Free Promise of Tomorrow by S. Dionne Moore

the hot work. As the men bent and shoveled, Jack’s muscles echoed the tension and misery so familiar to the job. He strained when they strained, and their shouts quickened his pulse.
    He pushed through the doors and out into the light and cool air. In a corner of the yards that surrounded Cambria, with clear view of Cambria’s own railroad depot, Jack rolled up his long sleeves and settled into deep thought about the entire process of converting iron ore into steel. He ran his hand over the miniature egg-shaped Bessemer converter he had shaped from scrap metal and studied his new theory, paying particular attention to the tuyeres through which air was blown to remove impurities from the molten iron. If blasting too much air removed too much carbon, then the resulting product was negatively affected. His new theory worked to solve this problem. With a surge of excitement, he bent his head over his plans.
    The work was an elixir. He fell into the rhythm of trial and error, always reviewing the process and tweaking the amount of air blown into the molten iron. Only when he took a break did he allow himself to once again scrape up the discomfort over Alaina’s question about his parents—her demand to share what troubled him about his past.
    His father.
    Jack stared at his hands and realized, ironically, that as much as he detested what his father became as he got older, he had, to a great degree, followed in his father’s footsteps. Even as a five-year-old, he recalled being intrigued by his father’s passion for creating solutions to problems around their small farm.
    But as Jack had gotten older, things had gone wrong. His father kept inventing new and better ways of doing things, but drinking became his new obsession. It took Jack several years to realize that his father’s regular drinking companion seldom drank at all. Instead, the man listened to Jack’s father’s ideas and cashed in on them. Only when the same man stopped giving Jack’s father generous stipends did the situation at home become critical and the nightly rages against him and his mother worsened. In the end, he lost both his father and mother within six months of each other.
    His mother’s agony, the poverty his father had plunged them into by his poor choices, stirred Jack’s agony anew as a veil of tears blinded him to the papers in front of him. The pair of pliers he had been using fell from his hand and clinked against a piece of scrap metal. He clenched his fists and swiped at the wetness on his cheeks, struggling against the familiar and bitter hatred his father’s memory always stirred.
    Pastor’s sermon pounded in his head. A bitter Christ would have been useless in God’s plan, yet He could have chosen that route. But Jack realized that Christ’s decision to hate Judas would have destroyed His life, and the lives of everyone with life and breath.
    For him to choose to cling to his bitterness would destroy him just as certainly. He knew it as sure as he knew he was close to a major discovery in his plans.
    But how to forgive? He didn’t know.
    The sound of the whistle signaling the end of the shift and the beginning of another helped shake Jack back to the project at hand. His hand trembled as he pulled another sheet of paper from the pocket of his trousers and spread it out next to the others. He forced himself to focus on comparing his old notes with his new. After reviewing everything, he decided to tinker with the idea of heating the molten iron longer, lowering the impurities. Then. . .
    His blood pumped hard through his veins as a chill shock snapped through him. If he could lower the impurities by heating longer and reintroduce. . .
    Jack swallowed hard and made furious notes as the idea unfolded in his mind. Throughout his shift he reviewed the process over and over. By the time he arrived home that night, his excitement had faded into a bone-weary tiredness that made his