“Eric,
can I come in?” Braden’s voice questioned from the other side of his office in
conjunction with a gentle knock, startling Eric and waking him from his dream.
Eric
groaned and lightly tapped his head repeatedly off the desk before looking up
to the ceiling and questioning God in a soft voice that he hoped Braden
wouldn’t pick up on. “Five more minutes, that’s all I wanted. Just five minutes
God! Why couldn’t you do that for me? I’m a good guy, can’t you help me just a
little?” he pleaded through frustration.
“Eric,
I know you’re in there, and I’m coming in.” Braden said as he twisted the knob
and pushed the door open without a response from his friend. “I really want to
talk to you about yesterday.”
“Can
it wait until later?” Eric responded without lifting his head from his desk as the
older man ignored his request and entered the room.
“I
think the sooner we address the situation the better.” Braden answered as he
crossed the room to take the seat opposite Eric’s. Braden had kept silent the
previous night after calling Bianca knowing that Eric was in no condition to be
reasoned with, but now Eric was sober and with the Victoria occupying the boys,
this was Braden’s best chance to find out what had triggered Eric’s regression.
“Where
are the boys?” Eric asked lifting his head from the desk and straightening
himself out in the chair to look his friend in the eyes. He was sure Braden was
here to lecture him just as his mother had, and though he didn’t want to hear
it all again, Eric decided to tolerate the older man knowing if he didn’t
listen now he’d have to listen later.
“They’re
fine, Vicki came downstairs while you were arguing with Bianca and took them
for a walk.”
“She
has today off, why did you let her do that. She should be relaxing, she had an
emotional day yesterday.” Eric responded annoyed that Braden was in his office when
he wanted to be alone and that he now would have to apologize again to Victoria
because she was working on her day off, something she did too often as it were.
“She
insisted Eric, it was her idea. She thought it would be good if we spoke about
things and that the boys shouldn’t be around the yelling.”
“Who
says I will yell?”
“I
was referring to the yelling you did at your mom.” Braden responded, ignoring
the sarcasm in his friend’s voice. He had expected this non-compliant attitude
from Eric and wasn’t at all surprised by it, Eric typically responded to
mistakes with pride rather than admitting his was wrong.
Eric
rolled his eyes at the older man, couldn’t he be left alone for five minutes?
Why did everybody feel the need to dump on him today? He knew he screwed up,
but he wanted to forget it and move on now, not spend the rest of the day
talking about with everybody in his life.
“How
long did you tell her you were drinking again?” Braden asked knowing the truth
of Eric’s drinking, despite Eric’s efforts to hide it from him and everyone
else.
“Braden,
I’m going to say this only once. It was a one time slip up, get off my back.”
Eric’s voice was low and dangerous sounding, leaving no room for his friend to
mistake it, this was the end of the conversation as far as he was concerned.
Eric was well past the point where he could tolerate one more word of
condemnation from someone who had never been in his position and didn’t know
the whole story. “So unless you want to apologize for tattling on me to my
mother like I was a child, I have nothing else to say.”
“I
won’t apologize for doing what I thought was right.” Braden said squaring his
shoulders and holding firm. He knew in his heart he did what he believed to be
right to help a friend who was in a bad way. Eric was like family to him, and
it broke him inside to think he would go back down that dark path.
“Then
you better leave.” Eric said leaning back in his chair and staring across the
desk at Braden daring him with his eyes
to continue so that he could unload all of his frustration on his friend. But
Braden knew Eric and his temperament better than that, he could tell that Eric
was ready to blow and chose his next words carefully.
“I’ll
leave Eric, but you know where to find when you’re ready. In the meantime maybe
you should read this.” Braden said as he stood to his feet and took a small
folded pamphlet from his pocket, then headed towards the door.
“If
I’m ever in the mood for a lecture, don’t worry, I’ll come find you.” Eric
answered ignoring the booklet on his desk and standing to his feet as well,
following Braden to the door to shut and lock it after the older man stepped
out into the hall. Finally, he was alone, and it was quiet again, but he
doubted whether he could fall asleep in his chair a second, or that he should
be indulging in the dreams that he was having.
Returning
to his desk Eric picked up the pamphlet and examined it, curious to see what
Braden had thought would be so helpful about it. It was only 3 pages long and
read ‘Can God Fix My Mess?’ in bold green lettering against a light blue
background with a shadowed image of a man knelt down with his head bowed, and a
hand reaching out to him from clouds above. Inside were questions, questions
Eric had asked before, things like ‘why didn’t God answer my prayer?’ or ‘if
there’s a God why do good people suffer’ and ‘does God love me, even though I
messed up?’ and finally there were answers to these questions, he asked himself
hundreds of times as well scriptures.
Some of the verses Eric remembered from Evelynn repeating them or hearing them
at church when he had actually decided to go, but other verses were new and
unfamiliar and Eric found himself actually interested.
First Chapter : http://www.jennthorn.blogspot.com/2015/01/excerpt-from-work-in-progress-novel.html
Eighth Chapter : http://www.jennthorn.blogspot.com/2016/01/novel-excerpt-healing-of-eric-richardson.html
First Chapter : http://www.jennthorn.blogspot.com/2015/01/excerpt-from-work-in-progress-novel.html
Eighth Chapter : http://www.jennthorn.blogspot.com/2016/01/novel-excerpt-healing-of-eric-richardson.html
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