Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
A rriving to Cedarwood Creek in moving truck and his wife driving behind him in their family car, Ryan felt a mixture of relief and pain swirling inside his heart. He had always wanted to be closer to his family, but he never dreamed it’d come after losing his father.
“You okay, Dad?” Jack asked beside him in the seat of the moving truck.
“Yes, I’m okay.”
Arriving to the driveway of the house, he saw his mother Veronica waving and smiling along with his brother Jason. He honked the moving truck’s horn with excitement, and his son Jack beside him giggled.
“We made it! We’re home.”
“We sure are, bud.”
Shortly after arriving they began unpacking the moving truck. Since his mother already had a house full of goods, they didn’t bring much outside of clothing, personal effects and their nice leather couch.
Handing a small moving box to Jack, and then one to Conner, Ryan watched his two little men carry the boxes into his childhood home. Jason smiled as he walked by them on his way back out the front door. Walking up the ramp into the moving truck, he shook his head as his gaze met his brother’s.
“You must be one proud dad.” He shook his head. “I’m just happy when my little Chloe can make it to the potty.”
Chloe was his brother’s three-year-old.
“You’ll get there, Brother. Plus, you weren’t at the hotel last night when those two yahoos were fighting over which cartoon to watch. You’d think it was life or death.”
Jason laughed as he positioned himself on one end of the couch they needed to haul inside. Lifting the couch in unison, they moved it inside and placed it in the living room. As they were walking back outside, Ryan spotted Bill Henderson, the head deacon of First Baptist, peering in through the windows of the house.
Unsettled by his sudden appearance, Ryan called out to him. “To what do I owe this pleasure, Bill?”
Startled, Bill took a step back from the living room windows. “Sorry. Just wanted to see the progress. I heard you were moving to town. I figured I’d stop by and see how it was going.”
Bill made his way over to them on the sidewalk by the ramp leading into the moving truck. He shook Ryan’s hand aggressively.
“We’re good, Bill . . .”
“Good, good. How’s the grill doing?”
Ryan nodded slowly. “Fine.”
“Am I bothering you by being here, Ryan? Your father served with me as a deacon. I just want to make sure everything is good.”
“It’s no bother. We’re just a little busy. That’s all.”
“Right, right.” Bill shoved his hands in his pockets as he looked down and nodded. Lifting his gaze once more to Ryan, he smiled. “If you need any help with anything, like with the finances or anything like that, just let me know. I own some apartments in town, and I don’t know if you knew this or not but I’ve been a businessman most of my life.”
His eagerness was concerning. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for stopping by, Bill.”
As Bill walked back to the road where he had parked his truck, Jason came closer to Ryan.
“Something seems off about him.”
Ryan looked at Jason. “You got that vibe too?”
“Yep.”
“Has your hacker buddy found anything yet on that last transfer?”
“I’ll touch base with him tonight.” Folding his arms, Jason watched with Ryan as Bill pulled away from the curb in his truck. “I’m suddenly very curious about it.”
“Same. Bill was pressing me about the grill right after the funeral. I sense he knows something we don’t.”
“Me too.”
Hanging a painting of a lush green forest above the fireplace mantel in the living room, Emily took a step back.
“Are you sure about putting that there ?” Veronica questioned from a distance behind her.
“You don’t like it?” Emily turned toward her mother-in-law for a moment, then looked again at the painting. “I thought it looked nice.”
“Well . . .” Veronica came over and set her glass praying hands sculpture back onto the mantel. “It looks weird with the prayer hands on the mantel and the painting behind it.”
“That’s why I moved them. I figured we could put that over on the shelf near the television.”
“Whatever.” Shooing a hand through the air, Veronica started for the exit. “I’ll just go sit in my room and stay out of the way.”
“ Roni . . .” Emily followed her, stopping her in the hallway. “Are you okay? I can move the painting.”
“I don’t know.” Touching her forehead, she sighed. “I don’t even want to be in this house. Everything is changing so fast.”
An uneasiness rose within Emily. “I thought you were on board.”
“I was . . . or I am. I don’t know. I just hate being in this house of memories.”
Ryan came into the hallway and sensed the tension. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Veronica turned and went to her room, shutting the door behind her.
In a quiet voice, Emily explained what had happened.
Ryan was silent.
“Don’t be mad, Ryan . . .”
“We completely unearthed our lives in California to move here, and now she’s uncomfortable?” Ryan rubbed his forehead.
“It’s a lot of change for her. For all of us right now.”
A bang came from inside his mother’s room. It sounded like she threw something and broke it. Hurrying to the bedroom door, he knocked.
“Mom!”
“Ryan! Stop!” Emily pulled on his arm, trying to stop him, but he ignored her.
