Free The Heaven Trilogy by Ted Dekker Page B

soon, Dad. You okay?”
    The question nearly had him blubbering. He did not want the boy to go. His heart swelled for his son, and he swallowed. “Sure, Spencer. I love you, son.”
    Spencer ran around the couch and hugged his neck. “It’s okay, Dad. I’ll be back soon. I promise.”
    “I know.” He patted the boy’s back. “Have fun.”
    A soft clunk signaled their departure through the front door. As if on cue, Celine ceased her crooning on the CD player.
    Now it was just his breathing and the fan. He lifted the glass of ice tea, thankful for the tinkle of its ice.
    He would sell the house now. Buy a new one, not so large. Scrap the tennis court. Put in a gym for Spencer instead.
    The tall picture of Jesus holding a denim-clad man with blood on his hands stood to Kent’s right. Forgiven , the artist had called it. They said that Jesus died for man. How could anyone follow a faith so obsessed with death? That was God, they said. Jesus was God, and he’d come to Earth to die. Then he’d asked his followers to climb on their crosses as well. So they’d made as their emblem a familiar symbol of execution, the cross, and in the beginning most of them died.
    Today Jesus might have been put to death by lethal injection. An image of a needle reared in Kent’s mind, and he cringed, thinking of all the needles Gloria must have endured. Come die for me, Gloria. It was insane.
    And to think that Gloria had been so enraptured with Christianity, as if she actually expected to meet Christ someday. To climb up on that cross and float to the heavens with him. Well, now she had her chance, he supposed. Only she hadn’t floated anywhere. She’d been lowered a good eight feet into red clay.
    An empty hopelessness settled on Kent, and he sat there and let it hurt.
    He would have to go back to work, of course. The office had sent him a bouquet of flowers, but they had made no other contact. He thought about the Miami meeting and the announcement of his program. Funny how something so important now seemed so distant. His pulse picked up at the thought. Why had they not called to tell him about the meeting?
    Respect, he quickly decided. You don’t just call a man who has lost his wife and segue into office talk. At least he had a bright career ahead of him. Although, without Gloria it hardly seemed bright. That would change with time.
    Kent let the thoughts circle in his mind as they had endlessly for days now. Nothing seemed to fit. Everything felt loose. He could not latch on to anything offering that spark of hope that had propelled him so forcefully for years.
    He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. For the moment his eyes were dry. Stinging dry.
    SPENCER SAT in his favorite green chair across from Grandma Helen with his legs crossed Indian style. He’d pulled on his white X-Games skateboard T-shirt and his beige cargo pants that morning because he loved skateboarding and he thought Mom would want him to keep doing the things he loved most. Although he hadn’t actually hopped on the board yet. It had been a long time since he’d gone more than a week without taking to the street on a board.
    Then again, things had changed a week ago, hadn’t they? Changed forever. His dad had lost his way, it seemed. The house had become big and quiet. Their schedule had changed, or gone away, mostly. His heart hurt most of the time now.
    Spencer ran his fingers through blond curls and rested his chin on his palms. This hadn’t changed though. The room smelled of fresh-baked bread. The faint scent of roses drifted by—Grandma’s perfume. The brown carpet lay beneath them exactly as it had two weeks ago; the overstuffed chairs had not been moved; sparkling china with little blue flowers still lined an antique-looking cabinet on the wall. A hundred knickknacks, mostly white porcelain painted with accents of blue and red and yellow, sat in groupings around the room and on the walls.
    The large case Grandma called a hutch hugged the wall