“Good night, Ma.”
“Love you, Sam. Oh—take those letters with you.”
He took the two envelopes perched on the corner of the table. The same ones he’d been ignoring for the past few days. The ones with the nameWilliamsmarked in the upper left corner.
Upstairs, he dropped the envelopes on a stack of other envelopes which threatened to tumble over. He opened the drawer in his bedside table and swept them all inside. The lamp on top wobbled as he jammed the drawer shut with a satisfyingthunk. One white corner of an envelope mocked him, its dogeared corner sticking out the top of the drawer, but he turned his back to it and searched for some pj’s.
Moments later he’d changed clothes and climbed into bed. With his hands propped behind his head, he stared at the ceiling, then leaned over and flicked the lamp off. Darkness engulfed him, with only a small amount of light creeping in from the window and under the door. But even that didn’t reach Sammy.
God has answers for you if you ask.His mom was right. Only, it seemed like, lately, all his prayers were doing was tumbling around in his mind before evaporating into the winter air.
He tossed off the covers and sat up in bed. Keeping his voice low, he tried again. “Jesus, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what to do.” He stood and began pacing in the dark. “I don’t know what You want out of me. I don’t even know what I want out of myself.” He rubbed at the ache in his leg again. The physical therapist had cleared him for all activities, and Sammy knew he was as strong as before, but the ache kept creeping back. His physical therapist called it a pain memory.
“I want to stay in Deep Haven, but there doesn’t seem to be anything for me here. Being a courier and a handyman doesn’t cut it anymore. I can’t go back to driving a truck.” A shudder ran through him at the image of him at the wheel of another lumber truck. “But I feel restless. Joining Tucker’s crew doesn’t feel right either. I know my mom said You have answers and would show me what to do, but I don’t even know where I am. It seems like every choice is a bad one.”
He took a fifth lap around the room, then a sixth. “Help me out here. Maybe this is unfair, but can You just show me what to do?”
He waited in silence for a few moments. No voice, not even a still, small one, answered him.
A verse drifted through his mind.He will make your paths straight…How did that verse begin? Something about trusting the Lord. Easy to say, difficult to do.
At least the ache in his leg had eased. He lay back in bed, again staring at the ceiling, now out of sight in the dark.
Time to face facts. His body was healed. And thanks to the insurance check, he wouldn’t need much extra money for a long time. God probably wanted him to use the lumberjack build He’d given him to fight fires in some wilderness. He didn’t know why he had ever thought he wanted to build a different life for himself.
He’d call Tucker tomorrow after church, see what it would take to join his crew. At least that was a proactive step he could take. He didn’t have to make all the decisions at once.
In the living room, the clock chimed one o’clock.
Sammy’s mind drifted. He saw himself on the highway north of town. Rain and snow pelted the windshield of his semitrailer. No big deal. He’d driven in worse. He hummed along with a country music song on the radio.
He wanted to rewind, to not see what came next.
His semi went around a bend in the road. He looked down to change the radio station.
Don’t look down!he wanted to scream to himself.
A darkness descended and then a flash of blue ahead in the storm. Suddenly the rain and sleet lit up red with the brake lights of the compact car. A mama deer and her fawn leaped out onto the road.
He pumped his brakes, engine screaming.
He couldn’t stop.
He couldn’t breathe.
His truck hit an icy spot, and he knew he was about to plow over the small car in front of him. He pulled the wheel to the left, then right, steering around the Prius.
Too late.
He saw he’d overcorrected, and then the semi jackknifed. He wrestled with the wheel until the truck came to a stop, cradling the car in a vee between his cab and the load of lumber he carried. His trailer listed to the side, load top-heavy and groaning.
Heart pounding, he hopped out of the truck.Please. A whispered prayer for the people in the blue Prius.
That’s when he heard it. Metal screaming, snapping, overlaid with the cries of a child.
“Help me!”
Sammy jolted upright in bed. His sheets tied him in place, twisted around his legs. Sweat bathed him from head to toe.
