."
"Thank you, Elizabeth. You're so kind. I look forward to... to getting to know you better."
Elizabeth felt her eyes filling with tears. "I do, too. Very much. And please think about coming here. For as long as you want."
"Thank you," Archie said, a tremor in his voice.
"Alright, Fiona, you can disconnect me. Thanks."
Elizabeth heard a click and then she waited. If Nathan wasn't there, the phone would ring again, but she prayed it wouldn't. It was close to Jack's naptime, and he was lying on the floor of the sunroom talking softly to himself while he played with the fringe of the blanket on the sofa.
Elizabeth waited and waited. Finally, her heart sank as the phone rang again.
"Hello?"
"Elizabeth, it's Fiona. Just wanted to let you know... oh, I know I'm supposed to be professional, but you should have heard Nathan's voice. He was so happy. Both of them. I'm sitting here just bawling like a baby."
The emotion of the last half-hour suddenly took hold of Elizabeth. "Thank you, Fiona," she said, as the tears began to fall. "Thank you so much for letting me know."
Elizabeth hung up the phone and reached down to pick up Jack. She needed to hold him, to feel her son warm and solid in her arms, and he obliged her by snuggling into her completely. As she rocked him slowly to sleep, Elizabeth knew that the peace Nathan was making with Archie was so important to his well-being, to his growth as a man – and as a father.
She missed her husband more than ever, but Elizabeth knew that the path Nathan and Archie would walk together in their search for Jessie could also be a path back to each other. She wanted nothing more for them. Her tears were still falling, but now she smiled as they fell. She closed her eyes and let the sun warm her face through the windows as Jack began to snore softly.
Nathan was glad he'd finally found a small unoccupied room at the Spruce Grove Mountie office because he wasn't sure he could hold it together any longer. He closed the blinds on the window that looked out to the large office and sat down at the desk. Then he put his head in his hands and allowed himself to let go.
The helplessness of the last four days, the regret, the dead ends, and the increasing feeling of desperation had wound him tight as a spring. Now that tension relaxed and he uncoiled, breathing deeply.
He'd been sitting in the main room looking at a map of Edmonton when the telephone on his desk had rung. He was expecting a call from Sam Hughes and he'd picked it up, saying, "What'd you find out, Sam?"
"Son?"
The world had telescoped into that one word and the sound of his father's voice in his ear.
"Dad?" he'd said, not believing.
"Yes. I... I talked to Elizabeth. She told me..." Archie said, tentatively.
"Are you alright, Dad? Where are you? I'll come to wherever you are." Nathan's heart was racing. He felt like he'd suddenly been given a second chance.
"I'm in Edmonton, we can't find her, son. I didn't know what else to do."
"You did the right thing. I can help. Let me help," Nathan said, emotion coloring his voice. "Please tell me where you are."
"We found a boarding house on 152nd Avenue. It's not very nice, but..." Archie's voice trailed off. He didn't know how to move on to whatever was next.
"I'll meet you there," Nathan said quickly. He looked at the map on his desk. "That's northeast, right? What's the address?"
"No, son."
Nathan took a deep breath. "Why not?"
"I'll meet you, but not there. I don't want you to see me... there," Archie said, his voice breaking.
Nathan knew how desperate his father had to be to have finally called, and if he pushed him away now, he might never see him again. "Wherever you want, Dad. You name the place."
"There's... there's a coffee shop. Stella has a shift there tonight," Archie said. "On 61st Street, Margie's."
Nathan wrote down the name. "It will take me a couple of hours to get my things and ride out to Edmonton. What time?"
"Stella's shift ends at six. We can sit there and talk if you want?"
There was a silence; the result of two men, so alike, unaccustomed to expressing feelings as strong as those they were experiencing.
Nathan broke the silence, unsure he would be able to control his voice, but needing so much to say what he'd wished he could say for the last four days. "Dad, I know you said I never have to apologize to you, but I do. I've been too hard on you. I can see you've changed, and I want... " Nathan was in the middle of a very busy room full of Mounties, and he was afraid of what he was feeling, but he summoned all his strength to get through it. "...I want my father back."
