Page 45 of The Words We Lost

Cece spotted her friend’s table, noting the way Hal was tugging at his shirt collar, and wondered how long he’d last in that stiff sports coat. The taut shoulder seams didn’t look like they’d hold together for another minute, much less another couple of hours. Hopefully her uncle wasn’t planning on the loaned garment being returned in one piece.

As soon as the chicken and shrimp fettuccini had been served, her uncle took the floor. The employees tapped their glasses with their forks and the room quieted. Though she’d heard this particular speech multiple times before, she looked forward to it as if it were the first time.

“As much as we want tonight to be about good food, fun, and fellowship, it’s also meant to be a tremendous thank-you from our family to yours. We couldn’t do what we do without your faithful dedication and service to our team. When Patti and I left Seattle a decade ago to invest in a rundown building built in the late 1800s, we never could have imagined the rich return we’d receive from our investment.” He opened his hands to gesture to the room where there wasn’t a single unsmiling face to be found. Even Hal seemed to be grinning, sort of. “And while many of you know the key principles we’re founded upon, I always like to take this opportunity to share the more intimate details behind our family’s story, especially when we’re welcoming a few new employees to the mix each year.” He tipped his head to Ingrid and Hal.

Cece pressed her back into the far dining room wall, content to listen to her uncle and fully decompress for a few minutes.

“Why are your eyes puffy? Were you crying?”

She immediately shushed her presumptuous cousin, who flattened his back to the wall beside her. “Don’t be rude. Your father is speaking.”

Joel side-eyed her. “You’ve heard this story as many times as you’ve heard the Christmas story.”

“And I want to hear it again.”

“Fine.” He crossed his arms over his chest as if settling in for the long haul just as her uncle was getting to the part about the years of miscarriages he and Aunt Patti suffered through before Joel came along, and then all the experimental treatments they started a year after Joel was born to try for a second child. But having her cousin right next to her, breathing out his too-loud exhales, was cramping her ability to concentrate.

“Why aren’t you standing over by Ingrid’s table?” she hissed.

The flush in Joel’s cheeks was immediate. “Hal makes me nervous.”

She had to catch the laugh in her throat before it could bark from her mouth. “Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because he always looks like he’s trying to figure out the quickest way to dispose of my body.”

“Nah, that’s way too easy. He knows he’d only have to push you overboard at night and leave you for the sharks.”

“You’re hilarious,” he deadpans.

“Come on,” she whispered through a smile. “You know he’s harmless.”

“I’m not so sure I do.” His undertone of fun had shifted to something she wasn’t sure she liked.

“What do you mean?” She tracked his gaze to Hal, who was still tugging mercilessly at the top buttons of his collared shirt.

Joel hiked an eyebrow at her. “You gonna tell me why you were crying?”

She stared him down, ultimately deciding his game wasn’t worth it. “Allergies.” She flattened herself to the wall again. “Now be quiet, I want to hear this part.”

She worked to tune out Joel’s heavy sigh and pull her uncle’s testimony forward.

“... the ups and downs at home became too much, and I found myself spending more and more time in my downtown office. First, it was one extra-long evening a week, but soon enough it became five extra-long evenings, and then I started showing up on the weekends, too. To escape the pain I couldn’t figure out how to manage at home, I justified the extra office hours because of the money we needed for fertility treatments. But the truth was, I’d become a full-fledged workaholic. Work was why I woke up in the mornings and why I only slept three to four hours each night. I’d heard the termworkaholicspoken with pride among the men in my peer groups, but it wasn’t until a couple of brave souls pulled me aside that I saw the critical flaw in my logic: My quest to build my family was actually destroying it. My absence had deeply hurt my marriage, and I hardly knew my boy. It was the intervention I needed to save my family and make some pretty extreme changes. For a long time, I believed God didn’t see my suffering, that He remained invisible during my time of greatest need, but the truth was I simply didn’t know where to look for Him. It’s been my experience that God is often made visible by the hands and feet of the people He places in our lives.”

Uncle Stephen winked at his younger sister, and Cece never failed to feel a rush of affection for her mom whenever he got to that part of the story. Despite being deep in the trenches of her own struggling marriage at the time, she’d been one of the voices to steer her brother back in the right direction.

Cece admired her uncle’s bravery in sharing the next pieces of his testimony—how he’d humbled himself to ask forgiveness from his wife and his son. And then, how instead of becoming a partner in the brokership he’d invested decades of his life and finances into, he’d cashed out every stock fund and asset he and Aunt Patti had owned to take a huge risk, one that would create a steady, more sustainable, more purposeful existence for his entire family.

“The day before we received our occupancy permit during the remodel, I clearly remember praying with Patti in the lobby about managing this hotel in a way that would prioritize people above business and our faith in God above our own agendas. We’ve continued to apply that relationship principle to every decision—big and small—as well as to every employee we hire.” Uncle Stephen beamed across the room at his son. “Each of you have become a part of the legacy of our hotel because each of you has become a part of our family. Thank you for a decade of love, loyalty, and excellent service to our community and guests.”

A single clap soon morphed into a thunderous applause, provoking whistles and cheers to erupt around the room. As soon as Uncle Stephen transitioned the floor to Aunt Patti so she could explain the dessert and game portion of the evening, Hal pushed back from the table and strode toward the rear of the dining hall. There was only a small archway that led into the living room from back here, and given Joel’s earlier confession about his nerves around Hal, Cece figured it would be best if she was the one to point him in the right direction. None of the three bathrooms on this main floor were easily detectable.

But as she stepped into the living room it was as if he’d vanished. Brows crinkled, she walked toward the foyer and then toward the staircase leading up to the bedrooms. No trace of him. She was just about ready to rejoin the group, thinking that perhaps he’d found the restroom on his own after all, when she popped her head around the corner of the dim hallway between her uncle’s study and the restroom she’d coined the grape bathroom on account of her aunt’s affection for grape wallpaper.

She studied his broad back, noting the way his chin tipped north toward the ceiling for several seconds before he stuffed something shiny back into the pocket of his sport coat.

“Captain Hal?”

The speed at which he straightened his coat and twisted around caused her to question what she’d actually seen when he tapped the inside of his breast pocket. “Oh, Curly, it’s you.”

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