Corin picked up his cell phone on the way home and dialed his brother’s house to see if the gift he’d sent had arrived. It was a way to be a part of Shasta’s family, even if it was only looking through darkened windows. Plus his nephew was an amazing kid. Robin answered on the first ring.
“Hey, Cor. Sawyer once again thinks you’re the coolest uncle ever.”
“I had to send it. It’s his birthday. Every ten-year-old boy needs Race Town III on his birthday.” And every ten-year-old boy should somehow be protected from what Corin went through at that age.
She laughed. “I think his hands are going to fuse into the shape needed to hold the controller.”
“But you’ll limit his playtime to three hours a day, right?”
“Less than that. I’m not sure I want him to grow up to be a thrill junkie like you.”
Corin hesitated. “Maybe someday soon I’ll be able to play the game with him.”
Robin didn’t answer.
“Sorry, had to say it.”
A short sigh floated through the phone in concert with his own.
Should he ask the follow-up question? He knew the answer, so why did he always ask? “Will you and Shasta and the kid be coming to my house for dinner next weekend?”
“I think you know the answer to that one.”
“Yeah. What did he say this time?”
“That he’s busy.”
“You’d think he’d have a better excuse by now.” Corin kneaded the steering wheel. “Does he miss Mom and Dad? The anniversary of their passing was six weeks ago.”
“I know.” Robin coughed. “He misses them a great deal.”
“But that same emotion isn’t extended my direction.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Hang on a second.”
Corin heard a door shut through the phone, and when Robin spoke again it was in a whisper. “He still cares about you. And I’ll never stop talking to God about it.”
“Right.”
“Deep down he does. I see it in his eyes when your name comes up.”
“All I saw in his eyes during my last impromptu visit was apathy. A healthy dose of it. It’s not that he hates me; it’s that he’s devoid of any type of emotion toward me.”
“He cares.”
“If I died tomorrow, he wouldn’t cheer, he wouldn’t break down. He wouldn’t do anything.”
Five seconds passed.
“Do you know what he had restored to pristine condition and keeps out in the garage?”
“No idea.”
“His Honda CRF 230.”
A memory flooded Corin’s mind as he considered the implications of Shasta keeping the Honda. His brother had almost killed himself on that bike on that August morning in 1994.
“You always have to push me a little farther than I want to go, don’t you?” Shasta tried to pretend he was frustrated, but Corin knew underneath his helmet his brother was laughing.
They sat on their dirt bikes, revving their engines, staring at an eastern Colorado gorge with a seventy-foot drop to a thundering river.
“Not a little, a lot farther.” Corin shifted into first gear, revved his engine, and let out the clutch. The wheel of his Honda CR 500 popped into the air and the bike screamed forward, the rush of acceleration making him laugh. The jump wasn’t long, but being short wasn’t an option. He let the whine of first gear get to ear piercing, then shifted into second, then third. He needed to be going at least forty-five when he hit the ramp, fifty would be better.
The wind whipped against his chest and he leaned forward in the seat.
Thirty feet to the ramp. Twenty. Five more feet. Launch!
The ground vanished and he flew thirty feet into the sky.
Corin’s landing was perfect and he skidded to a stop forty yards on the other side of the gorge.
He threw his bike into first gear and raced back up to the edge of the cliff and shouted across the gorge. “You coming, little brother?” Corin shouted.
Shasta revved his engine in response. Corin imagined he could see Shasta rolling his eyes under his helmet.
“Just don’t be slow, little bro.”
Shasta hit the ramp dead center but Corin’s heart clenched. The bike didn’t have enough speed.
C’mon! Be enough.
Time slowed as Shasta arced across the ravine, body and bike in perfect form.
Be enough.
An instant later the back tire of Shasta’s Honda smacked down high on the ramp sending a mini dirt shower into the air. Shasta threw his hands up in victory.
He yanked off his helmet, long dark brown hair swirling in the wind, and grinned at Corin after skidding to a halt twenty yards away. “Yeah, baby!”
“I don’t need a heart attack, bro. What were you thinking?”
“What are you talking about?”
Corin jogged up the ramp to see where Shasta’s tire had landed. He coughed out a frightened laugh when he reached the edge. A foot and a half, maybe two. He stared at Shasta.
“More speed next time.”
“Hey, I wanted to make it interesting for you.”
“Too interesting.” Corin jogged back down the ramp over to his brother and slapped his hands down on Shasta’s shoulders. “That kind of interesting I can do without.”
“I was just curious how riled up I could make you.”
“This cat doesn’t want to get killed.”
“But I was satisfied.”
“Get serious, did you do that on purpose?”
Shasta took off his gloves and stuck them in his back pocket. “True serious?”
“Yes.”
“I blew it back there. Thought I had enough speed. I’m sorry, bro; didn’t mean to scare you. That one even made me nervous.”
“Don’t do that to me. Losing you would not be good for my mental health, get it?”
“Got it.”
“Cor? You there?”
Robin’s voice sliced through the memory and brought him back to the present.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
The image in his mind of the dirt bike jump faded into a picture of the ski slope. “I made him do it.”
