The Land Beneath Us (Sunrise at Normandy #3) - Sarah Sundin Page 0,60
off. “Pax doesn’t smoke anyway.”
Gene slapped him on the back. “Good job, old man.”
“Helen Margarita Paxton,” Clay murmured. Leah’s Greek heritage, Clay’s Mexican heritage, and Clay’s white heritage, all wrapped up in one fine name.
His friends occupied themselves with mail and meals.
Clay leaned back against the stone wall in the mess hall of the school where the Rangers were billeted, and he studied Leah’s message. He’d met his goal and lived long enough to hear the news.
Why did it feel insufficient?
He wanted a picture. He wanted to see that baby. He wanted to drop everything and fly across the Atlantic to the two of them. Forget D-day. Forget the dream.
Clay sighed. He’d feared this would happen. His resolve was weakening, his desire lessening. The dream still came at least once a week, increasing in intensity. The end was coming, but now the thought filled him with sadness rather than joy.
His dinner finished, Clay turned in his tray and headed outside to read Daddy’s letter.
It was still light out, thanks to Britain’s wartime double summertime. The school perched on a cliff overlooking the bay, and silvery clouds stretched in ribbons over the water.
Clay sat cross-legged on the sparse grass and opened the letter, written well before the baby’s birth.
Dear Clay,
I have good news. Wyatt wrote home! Finally, we’ve heard from one of our prodigals, and your mother and I couldn’t be happier. He’s alive and well and serving as a naval officer on the same island you are.
He wants you to know he’s sorry he stole your money. He meant to pay you back that summer, but he made a bad investment and lost it all. That’s why he joined the Navy—so he could earn money to pay you back. He’ll send the check soon and write you at that time. He feels awful for what he’s done.
We’ve written back, telling him you’re in the Army and that Adler ran away, but we didn’t tell him what happened between you and Adler. That’s not our tale to tell.
Wyatt asked us not to give you his address right now, and we’ll honor that. We did send him your address so he can send his apology. We pray you’ll accept it, and we pray you two can meet overseas.
If only we could hear from Adler too. Nothing would make us happier than to see our family whole again. When that day comes, you three boys will see Mama and me running to you down the road, and you’ll smell the fatted calf on the barbecue.
“Great news,” Clay said from between gritted teeth. “Just great.”
He stuffed the letter inside his Parsons field jacket and shoved himself to standing.
Like Adler, Wyatt hadn’t suffered one whit, and Clay marched along the cliff. A naval officer, was he? Walking around in a smart navy blue uniform, probably in some swanky headquarters, far from cliffs and foxholes and machine-gun bullets.
“Swell.” Clay kicked at a tuft of grass. Wyatt felt bad? