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“I used to drive a lot when your mother was sick. Just trying to sort it all out.” He shot a half smile to his wife. “Or maybe I was just running.”
She put her hand over his. “But you always came back.”
“Yes, well, you were my solid ground, even if everything else was crumbling.”
She squeezed his hand. “Because the solid ground wasn’t me but Jesus, Beau.”
Hud didn’t know how the conversation had gone there, so serious, so fast.
But maybe that was the problem. He looked at Harry, whose mouth was a closed line. Harry raised an eyebrow.
“Hudson, is everything okay?” his mother asked.
Audrey picked right then to come up, deliver water to the table. “Are you ready to order?”
“Give us a minute,” Hudson said. She nodded, walked away, and he turned to his mother. “I don’t know. Maybe not.”
From the front, the musician had taken the stage, introducing himself, then starting off with a song.
“I think maybe football might be over for me.” He blew out a breath, the reframing of the truth somehow strengthening. “I’ve been feeling it ever since the championship. Like maybe it was time. But I was sort of freaked out too, so I…I did something stupid.”
His father sat back, folded his arms.
“I started working for the CIA.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I know. But I wasn’t sure what else was out there for me, so I…anyway, there was this girl—woman. Her name is Iris Marshall, and she is, yes, an official for the ELF, but also this amazing woman who is…more than I thought. And for a while there, I started thinking that maybe she was the next chapter in my life. But…” He leaned back, his hand behind his neck. “But I’m not sure she has room for me, so…anyway, I guess I don’t know what’s next.”
Silence as the song lifted into the room.
Then his dad leaned forward. Took a breath. “Son, when your ma was sick, my entire world crumbled. I could hardly take my next breath, and because of that, I let everything fall apart. And you saw that.”
Hudson stared at his dad. Nodded.
“And I know you were afraid.”
Hud lifted a shoulder. “I’m not afraid, Dad. I mean—”
“I know you’re tough and capable, Hud. But you’ve been dodging fear your whole life. It’s why you run toward the hard things. Football. And maybe this CIA thing—”
“That’s over.”
“Good. But I know it’s so you can have everything figured out before you get there. So you’ll have the next step before the ground underneath your feet crumbles. But the fact is, and I learned this from your mom”—he put a hand on her arm—“you need to trust God for the now. Just right here, the earth beneath your feet. And then know that He’ll be in the next step when you get there.”
A beat. “Dad, when did you get all this faith? You’ve never—”
“Slowly. One day at a time, walking away from the captivity of fear, living in freedom.” He smiled. “You get a lot of time to think when you’re herding cattle.”
He looked at Hud, then Harry. “We worry most about the things we trust God the least with. If you want God to move in your life, you need to stop trying to control everything. The root of control is fear. And God’s perfect love for us casts out fear. Right, Evie?”
She patted his cheek and met his kiss. “I think you’re starting to get it.”
“Only took sixty-two years.” He gave a chuckle.
Hud just stared at him. Where was the stoic, bitter man who’d never shown up at his football games?
Maybe Hud’s expression said that, because his dad leaned forward. And in a move that had Hud frozen, he touched Hud’s arm. “I’d spent my whole life fighting God, and one day I just asked…why? Why am I fighting the God who gave me my wife, my sons, this life? What, exactly, am I afraid of? That God will put us through hard things? Maybe, but I can face them with fear, or with trust. And that’s made all the difference.” He let go, leaned back. “Audrey, I’ll have the bison burger, double fries, and a chocolate milkshake.”
