Not In Our Town by Lisa Finch

Bill and his children attend a small-town Christmas parade, but something goes wrong.

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Bill shuffles downtown with his two kids. Mark, 13, leads the way. Sophie, 11, hangs back with her dad.

They're bound for their favourite spot in front of the Bridge Port Post Office. They've got about 15 minutes before the Christmas parade starts.

The air nips mercilessly at their faces. The night is filled with the conversation and

laughter. Kids run back and forth across the cordoned street while they can.

As always, someone stops to give their condolences, even though Bill's wife Jess has been gone nearly six months.

"Why do people do that?" Mark grumbles. "I wish they'd leave us alone."

Bill sighs. "Like I said before, people don't know what to do and they feel bad saying nothing, so..." He shrugs. "They feel the need to say something. There is no right way."

"Yeah, there is." Mark juts out his chin. "Everything that could be said already was, at Mom's funeral. Now can't they just..." He waves his hands. "Get lost."

His anger burns as bright as the day Jess died. No amount of counselling, no gestures of kindness - and certainly not the mountains of food that have been delivered - helps. If anything, it seems to make things worse.

Bill listens for the sound of distant drum and bagpipe. That always made Jess clap her hands.

"Dad." Sophie says. "I have to go to the bathroom."

He knows it is futile to tell her she said she didn't have to go when they left home. Also pointless to remind her the entire Santa Claus Parade lasts about 25 minutes and ask, couldn't she hold it?

"Okay," Bill says. "Let's go."

"Dad." She folds her arms. She is a cloud of pink ski jacket, hat and mitts. Her wind-beaten cheeks are the same shade. "I think I'm old enough to go to the bathroom on my own."

"I can go with her," says Mark.

"It's right there!" She points to the coffee shop. Throngs of people file in and out.

"Okay then hurry and come right back here!"

She waves a fluffy mitten at them and then is gone, all coltish legs and flying blonde hair.

Mark shakes his head. "You know she'll stop and talk to one of her eight gazillion friends right?"

Bill waits five minutes, rubbing his gloved hands together to keep them warm. "You know what we need? Hot chocolate." He turns to his son. "Stay right here okay?"

He heads to the coffee shop, cursing himself for remembering too late that the restaurant has two entrances, front and back. They have missed Sophie this way before.

The bell rings above the door. It's bright and warm and welcoming inside. A sound

system plays "Oh Holy Night".

Oh God I've woken up in a Hallmark movie.

People chat with him in line. He feels his antenna up, waiting, watching for Sophie. Moments pass. He gets closer to the front. She still hasn't emerged.

Finally he catches the eye of his neighbour, an older lady who isn't in line.

"Would you do me a favour? Would you check on Sophie?" He lifts his chin towards the bathroom. "She's been in there a while."

"Sure."

Seems to Bill that Sophie is in the bathroom a lot lately. Nerves? A bladder issue? He cringes at a new thought. She's too young to get her period, right?

Finally he orders, pulls out his wallet and spots his driver's license. A twinge of a memory tugs at him when he sees his signature. Jess always said it looked like a capital B followed by a heart monitor line.

The neighbour lady comes out and smiles thinly. "Sophie's not in there."

Bill flies out the back way and scans the crowd. He spots a pink jacket and runs to it, knowing even from this distance that it isn't her.

"Sophie!" He calls. People turn to stare. "Have any of you seen Sophie?"

They shake their heads. The lamp light cascades down on their plumes of white breath, their eyes shining with interest. He will keep this picture forever. It will wake him up in the night.

He's still in a movie, but now that movie is Taken. Where is Liam Neeson when you need him?

He runs down the block. Nothing.

He heads back to the parade route. Surely he will find Mark and Sophie standing across from the post office, where their little family has watched this Christmas parade every year.

They will stare at their father like he's nuts. They will ask where is the hot chocolate.

He'll admit he doesn't know.

But that won't matter. He will slow his breathing, then will laugh shakily. They'll watch the parade and joke about how it consists of three cars and a fire truck, like every year.

After running the sidewalks and scanning the store fronts, Bill finds Mark where he left him. Mark's face is all questions that Bill can't answer.

Bill will remember this, too.

But no, there's some other reasonable explanation. She can't just be gone. Things like this don't happen in Bridge Port. He will not think about news reports about abducted children.

No way. Not in our town.

Sophie got distracted like she always does, Bill thinks. Sophie ran into a friend. Like Mark said, she has a bunch of them.

She was just here!

"Stay put," Bill says to Mark and for once Mark doesn't argue.

Everything will be alright. Over and over he tells himself this.

The drum and bagpipe music fill the air. It's started.

The horses follow with their clop clop clop.

People make way for their friend and neighbour, who continues to scour the crowds for his eleven-year-old daughter.

From the end of the block, Bill's lungs burn frozen fire as he spots Mark.

And then he sees something else. It emerges into the streetlight, a pink mirage.

Sophie. Oh God, Sophie.

She stops dead when she sees her father's face.

He grabs her in a bear hug. "You scared the hell out of us! We had everybody looking for you! Where were you?"

"I'm sorry. I was -" She points down the street. "Then we saw Allanah over there." She thrusts a gloved hand in the other direction. "I didn't think I was gone that long."

He hugs her harder and lets out a sound that is part growl, part cry.

"It's okay," he says. "I've got you."

Mark shakes his head, then says to his dad, "Told ya."

They leave the deserted street and cut through the park. It's just started to snow again.

"Hey, what about that hot chocolate?" Sophie asks. "Can we make some when we get home?"

"Wow, Sophie," says Mark.

Bill lets out a shaky laugh.

This is the part, he hopes, that he will remember.