The Valley of Dry Bones Read Online Free Page A

break fellowship
. He had grown fond of saying, “I quit drawing lines in the sand when I realized how few of us were left on the beach” and felt magnanimous when he said it.
    Well, terrific. Now what was he going to say? God Himself had invaded Zeke’s cozy little theological cottage and spoken to him the way He had the saints of old. Zeke wasn’t sure exactly what He wanted yet, but listening up was clearly a no-brainer. God had his attention all right. Either that or Zeke had a first-class, one-way ticket to Cuckooville.
    Mahir seemed riveted by something outside, but Zeke knew he would say something if he feared a legitimate threat. He decided to relax. He sensed the support of his friends, even if they did assume his discomfort came from reliving the worst night of his life. How he and Alexis got through that, not to mention the next year, he still couldn’t say—apart from God, of course.
    He’d known supernatural grace as he’d seen others bear inconceivable trials. Any parent has imagined the worst of all tragedies, but no onecould know how they’d hold up under it until it came. Zeke knew people expected him to say they had probably been in shock and might not have clearly remembered the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours after the tragedy, but that wasn’t true—at least the amnesia part. He and Alexis had revisited it endlessly over the past decade, and while naturally their hearts and spirits, and yes, even their bodies, had shifted into some sort of self-preservation mode, they believed they remembered everything.
    Now as Katashi and Elaine recalled the meeting at his place, it was as if Junior were suspended in time, tireless, lithe, running, jumping, climbing, smiling, eager for the next adventure. What kind of a seventeen-year-old would he have become? Rebellious and sullen? Unwilling to live in the godforsaken desert California had become? Or brilliant and task-oriented, impatient for the next challenge?
    Katashi was saying, “I’ll never forget Alexis telling me, ‘I only want to blame you so I don’t have to blame myself, or the building owner for not having enough security, or God for taking him too soon.’
    â€œI kept telling her, ‘No, no! Blame me! It’s my fault! I should have waited, should have checked!’
    â€œBut she told me, ‘We wouldn’t have come if that’s how we felt. We know you feel bad and that you will have to live with this all your life too. We just want you to know we forgive you, that we know it was an accident.’
    â€œWho does that? I had to know! First their boy knew he was going to heaven. Then they forgave me for killing him. Truthfully, I wished they’d yelled at me, hit me, tried to kill me. That’s what I deserved. That would’ve made me feel better, if anything could have.
    â€œAs soon as they left I called Raoul. He’d heard all about it from someone who called him from work, and he invited me over. I told him I didn’t want to bother him when he was sick, but he told me he had just called in sick to get the day off. That made me mad. Everything just burst from me and I cussed him out and told him it was all his fault, that if he’d been there it wouldn’t have happened. He hung up on me, and I didn’t care if I ever saw him again. Now I had lost everything, including my best friend, and I
really
didn’t want to live anymore.”
    Katashi broke down. “Bear with me,” he said, holding up a hand. “I’m here, so you know this ends well.”
    â€œAnd I’m here too,” Raoul said. “So it gets better.”
    â€œRaoul showed up within ten minutes,” Katashi said. “He told me he didn’t like something in the way I sounded. He said he’d heard fatalism in my voice.”
    â€œAnd I don’t even understand Japanese people, you know,” Raoul said, making the others chuckle. “I