“It was his choice.”
“I forced him into it.”
“You pushed him down the hill? Forced him up that ramp?”
Corin massaged the knots in the back of his neck. “Nice try. I appreciate it.”
“I’m not trying to placate you. Yes, you were probably persuasive, but in the end it was his choice. He chose to launch himself into the air; you didn’t choose it for him.”
“Life would be different if I hadn’t talked him into it.”
“Promise me something,” Robin said.
“Anything.”
“You’ll never stop trying.”
“Never.” Corin looked at himself in the rearview mirror and studied his haunted eyes. “I’ll die first.”
CORIN STRODE THROUGH the doors of Tori’s dojo early Friday evening determined to talk to her about the chair. She wasn’t warm to the subject, but things were getting too weird and she was the only one who he could trust.
Hey!” She bounced up to him in a bright blue top and black gym shorts and planted a kiss on his lips. “Ready for a slash-and-dash workout?”
“Slash and dash?”
“Slash through this thing and still dash out with plenty of time to enjoy that dinner you promised me at your place plus get to the theater in time to catch a late flick together.” She glanced at the clock on her wall over the mirrors that ran the length of the dojo, then trotted over to the gray workout bags hanging from the ceiling.
As Corin peeled off his sweats he said, “I need to talk to you about something.”
Thwack! Tori gave her bag a roundhouse kick. “Talk.”
He jogged over to the bag next to Tori and struck it like a boxer.
“This isn’t boxing, bub; it’s mixed martial arts.”
“Right.”
“What do you want to
talk about?”
“The chair.”
“Again?”
“A guy from some megachurch came in today wanting to, ‘Give me expertise in what I’m dealing with.’”
“What are you dealing with? Is the thing going to explode?”
“Then he insinuated I would be wise to let him study it and keep it for me.”
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Tori kicked the bag three times in rapid succession, then finished with a shot from her fist. “Just sell the thing. Or give it to this guy.”
“Don’t you think there might be something a little weird going on here with this chair? The healing of that kid, now a sudden interest from this church?”
“Definitely something weird.” Thud, thud, thud! Tori pummeled the bag with her feet.
“I need to know if this chair can heal people.” Corin gave his bag a swift kick and followed it up with a forearm blow even Tori would be proud of. “Could it really have been made by Christ? Where should I take it? I have to talk to somebody who knows something about this. Figure out what to do with it.”
“Shut up, Corin.” Tori grabbed her bag with both hands and stared at him.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“What’s your problem?”
“The weird thing I’m talking about is you. Just because a kid gets healed, you’re suddenly wanting to be Pastor Joe-Bob and start preaching to the world.”
“Hello?” Corin knocked on his skull. “Anyone home? What’s wrong with you? I’m not wanting anything but to know what this thing is and what I should do. Doesn’t it freak you out at all that I might have a miracle chair sitting in my basement? Wouldn’t you want to find out more about it?”
Tori let loose with a double shot to the bag with her fists. “Sorry, I’m just getting tired of all this God talk.”
“It’s not God talk.” Corin popped the bag so hard his fist stung. “It’s chair talk. Why are you stonewalling me on this?”
“I’m not stonewalling; I’m just not into talking about religion. I told you that.”
“This isn’t religion. It’s a chair. That might be doing bizarre things. I’d like some answers.”
“Call James Randi.”
“Who?”
“Founder of J.R.E.F. The James Randi Educational Foundation. He has a standing offer of a million bucks to anyone who can demonstrate any psychic, supernatural, or paranormal ability of any kind. I bet he’d be able to prove your chair isn’t anything more than a nice-looking piece of wood.”
“I’m not calling some celebrity.”
“Fine.” She gave her bag three sharp kicks. “But can we be done talking about it now?”
They stopped talking and Corin pounded away, hoping to take out his frustration on the bag. She’d locked him out. But it didn’t mean he couldn’t keep trying to pick the lock.
“I don’t want to talk about the chair anymore.”
“Good.” Tori pounded her bag.
“I want to talk about who made it.”
“C’mon, Corin.” Another three kicks.
“It’s one question.”
She whirled to face him. “One? Only one?”
“Yes.”
“After this can we be done talking about your chair?”
Corin delivered three kicks of his own. “I don’t understand why this is such a sore spot for you.”
“It’s not; it’s just boring talking about it all the time.”
“Last question.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“Because I’ll probably have one more question after this one.” He grinned. “But at least not today. I promise. Guaranteed no more religious questions until at least twenty-five hours have passed.”
Tori rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. “What?”
“Is it possible Jesus was who He said He was? That He really was the Son of God?”
“He never said that. He didn’t ever say He was the Son of God.”
“What?”
“He said he was the Son of Man, that ‘I AM,’ that ‘I and the Father are One,’ but He never said I am the Son of God.”
“What’s your point?”
“That maybe He was just a man who got really close to God, so people started saying He was God.” Tori snatched her sweat towel off the top of her workout bag and turned toward the back of the dojo. “Are we done?”
