Chapter 12 #3
Jericho wanted to raise his hand. Me. Me. But he’d offer his dog in his stead. Orlando seemed on board, with a wag of his tail.
“See you Avengers in the morning,” she said as she turned to leave.
“Hey.” He reached for her hand. “You okay?”
She stopped. Nodded. A small smile. “Yeah.”
“So . . . I think I’m headed to church in the morning. You wanna come?”
She quirked an eyebrow, caught her lower lip. “We’ll see.”
Then she leaned down and kissed his cheek before walking away.
“Old times,” Malachi said.
Sully and Hudson were grinning too.
“Stop.”
“Not even a little,” Hudson said. “But if you’re going to stick around—and I’m hoping you do, because I could use some help with the boiler, which is still not working—you might consider going through those boxes in your closet.
Otherwise, you’re going to have to live with your clothes on the floor. ”
“You sound just like Mom.” He’d gotten up, cleared his plate.
“You would think all those years in the military and in SAR would have turned you into a neat freak,” Hudson said, also getting up to throw his plate away.
“What are you talking about? I’m organized. There’s a folded pile for everything. Just because it’s on the floor . . . and why do you care?”
“I care because I got a call from the housekeeper today who said she couldn’t vacuum your room.”
“I can vacuum my own freakin’ room!”
“This is fun,” Malachi said. “I’ll make popcorn.”
Sully held up his fist and Malachi bumped it.
Silence, and then Hudson laughed. “Yeah, we missed you, bro.” He clamped Jericho on the shoulder as he walked past him. “Clean your room.”
“Seriously.” But he laughed too. Then, “And why do you think I can help with the boiler?”
“Because hello, you were Dad’s boiler buddy.” Hudson headed down to his office.
“Truth, that,” Sully said. “He’d come home, the pilot light would be out, and he’d drag you downstairs to fix it. And not just at the house either.”
He hadn’t thought about that for ages. “Mostly I handed him tools.”
Sully finished off the final rib. “He made me help him with the cars, so at least you were warm. I climbed under cars in the snow to turn wrenches at his command.”
“I worked in the warehouse with him, opening boxes,” Malachi said. “And inventory. Oh, I hated inventory.”
He glanced down the hall, toward Hudson’s office. “He dragged Hud to the resort to work the front desk. Even when he was fourteen.”
“I have no doubt he wanted us all to take over the resort someday.” Sully got up and grabbed his plate. “Just took us a while to get there.”
He threw out the plate and can, then headed for the door. “See you in the morning.”
Jericho bid Malachi good night and followed Sully through the great room. Sully took the stairs up, and Jericho went down to his bedroom. Not a small room—queen-size bed, dresser, desk, and an en-suite bathroom with a shower.
Hudson had even hung Jericho’s high school hockey jersey on the wall, like that meant something. Maybe it did—he had gone to state championships with the Copper Mountain team.
Light bathed the small side table, a picture of his family he’d kept in his old bedroom. A fishing trip up north. Jericho held a stringer of salmon spanned between his brothers.
Okay, so maybe he had made a mess of his room. Many piles, indeed, although to be fair, they were short piles, all of folded clothes. Still, he could nearly hear his drill sergeant in his head. Or maybe his mother.
He scooped up the piles and found places for the clothing in the dresser. Then he turned to the closet.
He had way too much stuff. File boxes, stacked four high, filled the entire closet.
How had he left this mess with his brothers? He simply hadn’t been thinking, clearly.
Then again, failure had filled his brain, nearly deafening. Felt quieter now, although it still whispered.
He pulled one off the top and set it on his bed. Photos, all frames taken from his old bedroom. The first photo hit him like a punch.
All four of them clustered around their father on the trail around Horseshoe Lake. He must have been fourteen, Malachi about nine. A two-mile hike around the lake—it’d felt like they’d run most of the way.
And in their faces, so much of their futures.
Sully, grim, wearing a bandanna over his long hair, holding a walking stick, and Hudson, hands on his hips, grinning.
Mal had his hands in the air as he balanced on a log, and, of course Jericho, arms folded, serious—oh, he always took himself way too seriously—next to their father.
He never realized how much they looked alike, he and his father.
A cracked photo album lay under the frame, and he picked it up, set it on the bed. A lifetime of memories caught under yellowing and crinkled sticky paper.
He turned back to the box. A journal lay nestled amid a few worn paperbacks and he pulled it out.
Wasn’t his.
He opened it and time swept over him. His father’s scrawl filled the pages.
His prayer journal. What—how?
Except maybe . . . and Jericho could imagine that his father would have gone to Jericho’s room, perhaps, to pray. Maybe even to pray for him.
Maybe he’d left the journal there and Hudson packed it up with Jericho’s things, not knowing. Now, Jericho couldn’t stop himself from paging through it.
His gaze fell on one of the passages.
Lord, I couldn’t sleep tonight. The wind’s howling through these mountains like it does when change is coming, and my thoughts are with my boys. Each one of them, Lord. You made them so uniquely, and tonight I’m thanking you for that, even while my heart is heavy with a father’s endless worry.
Jericho, away in Afghanistan. My firstborn, the family protector.
I remember watching him graduate from boot camp.
Such honor in that man. That need to run toward danger, to bring others to safety.
Keep him safe, Lord, while he guards others.
I know he longs for his own life . . . help him not lose himself.
And Sully, somewhere out in the bush, following his own track. This boy you gave me, with horizons in his eyes, guide his restless spirit, Lord. He thinks I don’t understand his wandering, but I see how he longs to test himself. Teach him to lean on you.
Hudson came to me today, worried about resort finances. My steady son, carrying the weight of our legacy on his shoulders. Give him peace, Lord. Help him not to bite off too much. To see your timing. Your provision.
And Malachi, my youngest, was up late again, poring over business plans. He sees possibilities in everything, Lord. Watch over his dreams. Help him build his visions without losing sight of the purpose.
They’re all so different, Father. Sometimes I lie awake wondering if I’ve done right by them, letting them follow such different paths.
But tonight, in the quiet of your presence, I see it.
They are searching. But you promise that when we seek you, we’ll find you.
That you are their refuge and their strength and you go with them.
They’re your sons even more than they’re mine. I trust you with their paths, even when those paths take them from me.
Give me wisdom to guide them, faith to release them, and time enough to see the men you’re shaping them to be.
Protect them, Lord, in their quests. Not just their bodies but their spirits.
Help them to trust you in all things, with their lives, their hearts, their futures.
And in your time, bring them home.
Jericho’s hand smoothed over the words and his chest knotted. He looked at the date.
Two months before the argument.
He closed his eyes.
Faith. He’d lost that, somewhere between Afghanistan and Montana.
Or maybe it was just waiting to be found again. “When we seek you, we’ll find you.”
Maybe, he’d just been afraid to seek and find something that might mess up the plans he had for his life.
Lead him somewhere where he’d get in over his head.
He closed the journal, returned the photo album to the box, and stored it back in the closet.
The journal he put by his bed, the framed picture on top.
And one word clung to him as he lay down and stared at the ceiling.
Find.