Page 60 of A Convenient Heart
Jack’s chest squeezed tighter. “I don’t have any family.”
He lifted his newspaper, hoping to end the conversation.
The little boy squirmed, trying to nudge past his father and into the aisle. The father, more patient than Jack, diverted his son’s attention to something passing outside the window, and the boy went to stand in the space next to his sister’s feet, peering out the wavy glass.
“My wife’s been with her sister for a coupla weeks,” the man said. “Cecil Treadway,” he introduced himself, and Jack did the same.
“Her sister was in the family way but lost the baby, and my Jeannie went to be with her. She doesn’t know we’re coming.” Cecil sounded proud of that. “Her last letter said how much she missed the kids. And we all miss her too. So we’re gonna surprise her for Christmas, stay a day or two to pick up her spirits.”
Jack nodded along, but his eyes had dropped. Cecil was obviously a family man through and through. He cared about his wife, about his kids. He hadn’t gotten angry when his boy had done something naughty.
What was wrong with Jack that he’d never had a family to love him? He was envious of a little kid—a stranger on a train.
“You look like I did before I got my life straightened out and convinced Jeannie to marry me.”
Jack didn’t know what he’d done to invite Cecil into this personal conversation, but found himself frowning. “I don’t have a woman. I don’t have anyone.”
“Hmm.”
Jack suddenly realized, after years of gambling, that he’d clenched his fist on his knee—a tell.
“It would never work between us.” He practically growled the words to this stranger. “Our lives are too different.”
“So change.”
Cecil said the words in a matter-of-fact way, as if doing so was as easy as a snap of Jack’s fingers. How was he to make a living if he didn’t visit a poker table?
Jack didn’t know whether he could be content living in one place. He thought of the way all of Merritt’s friends, her community, had pitched in to help when she’d needed it.
Thought of the lonely nights he’d spent lying in bed in a different hotel than the night before.
He’d told himself it was what he wanted, being anchorless. Having nothing to tie him down.
But now he saw the emptiness of the life he’d been living.
Merritt had seen an empty future stretching before her, and she’d taken action. Not run away from it.
“What if I’m not worthy of her?” His voice sounded rough, and he saw a flash of surprise in Cecil’s eyes.
“You ever heard of the Good Book?”
He’d sat through several hours of Mr. Carson reading him stories, explaining what they meant. The prodigal son, with his father waiting for the lost son to return. The road to Jericho. Jesus.
They weren’t the stories Mrs. Farr had told Jack when she’d raised the belt to punish him.
Jack had promised himself he’d let Carson’s stories filter over him like water over a stone in a creek.
But Cecil’s question brought everything he’d heard this week into sharp relief.
“None of us are worthy,” Cecil said. “Not without the sacrifice Jesus made for us.”
Jack felt the truth of it settle in his bones. Mrs. Farr had been wrong. God wasn’t a cruel taskmaster or waiting for Jack to make a mistake.
He’d sent His Son to earth to make it possible for Jack to be worthy.
He sat with the realization, with the tears that smarted his eyes, for long moments while the noise of the train car faded into the background.
When he looked back to Cecil, the other man was smiling patiently.