Veronica swung open the door. “What?”
“You need to knock it off and change your attitude. We gave up everything to move up here.”
“Oh, whatever, Ryan! You moved here because you wanted to take over your father’s business! And for a fresh start for Elizabeth. Don’t act like you came here for me!”
“That’s not true Mother. We came here for you too.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m the problem here.” Leaving the door open, she walked over and started to pack a suitcase on the bed.
Trying to plead with Ryan, Emily tried to grab his arm again. “Ryan, leave her alone. Give her some space.”
“Stop it, Emily. I’m fine.” He went into his mother’s room. “What are you doing, Mom? Are you really leaving?”
“Yes, for a while. I need to get out of this house. Don’t be upset with me.”
Emily took a few steps back.
“Mommy? Why is Grandma packing a suitcase?” Jack’s face lit with concern beside her. Guiding him away from the bedroom, she led him out into the living room and away from the confusion.
“Mom? What’s going on?” Elizabeth came in from the back porch with her skateboard in hand.
“Your dad is just having a conversation with Grandma.” Looking around for her other son, she raised her eyebrows. “Where is Conner?”
“Outside in the front, with the chalk.”
“Let’s all go to him.” Guiding her children out the back and through the side gate, they came to the front driveway where Conner was drawing with the blue chalk. “What are you making, Conner?”
Standing up, he held out his arms. “It’s Jesus with Grandpa in Heaven.”
Swallowing the pain in her throat from the surprise drawing, she nodded. “That’s nice, honey.”
“Have you heard from your job interview yet?” Elizabeth inquired. Emily had a phone interview with the principal of the local Christian school the week prior.
“Not yet. We’ll have to give it a few days.”
After Veronica got in her car and left, Ryan went to go clean the pool while Emily and Elizabeth went to hang up shelving in Elizabeth’s bedroom. As they worked to hang each of the shelves up, Elizabeth began to cry.
Setting the hammer down on the desk, she turned to Elizabeth and touched her arm. “What’s wrong, dear?”
“Dad. He’s so upset. I thought moving here might . . . you know. Get him in a better mood, but it’s not.”
Pulling her in close, she let her daughter’s face rest on her chest. “I know. We just need to pray for him.”
“I just want everything to go back to the way it was. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Listen to me.” Pulling back, she looked directly into her daughter’s eyes. “It’s not your job to fix it. We need to pray and trust God and His plan for our lives.”
Two days went by without hearing a word from his mother. It was Sunday morning, and that meant one thing to Ryan—time for church. Looking in the mirror on the wall in his bedroom, he adjusted his tie but couldn’t get it to look perfect. Undoing it, he pulled it from his collar and threw it on the bed. Emily noticed and came over to him, placing a hand on his back.
“Don’t ask the question, Emily . . .”
Her eyes connected with his in the mirror as he straightened his collar. “I’m worried about you, Ryan. You haven’t even gone to the grill once. Isn’t that the reason we are here?”
“We were getting settled. I planned for us to have lunch there after church today.”
“Heard from your mother?”
Silence invaded the next few moments as he picked the tie up from the bed and took it over to their closet. As he opened the closet door, he hung the tie on the door. “I haven’t heard anything.”
“And has Jason?”
He shut the door. “No, but she was telling Jason a few days before we got here about her sister Carol in Buffalo wanting her to visit.”
“I see.”
Turning toward her, he lifted his eyebrows. “Ready to go?”
“Yes, but first I want to ask something.”
“Go for it.”
“How are you doing?”
His lips tightened to form a thin line. “Honestly? I feel uneasy and unsure. I had peace about moving up here and now that we’re here . . . I just don’t know. I feel like I’m waiting for God to do something. I just want the waves of pain to stop.”
“You can’t expect the pain to just go away . . .”
“I know.” He hung his head, then let out a sigh as his voice became softer. “I know it won’t be easy, but I just have this sense, like there’s a purpose to this all and I’m just waiting for God to show me.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged and held out his hands. “That’s just it. I don’t know.”
Coming closer, she hugged him. “I love you, Ryan. Don’t give up. Just keep waiting on Him to show you.”
“I know and I will.”
Walking into the sanctuary, they took their seats a few rows back from the front on the left side. The exact location Ryan sat with his family growing up. Pastor Chris promptly came over and leaned a knee on the pew in front of them as he shook everybody’s hand.
“So glad you made it. To church, yes, but also to town. How’d the trip up go?”
“Good.”
“And the move? Getting settled in?”
“Yes.”
Feeling Emily’s elbow in his side, he knew what it meant. Talk more than one-word responses.
“We’re glad to finally be in town. Bill came by the other day to greet us.”