“That wasn’t all of the question. There’s a second part.”
“Sorry, that’s the only one you get today.”
“But—”
“Fine!” Tori tossed her towel to the ground.
“What burned you so deeply about Christianity?”
“That’s off-limits.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Drop it, Corin. I’m serious.”
“So am I. The preachers who rail against gay people the hardest are the ones who are meeting other guys behind locked closet doors. The ones always talking about staying away from porn are the guys racking up hefty Internet bills.”
“What’s your point?”
“I think you see my point.”
“I’m going to take a shower.” Tori kicked her towel into the air and grabbed it as she strode toward the locker room. “See you at your place in thirty-five.”
CORIN’S DOORBELL RANG thirty-four minutes after he’d left Tori’s dojo and he smiled. She was always on time.
“Come in, Queen of Precision.” He opened the door.
“Are we okay?” Tori hugged him. “Sorry I got so riled up.”
“We’re good.”
Tori gave him a quick kiss, then strolled through the door and into his living room and stopped in front of his brick fireplace. “This mantel is stunning.” She touched it with her fingers and leaned in to take a closer look. “Really beautiful.”
“I put it up yesterday.”
“Where did you get this piece?”
Corin smiled and ran his fingers over surface of the mantel. “You’ve seen it before.”
“No.” Tori gave a tiny shake of her head and eased over closer to him. “This I would remember.”
Corin laughed. “Let me show you something.” He turned and clipped toward his den, snatching a manila folder off his desk when he reached it, then turned and strode back to Tori. “Take a look.” He handed her an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven piece of paper with two photos on it and folded his arms.
She glanced back and forth between the two pictures. “Same mantel,” she said, more to herself than to Corin. “Amazing. You’d never know. It looks like junk in the before picture.”
“Yep.” He tried to keep from smiling.
Tori tilted her head and stared at him. “You didn’t tell me your talents including restoring old furniture. I thought you only sold the stuff.”
“The dream starting out wasn’t to sell the pieces; it was to make them.”
“What happened?”
“Not enough profit margin in selling new pieces. When someone sees something old they think it’s worth more than something new.” Corin rubbed the mantel. “I’ll give them that. The history, imagining who might have stood or sat or eaten at a piece hundreds of years before gives it a value you can’t hang a price tag on, but I’ve never thought it was ten times the value of a new piece. I think some things are better when new, then you can grow old with them.”
Tori slid her arms around Corin’s neck and kissed him. “Like relationships?”
“In some cases yes.”
“Any specific piece you’d like to restore that you haven’t been able to yet?”
Corin gazed at a picture on his wall of his brother and him skydiving over the badlands in North Dakota. Their photographer on that jump caught them with the sun lit up behind them like a trillion-watt spotlight. Two-man star formation, rocketing toward the earth at a million miles an hour.
“Some pieces can’t ever be restored.”
“We’re not talking about furniture anymore, are we?”
Corin snatched his car keys off the mantel. “Let’s get out of here; we don’t want to miss the previews.”
He squeezed his keys so hard they bit into his fingers and sent shoots of pain slinging up his arms. Why did he have to be reminded of his brother in every moment? Between thinking about Shasta during the day and fighting The Dream at night, he was ready to crack.
And no amount of wood glue could fix him.
CHAPTER 20
No!”
On Saturday morning Corin lurched up and out of bed and moved toward his door, dragging damp sheets with him, then crumpled to his bedroom floor as his legs were caught in the blankets.
“Oh, wow. Hold on, hold on.” The words puffed out of him like blasts of steam from an old train. Corin tried to slow his breathing and raked his hands through his hair, as if he could tear the images out of his mind—of a torrent of water cascading into his lungs till they burst, the terror of it suffocating him, burying him in darkness.
The Dream hadn’t been this bad for three years. Maybe more. He rose to his knees and held his head.
Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream.
“Whew.”
C’mon, get a grip, Cor.
After a few more deep breaths he glanced at the blue numbers on his digital clock: 3 a.m. Later than normal.
He sunk back against the side of his bed and waited for his pulse to settle.
The darkness rocketing out of the bottom of the lake had been thicker than he’d ever felt. Deeper, and the nothingness more consuming. He shook his head.
Corin went to his bathroom, splashed water on his face, examined his puffy eyes, and cursed the face in the mirror.
He’d slept long enough that he’d have to count a million sheep to get back to sleep, but he hadn’t gotten even close to enough rest to be up for the day.
Besides, he wasn’t ready to submerge himself back into dreamland with the emotions of the drowning still churning through his gut.
He stumbled into his living room and grabbed Demon: A Memoir off the coffee table, a novel he’d picked up at Barnes & Noble earlier that afternoon. He’d asked one of the clerks about the supernatural being real and she recommended that book along with The Screwtape Letters.
After three chapters he set the book down and considered the implications. Demons and angels flitting around the world, taking on human form? Right. And little green Martians would be visiting his store tomorrow to pick up some European antiques for their home planet.
The Chair Page 9
