I know it has been a long time, but I've decided to finish this story off next. The timing just seems right, given that this is a Thanksgiving weekend tale.

It has been so long that I had to reread the first 15 chapters and along the way noticed plenty of errors, some which I can blame on writing on a phone and its auto-correct and others that are my fault alone, but so you don't have to reread unless you want to, here is a quick synopsis of what happened in the last three chapters: Anne hid from her mother in a laundry basket and then snuck out a window rather than go home with her mom (Ch 14). Cathy de Bourgh almost got arrested after she called the police about Anne being kidnapped and refused to leave the Bingleys' home, but she finally agreed to have Mr. Collins drive her home (Ch 15). Meanwhile, Darcy and Elizabeth took a long walk, sorted out their feelings, finally kissed and agreed to date and are getting rained on as they walk home (Ch 13). They aren't back yet, but everyone agreed to go look for Anne who accidentally left her phone. We now pick up with what happened to Anne after she left.

Chapter 16

At first, Anne had not gone far at all after climbing out the window of the Bingleys' home, just through the backyard toward what looked like a miniature red barn with white trim. Anne was curious about what animals might be inside.

Anne had seen farm animals before of course, on the TV and occasionally from the window of the car, but she had not ever met them in person except one time at a petting zoo when she was about eleven and had a good run of stable health between treatments and her mother was out of town visiting her sister (Anne's aunt) and the new baby.

Anne had wanted to visit Auntie Anne, Willy and Baby Gigi, but her mother had said "Twelve-year-old boys are living Petrie dishes of germs and you have been doing so well; no, you had better stay with your father and Jenny."

Mother certainly wouldn't have approved of Anne going to a petting zoo, even if her father had rented out the whole place, just so there wouldn't be any sickly kids around. It was just Anne, her father and her nurse aide Jenny Jenkinson. Anne hung back as the adults tried to urge her forward. Anne remembered how much bigger the animals seemed in person, and how much scarier. She also had not expected the smells and sounds.

However, Anne had been finally persuaded to touch the goat, the cow, the horse and the piglet, but refused when it came to the chicken. "No Daddy! It has talons and a sharp beak. It will peck at me." It did not matter how they tried to reassure her, or that Jenny had pet one of the chickens and exclaimed over its soft feathers. Anne did not like the look the near hen gave her as it tilted its head.

The white baby bunnies were Anne's favorites, so soft and cuddly, with shorter ears than they would have when they were bigger. Anne spent several minutes holding each baby. "I really love them, Daddy. They are soft, nice and quiet, so much better than Mom's dog. Do you think I could have a bunny someday?"

"We'll see," is all he said.

While she stroked the bunnies, Anne heard her father and Jenny discussing how they might get her mother to let her have a bunny for her birthday, with Jenny suggesting "Maybe Mrs. de Bourgh would be more amenable if the rabbit lived outside in a hutch."

"Perhaps, but she would not like Anne going outside to visit it. Cathy means well but sometimes it feels like she thinks she can keep our Annie alive through sheer will alone. God knows I want her well, too, but Annie needs to enjoy her life, too, not just live in isolation from everyone and everything."

Anne's father had died just a few months later, when a driver plowed into him, running a red light as her father took as early morning jog. Her father was halfway across a street in the painted crosswalk, crossing with the little white "walk" guy, according to what an eyewitness motorist stopped across from him had said. It was a hit and run, probably by a drunk driver still up after late night revelries. Anne never did get a bunny, hadn't even asked her mom, for she did not want to cause any trouble with her mom so sad, hear the inevitable "no" but she still had a special fondness for them.

So as Anne ran toward a small barn-like structure at the back of the Bingleys' yard (or perhaps the back of the neighbor's as there was no fence to demarcate where their property ended and the other began), Anne was very much hoping it might be a rabbit hutch. However as she got closer, Anne saw to her dismay that it was a shelter for chickens with the hens just walking around loose in the back yard. So rather than hide behind the little "barn", Anne cut to the right towards a large oak tree with a substantial trunk.

As soon as Anne was behind the tree and feeling safely out of view, she started looking for her phone, intent on texting Caro so Caro would have her number, and telling the woman who at first had seemed to be a meanie but now might be her friend, "I'm fine." But her phone was not in her pockets or in her whale purse. However, in the search she did come across her winning scratch ticket (and the losers, too, for they were souvenirs) and the little crystal unicorn she had bought on the road in Kentucky.

At first Anne was very dismayed about her missing phone, but then she began to wonder how her mother had found her two states away in Indiana. Could it be that her mother had somehow used GPS to find her phone? Anne had seen a commercial for a service that kept track of where kids were. The ad said it was for parents to keep track of underage kids, but could it be that her mother was using something like that to keep track of her?

Anne was still behind the tree when she heard the sirens approaching. To Anne, who had seen too many police chases on TV and had never met a police officer in real life, irrationally felt that the police were after her.

