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Jesus didn’t command them to be a light that shone for everyone, just for the people who saw them.
“The people who see you should see you as different, but you don’t have to go around trying to make everyone in the world see you.”
“That’s so true.”
They sat a little in silence, and then she said, “Do you need me to help schedule contractors? Or to start redoing the interior? I’m sure you want to get moved in as soon as you can.”
“I’ve actually been arranging things while I was in the Cities.” He stared at the piece of chicken on his fork. “I’ve been moving things around so I can take some time off.”
“Take some time...off?” She repeated what he said, even though she heard him, just because she found it so unbelievable. In the seven years that she’d known him, she hadn’t known him to take any time off, at all, ever. One year, he even called her on Christmas. He hadn’t realized what day it was.
“Yeah.”
“So you’re going to arrange all the contractors?”
“When I was about twelve, my uncle came in and tried to straighten out my home. My mom was in jail, my dad was pretty much a loser, but my uncle tried to get him sobered up and put him to work in his contracting business.”
“Well, that’s good,” Clara said hesitantly, because he wasn’t talking like it was going to be a good thing.
“It should have been. It should have been the best thing that ever happened to me. But it wasn’t.”
“How?” she interrupted him.
“Well, first, I spent the next five years working for my uncle. I even got special permission to get out of school early my junior and senior years. It was around Christmastime, I think, my senior year that my dad and uncle got into a fight. Dad wasn’t a dependable worker, never had been, but as long as Uncle Bob was there, he’d had a semblance of a job. Those were probably the most stable years of my life. Mom got out of jail, then ended up getting caught for shoplifting with a weapon, and she went back. Anyway, Dad and Uncle Bob had an argument, and... Dad ended up shooting Uncle Bob.” Alex’s voice was rather dispassionate. There wasn’t much emotion in it at all, although his words made Clara gasp.
“Uncle Bob didn’t die right away, but they arrested Dad immediately. Anyway, I visited Uncle Bob a couple times in the hospital. He ended up showing me the backend of his business, paperwork and all that stuff, which of course I hated. What kid likes that? But while he was in the hospital, and he knew he was most likely going to die, he told me that I had a good head on my shoulders.”
Chapter 13
One side of his mouthturned up into a lopsided grin. “It was the first time anyone had told me anything like that. Maybe it went to my head. Anyway, he said I should go to college for business.”
“You’re brilliant. How could people not tell you that you were brilliant?”
“My grades in school reflected my homework. No one cared whether I did well or not, including myself. I just wanted to play, like most kids. But I didn’t want to end up like my dad, and Uncle Bob pointed out to me that if I wasn’t going to end up like him, I had to make some changes. I couldn’t live his life, I had to forge my own path. And he told me that there wasn’t going to be anyone there to guide me. I was going to have to do it myself.”
“That’s harsh.”
