Free Impact by James Dekker

Chapter One
    â€œWhen I was sixteen,” my father says, his voice trembling, “my younger brother died. He was eleven years old. It was an accident. He ran out into the road—he was chasing a ball. He got hit by a car. My parents were devastated. And I remember my mother saying to me that the worst pain in the world is the pain of a parent who has just lost a child.”
    My father is a big man. I don’t mean he’s fat. He isn’t. I mean he’s taller than most people, except maybe professional basketballplayers. He’s strong. He’s tough. At least, that’s what I always thought. But there he is, his head down, looking at the papers in his hand. The papers are filled with words he has written. His voice almost breaks as he reads what is on those papers. He is big, but he looks small and tired and beaten down.
    â€œNow I know what my mother meant,” he says. “I have been living with this knowledge for two years.”
    Two years ago, when I was sixteen, my father lost a child. Two years ago, my brother Mark died. He was seventeen—exactly one year, one month and one day older than me.
    It happened the first week in October. Mark had a part-time job at a fast-food restaurant. He worked every weekend, but he also had to work until midnight once during the week, every week, even though his manager knew he had school the next day. It happened on one of those nights.
    Mark called home before he left the restaurant. I was in my room. I was supposedto be asleep, but I was watching a movie on my computer. I heard the phone. I knew it was Mark. He hated making those calls, but my mother insisted. He called and said he was just leaving, that he was making one stop on the way to pick up a sandwich, and that he would be home in forty-five minutes at the latest. I heard my mother say he didn’t have to buy a sandwich. She would make one for him. For some reason, my mother thought it was a waste of money to buy stuff like sandwiches and burgers, things she could make at home.
    An hour later, when my movie was over, I heard my mother go downstairs. I knew right away why. Mark wasn’t home yet. I went down too. I said, “You worry too much, Mom.”
    She told me to go back to bed. “It’s a school day tomorrow,” she said. Then she went to the front door, looked out through the little window in it and said, “He should have been home by now.”
    â€œMaybe he missed the bus,” I said. “Maybe he had to wait for the next one.”
    The buses don’t run as often late at night as they do during the day.
    â€œIf he had to wait for the next bus, then he should be home in fifteen minutes,” my mother said. “Go to bed, Jordan.”
    I went upstairs, but I didn’t fall asleep. I lay in bed and waited to hear the front door open.
    Fifteen minutes passed.
    Twenty minutes.
    Half an hour.
    I heard my mother come up the stairs and go into her room, which is next to mine. I heard her say to my father, “I’m worried. Mark is late. He’s not answering his phone.”
    I heard my father say, “I’m sure he’s fine. Maybe he missed his bus.”
    â€œHe should have been home forty-five minutes ago,” my mother said. “He hasn’t called, and I can’t get hold of him.”
    A few minutes later I heard my parents go downstairs. I got out of bed and followed them. My father was dressed. He had his car keys in his hand. He looked worried, but whenI asked him if everything was okay, he said, “I’m sure it is. But you know your mother. I’m going to go and see if I can find Mark.”
    My mother stood at the door and looked out the window the whole time he was gone.
    The next part I know only because I heard it told so many times.
    My father got in the car and drove along the bus route to the fast-food place where Mark worked. He drove almost all the way to the restaurant.
    Three blocks from