Anne took off running at an angle away from the sound. But her fear only kept her running until she had gotten to the side of a house catty-corner to the Bingleys' home. Anne paused for a few moments, breathing hard. Given her sedentary lifestyle, she already had a stitch in her side and immediately worried that something was wrong with her.

Perhaps Anne would have lingered against the chipped blue siding longer, but then she heard a second set of sirens which was enough to get her trotting past that house and across the street to shelter to the side of the larger tan house on the corner beyond, before she crossed to the side (back?) of that house, walking around two sides of that house before crossing the perpendicular street beyond it, which brought her between another two houses. As the house to the right (on the corner) had a tall wooden fence, Anne walked near the white house on the left.

This far, Anne had not seen anyone, but on the back side of the white house, having just tucked herself around the corner, she saw a thin young man with long dishwater blond hair and a darker beard. He was intently wrapping a string of large alternating red and white lights around a deck handrail. Despite the cold day, the man was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. He seemed to be wholly concentrating on his task, and it seemed to be taking him a long time even though the end result was quite irregular.

Anne considered turning around, but she did not want to be visible from the street again and she couldn't go through the fenced yard to the right. Instead, she just stood and watched.

The man kept wrapping the lights, connecting another string that he retrieved from a large green bin (this one of purple lights), until he had wrapped all of the handrail to the gap left for the steps. He did not seem to know what to do then, as he still had a few feet of the purple light strand. As he pondered, he started reciting the pledge of allegiance, but the way a younger child might, running words together with more the approximate sounds than sense.

Anne heard him say "for Richard stands" and "underdog, invisible, with liberty and justice for Paul." Once he had finished the pledge, he just pulled the strand straight across the opening and continued wrapping it around the hand rail on the other side. He then grabbed another set of lights from the bin, this one alternating red, green, yellow and blue.

Anne felt herself calming as she watched him work. She was breathing better and the ache from her side was now gone. Perhaps nothing was really wrong with her. As Anne stood, she began to wonder why the man was decorating the back of his house (where no one else would see it), rather than the front, and why he had blocked the stairs with the lights.

This curiosity overcame her fear of talking to a stranger after having invaded his backyard. "Hello," she said.

The man flinched at her word and turned to look at her. He stopped his work and asked "Who you?" then "What you eat today?"

Anne suspected then that the man might be what her mother would have called "simple." She replied, "I'm Anne. I ate a turkey sandwich and drank a glass of milk for lunch."

"It good?"

"Yes, it was very good."

The man gave two nods and then resumed with his wrapping, going even slower now and pausing to look over at her from time to time. Anne wondered what to say or do next. He hadn't asked her to leave, or to come onto the deck.

"What did you eat today, sir? I'm sorry, I don't know your name."

"Soup." The man paused his work again and then made a slurping sound. He did not seem to be able to talk and work at the same time.

For something to say, not because she was really curious, she asked, "Was it good?"

Anne didn't get an answer, for just then she heard the screech of an old sliding glass door opening and heard a woman ask, "Paul are you almost done? The Grinch is coming on in about five minutes."

"No, help, she." Paul replied, pointing in Anne's direction.

The woman stepped out on the deck, pulling the door closed behind her. "Oh Paul, you can't block the stairs. The lights are in the way." She then seemed to notice Anne.

"Hello dear," the middle aged woman greeted Anne. The woman had blue framed glasses and short, dark hair. But Anne barely noticed her face over her bright red Christmas sweater with a large glittering Christmas tree, with little bells stitched on it for decorations. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"Um," Anne felt tongue-tied.

"Don't be shy, dear."

The woman gave Anne a good look, took in her whale purse and clothes, which were an odd combination for a typical adult woman and began to form her own conclusions. "Oh, are you one of Paul's friends from the Center? Are your parents around here? You should not be wandering around like this, you know."

"I . . . no." Anne struggled to think of a lie to explain her presence. "I was just taking a walk and saw your son? working on his lights."

Paul, meanwhile had wrapped the last two feet of his light strand. "Grinch?" He asked his mom hopefully.

"Oh, you are right Paul. We'd better go inside if we want to catch the beginning." She began tugging the sliding glass door open again with another loud squeak. "Would you like to come watch it as us?"

Paul hurried through the open doorway, toward where the music to the song "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" was already playing.

Anne remembered being a small child and being warned about "stranger-danger," not that she had ever had the opportunity to just go off with someone else. But she also recalled that she was an adult, had been an adult for quite a while now. The woman and Paul seemed nice, and despite her heavy fur coat, Anne was a bit cold and the too big athletic shoes had rubbed uncomfortably on her feet. The idea of sitting down, well hidden from any roaming police cars looking for her seemed ideal.

"Okay."

