Free The Heaven Trilogy by Ted Dekker Page A

had run out of air, and he managed to smother them. Cars sat, fuzzy through tears, and he staggered for them.
    Kent made it all the way to his silver Lexus before the futility of his flight struck him down. He slammed his fist against the hood, maybe breaking another bone there. Then he slid down the driver’s door to the hot asphalt and pulled his knees to his chest.
    He hugged his legs, devastated, sobbing, muttering. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God!”
    But he did not feel God.
    He just felt his chest exploding.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Week Three
    KENT ANTHONY held Spencer on his lap and gently stroked his arm. The fan whirled high above, and an old Celine Dion CD played softly, nudging the afternoon on. His son’s breathing rose and fell with his own, creating a kind of cadence to help Celine in her crooning. He could not tell if Spencer was awake— they had hardly moved in over an hour. But this sitting and holding and just being alive had become the new Anthony home signature in the week or so since Gloria’s sudden death.
    The first day had been like a freight train smashing into his chest, over and over and over. After sobbing for some time by the Lexus he had suddenly realized that little Spencer needed him now. The poor boy would be devastated. His mother had just been snatched from him. Kent had stumbled back to the waiting room to find Helen and Spencer holding each other, crying. He’d joined them in their tears. An hour later they had driven from the hospital, dead silent and stunned.
    Helen had left them in the living room and made sandwiches for lunch. The phone had rung off the hook. Gloria’s church partners calling to give their condolences. None of the calls were from Kent’s associates.
    Kent blinked at the thought. He shifted Spencer’s head so he could reach a glass of tea sitting by the couch. It was one good thing about the church, he supposed. Friends came easily. It was the only good thing about the church. That and their attending to the dead. Kent’s mind drifted back to the funeral earlier that week. They had managed to mix some gladness into the event, and for that he was thankful, although the smiles of those around him never did spread to his own face. Still it made for a manageable ordeal. Otherwise he might have broken down, a wreck on that front pew. An image rolled through his mind: a slobbering man, dressed in black and writhing on the pew while a hundred stoic faces sang with raised hymnals. Might as well toss him in the hole as well.
    A tear slipped from the corner of his right eye. They would not stop, these tears. He swallowed.
    Helen and two of her old friends had sung something about the other side at the funeral. Now there was a religious case. Helen. After setting sandwiches before them that first day, she had excused herself and left. When she returned three hours later, she looked like a new woman. The smile had returned, her red eyes had whitened, and a buoyancy lightened her step. She had taken Spencer in her arms and hugged him dear. Then she had gripped Kent’s arm and smiled warmly, knowingly. And that was it. If she experienced any more sorrow over her daughter’s death, she hid it well. The fact had burned resentment into Kent’s gut. Of course, he could not complain about the care she had shown them over the last ten days, busying herself with cooking and cleaning and handling the phone while Kent and Spencer floated around the house like two dead ghosts.
    She was on her way to collect Spencer now. She had made the suggestion that the boy visit her for a few hours today. Kent had agreed, although the thought of being alone in the house for an afternoon brought a dread to his chest.
    He ran his fingers through his son’s blond hair. Now it would be him and Spencer, alone in a house that suddenly seemed too big. Too empty. Two weeks ago he had described their next house to Gloria while they dined on steak and lobster at