He tilted his head, glancing toward Bill across the room. The pastor’s gaze rested back on Ryan. “That’s nice of him. Your father was a great man, Ryan, and this town has a large hole without him. If you need anything at all, just let me know.”
“Will do, Pastor. Thank you.”
The pastor’s sermon that morning was on leaving a spiritual legacy, and Ryan’s father, Frank, was referenced several times. The gesture was kind, but it made getting through the sermon a bit of a challenge, not only for Ryan, but Emily as well. As the pastor rounded out the forty-third minute of his sermon, he came to the final passage of Scripture.
As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
Psalm 42:1
After the pastor read aloud the Words of God, he paused. He made direct eye contact with Ryan for a moment, then broke away. “Part of our spiritual legacy that we bestow upon our children is modeling what it is to be a Christian, especially in hard times. How we respond to God and His Word is fine and dandy when things are good, but what our children need to see most is how we respond to God and His Word when times are tough. After the sudden loss of a loved one, after financial ruin, or whatever the case may be. This is what our kids need to see. When life throws a bag of bricks at your face, what do you do?”
The weight of the pastor’s words lingered long with Ryan. In the car on the way to the grill, and all through the meal with his family, he couldn’t shake the truth of them. Conviction weighed on his heart, knowing just how terrible of a father and husband he had been for the last month. He hadn’t grieved well at all.
Emily tapped his shoulder as he sat beside her taking a drink of his ice water.
“Yeah?”
Motioning with her head toward the front of the restaurant, he noticed Steven, his manager, with one of the servers. His hands were moving up and down and then he touched his forehead.
“I’ll be right back.” Wiping his mouth with his napkin, Ryan set it down on the table and went over to Steven.
“How can I help?” Ryan opened his hands outward.
“Don’t worry about it.” Steven left the server and him at the counter and vanished into the kitchen.
“What’s going on?” he inquired of the server.
“He needs me to stay an extra few hours until Melissa gets here, and I can’t. I have to go pick my son up and get home.”
He shooed a hand through the air. “Don’t worry about it. We have things handled. Go be with your son.”
Going into the kitchen, he found Steven in the manager’s office looking at a schedule on the desk as he rubbed his temples.
“You had no right to interrupt me, Ryan!” Steven’s voice was laced with anger as he turned to face him.
“I sent her home. I can fill in.”
“You?” Steven laughed and stood up. “You haven’t served in years. You think you can just walk in and do it?”
“I can help. I know that much. Are you okay, Steven?” Tilting his head, he saw something more in his eyes. “You don’t get this flustered, from what I understand.”
“It’s hard to keep help around here, and I just . . .” Rubbing his forehead as he lowered his gaze, he shook his head. “I know he was just my boss, but dang. I miss Frank, man!”
Ryan nodded. “Just because he wasn’t your dad doesn’t mean you aren’t upset. It’s okay.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Now, tell me what I can do to help.”
Ryan sent his family home and worked through the afternoon and evening. As the restaurant foot traffic slowed that evening, Jason came in and took a seat in one of the booths near a window.
Coming over to him, Ryan lifted his eyebrows as his gaze met his brother.
“Late night bite?”
“No.” He slid a piece of paper across the table. “I’ve had this since yesterday. Debated on giving it to you.”
“What?” Glancing down he saw the name Linda and an address in Spokane scribbled under it. “Is that for the account?”
“Yes.” He tried to grab for it, almost like he regretted sharing it, but Ryan snatched it.
“Why were you hesitant?”
He shrugged a shoulder, his gaze panning the restaurant. “I just don’t know about this, man. What if it’s something more? Like with this Linda gal?”
Ryan’s mind immediately went to the text message he had seen after the funeral, and his heart dipped into his stomach. He wondered if there was a connection, but he wasn’t about to share it with his vulnerable younger brother.
“You don’t want the truth?”
He shrugged. “Do you? I mean . . . Dad’s gone. What’s the point?”
Looking down at the slip of paper, Ryan shrugged. “True.”
“And when I searched online, her name did come up for the Rescue Mission of Spokane. Maybe Dad supported the rescue mission?”
“There you go. Just relax, Brother.”
Jason looked at Ryan as he held the paper in his hand. “You going to go check the address?”
“That’s a two-hour drive one way. I already have enough going on with the grill, the website business, and trying to keep my family together. I don’t know . . .”
“Speaking of family. I heard from Mom. She’s in Buffalo with her sister.”
“I’m glad she’s okay.” Crinkling the piece of paper up, he shoved it in his pocket as his brother stood from the booth.
“I need to get home and start a movie with the wife. Have a good night, Brother.”
“Have a good night.”
As his brother left the grill, Ryan dug the paper out from his pocket and unfolded it.