Anne walked around and climbed the deck steps, ducking carefully under the strand of lights. The woman waited for her. After Anne entered the woman followed, closing the sliding glass door again. They crossed past a table into the living room where Paul was already sitting on a blue recliner, his eyes fixed on the large flat screen TV, a bowl of homemade Chex mix in his lap.

Anne stood and watched the opening sequence to the 1966 cartoon.

"Go ahead and sit down anywhere," the woman told Anne. Anne sat on one end of the matching blue couch and the woman sat on the other end, but after that did not speak to Anne again until the first commercial break.

The woman said, "It is so nice to have a visitor. It was just Paul and me for Thanksgiving," she lowered her voice as Paul recited the words along with a commercial, "so I just made a chicken and told him it was a little turkey. I'm Pauline by the way, yes I know, not very creative on naming my son Paul, but my husband insisted for his name was Cary Gary, like Cary Grant, and I'm an only child while he is one of six. Their tradition was that each boy child be named after his oldest living male relative and then get his father's name as a middle name. Cary got the short end of that stick. So when Paul was born, Cary insisted our son be named for my grandfather instead of his (it would have been Enoch Cary). Then we broke with tradition a little more to change 'Cary' to 'Carl,' although Cary kept teasing me that we should just make it 'Car.' It was a big to-do in his family until it became obvious that Paul was going to be developmentally delayed."

"Oh," was all Anne said in reply, before determining to tell Pauline, "I'm Anne."

"You sound Southern, you are not from around here, are you?"

Anne started to tell Pauline all about how she'd ended up in Indiana for the holidays when the Grinch came back on and Paul shushed them. Anne focused on watching the Grinch again, getting absorbed in the familiar tale.

When the next commercial started, Pauline offered her a drink and some popcorn, before encouraging Anne to continue where she had left off. Anne found herself telling Pauline almost everything; it was easy because she was so kind and evidently interested. But they paused each time the show came back on. There were a lot of commercials.

Paul did not pay them any mind as he watched and Anne mostly did not notice him either, except when he rocked vigorously in the recliner as the Grinch went zipping along in his sleigh.

When Anne got to the part about sneaking out the window and losing her phone, Pauline said "Oh dear, they must all be worried about you." Pauline took off her glasses, cleaned the lenses with a thin cloth on the coffee table and then picked up her cell phone. "You should call someone. Do you know your cousins' numbers."

By now the Brady Bunch movie was on, was more than half-way through in fact, and Paul had long ago gotten up and wandered off.

Anne grimaced. "No, I don't. I only have Mom's and Jenny's numbers memorized. But I don't want to call Mom and Jenny would feel that she had to tell Mom and she would not know how to get a hold of my cousins anyway."

"Well, who are you staying with? Do you know the address or at least remember what street it is on?"

"It is Jane and Charles. I think their name starts with a 'B' but I do not know the street at all. I think I could find my way back, maybe, but I don't want to go back while my mom and the cops are there."

Pauline glanced out the windows. "It is getting dark, it seems early for that, and it has started to rain. I think I heard it was going to storm tonight. I don't particularly want you wandering around in the dark during a storm. Do you think if we all went in the car that you could tell me the way? Would you recognize the house from the road?"

Anne considered. "I'm not sure. I cut across some backyards to get here. I remember that it had a long gravel driveway and a yellow front door."

Pauline considered. "What were the owners' names again?"

"Jane and Charles. I think they just moved in a few months ago. You probably would not know them."

"Is it a red brick home? Three bedrooms, two baths, a fireplace with an oak mantle, grey carpet, large eat-in kitchen featuring whitish quartz countertops and homey wallpaper with an apple design? Sliding glass door to an aggregate cement patio."

Anne struggled to remember. "I think it is brick and there is a fireplace, but the kitchen is painted butter yellow. There is a sliding glass door off the kitchen."

"Is Jane a pretty blonde and does the husband have red hair?"

"Yes."

Pauline started scrolling though her phone. "I am pretty sure that is the Patterson home. I was the listing agent. We got a full cash offer from lovely couple who didn't even counteroffer, just agreed to the listing price. It was the easiest closing ever." She located a contact on her phone and started texting.

When Pauline was finished, she told Anne, "Sarah Keller was the buyer's agent. The wife was a 'Jane'; I am pretty sure I remember that right. I can't remember the husband's name, but red hair isn't all that common. I can't remember there last name, it was 'Bang' or 'Bing' something. I just texted to see if she has the couple's contact info still. She probably has it in her office, but it is 50-50 whether she might have access to that info from home or wherever she is for this holiday weekend."

Meanwhile, the rain was beating down harder and the sky had turned pitch black. Paul came back into the living room. "Dinner, dinner, dinner," he sang.

"Oh, that's a good idea. It is nearly six now." She got up and walked to the kitchen. Anne and Paul followed her in there.

Pauline opened up the upper freezer door of the white fridge. "How about cheese pizza, peas, and a salad."

"Okay," Paul replied and sat down at the table.