Free Beyond the Quiet Hills by Aaron McCarver

consider your father’s invitation,” he said as mildly as he could.
    â€œDo you want me to leave?” Jacob demanded. He knew this was not so, and even as he saw the hurt leap into his grandmother’s eyes, he hated himself for speaking like this. Somehow he seemed to have lost control of himself. His father’s presence had disturbed the equilibrium of his life, and he sat at the table, his head up, with his backbone stiffened so that he was rigid and unbending.
    â€œYou know better than that, Jacob,” Esther said quietly. “You know we would miss you terribly.”
    â€œI know that, Grandma,” Jacob said, forcing himself to meet her eyes. “I didn’t mean to speak that way. Forgive me, please.”
    â€œOf course, but at least think about it. You need your father.”
    â€œI don’t need anyone except you.”
    â€œThat’s not true,” James interjected. “Your grandmother and I are getting older, and you’re a young man with a lot of life ahead of you.”
    â€œYou’re not old!”
    James suddenly realized that there was fear in Jacob’s voice. We’re all he has, really , he thought. He’s afraid of losing us, and then he wouldn’t have anybody .
    â€œI think I made a mistake,” James said finally. “We haven’t talked of your father enough all through these years that he’s been gone.” He looked down at the table, picked up the silver spoon in front of him, and held it lightly, staring at it as if it had some meaning. Then he looked up and said, “It was too painful for all of us, but I see now it was my fault.”
    â€œI think you’re right, James,” Esther said quietly. She was leaning back in her chair, and a sadness filled her eyes as she added, “I wish you could know how much your father loved your mother, Jacob. I’ve never seen a man so caught up with a woman. Why, he worshiped the ground she walked on! And when she died, her death literally destroyed him.”
    â€œThat’s right,” James nodded grimly. “It was almost as if he took a bullet in the brain. He couldn’t think straight, and he was like a crazy man.”
    From outside the window a mockingbird began singing, and the sound of it was cheerful inside the dining room. Jacob listened to it but was preoccupied with what his grandparents were saying. “I can’t love him,” he said. “I just can’t forget how he walked away and left me.”
    The only sound in the room was the ticking of the small clock on the mantel, and the mockingbird throwing his song out on the morning air. The sunlight streamed in through the window, touching the table silver, transforming it from a dullness to a bright, glowing, warm color. “You can’t live with bitterness,” Esther said. “It will destroy you as it almost destroyed your father. If you don’t deal with it, you will become the very thing you say you hate.”
    â€œThe Scriptures are clear on that, and I think it’s the most difficult thing in the Bible,” James added. “Forgiving those who have wronged us probably isn’t in our makeup. It’s just not human. I think that’s why the Bible says it is Christ in us who enables us to do things like that. Jesus on the cross looked down and said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’”
    â€œThat’s right,” Esther said quickly. “You must remember that, Jacob. Your father didn’t know what he was doing at the time. He was distraught, half crazy with grief, and behaved very foolishly. But if you continue hating him, you’ll be just as foolish as he was.”
    Jacob sat silently listening as his grandparents spoke. He knew very well that they had his good at heart and that they loved him without reservation. He also knew he was wrong for hating his father, but the cauldron of roiling anger was