Archie was under no such constraints in a small booth at the transit station. The tears fell openly as he said, "And I want my son."
Nathan pressed his lips tightly together, trying to stem the flow of his emotions. "Don't disappear again, Dad. Please. Let me help you."
Archie exhaled. "I'll see you at six, son."
"And Dad?" Nathan said. "We'd like you to come to Hope Valley when this is all over. We have a big house now. We want you with us."
Archie laughed softly. "Elizabeth already invited me. I'd like that."
"Good," Nathan said. There was something else he wanted to ask him. "Dad? I ended up in your room at Mrs. Ledoux's boarding house. I saw what you carved in the dresser there: Archie was here. It helped me to find you, but how did you know to do that?"
Archie thought for a moment, and then said, "You've never been in prison. There's... it's a feeling of being separate from the world, almost of not being a person. I've carved those words everywhere I've gone." His voice was thick with emotion. "It lets me know I exist."
Nathan breathed deeply so he could speak. "You do exist. I'm telling you that you do. And you have a family, people who care about you."
"Thank you, Nathan. I don't think... you'll ever know what that means to me."
Nathan closed his eyes. It was hard to hang up; hard to trust that his father wouldn't run away from him again. Knowing there was still a possibility that this would be the last time he could say it, Nathan took a deep breath.
"I love you, Dad," Nathan said softly.
He heard a choke of emotion on the other end of the line as his father said, "I love you, son."
When the telephone rang again, Elizabeth realized she had fallen asleep. Jack was still snoring on her chest, unbothered by the ringing. When he slept like this, nothing would wake him.
"Hello?"
Fiona wasn't even trying to be professional anymore. "Elizabeth, Nathan's on the line. I just have to say," she said, her voice shaking, "This has been a very emotional day for all of us! I'll put him through." Fiona sniffled and Elizabeth heard a soft click.
"Elizabeth?" Nathan's voice was tender, vulnerable and very quiet.
"Oh, Nathan, you talked to him?" she said, shifting Jack slightly.
"Yes," Nathan said.
Elizabeth could hear how close he was to the edge of control. "When will you see him?" she asked.
"At six. I have to ride back out to Edmonton, so I can't talk for very long, but I just needed to hear your voice. And to thank you."
"Me? I haven't done anything," she said.
"You have no idea how much you've done," Nathan said. He paused and Elizabeth let him have the time to gather his thoughts. "When you told me that Archie needs his family now more than ever, that it was so clear how we... felt about each other..." Nathan sighed. "You knew, Elizabeth. You saw what... what we couldn't see."
Smiling, Elizabeth said, "Sometimes it's hard to see what's right in front of us. All the blessings we have that may not look like blessings."
"I told him I love him," Nathan said softly. "Even if I never see him again, he heard that from me."
Elizabeth closed her eyes, full of gratitude. "And what did he say?"
"That he... loves me too."
"That makes me so happy, Nathan," she said softly.
Smiling, Nathan said, "And that makes you happy because you are the kindest, most compassionate person I've ever known. You care as much or more for others as you do for yourself. How many times are you planning on saving me, Elizabeth?"
Laughing, she said, "I don't know about saving you, but I'm pretty sure I promised you forever. And I absolutely plan to keep that promise."
Nathan groaned softly. "You have no idea how much I want to hold you right now." He inhaled. "But I have to go. I'll call you when I'm settled in Edmonton, and I'll tell you all about Stella. We're meeting at a coffee shop where she's working."
"Help them, Nathan. Whatever it takes."
"Don't worry, this will be her last shift if that's what she wants. After four days of looking at every aspect of their lives, I feel like I know Stella and Jessie."
Nathan said what both of them were thinking. "And if this were Allie...?" He couldn't continue, and Elizabeth heard his voice waver.
She said softly, "You'd hope someone would move heaven and earth to help her. I know." Elizabeth held the receiver closer. "I love you, Nathan. Call me after you see them."
"I love you, Elizabeth. More than you'll ever know."
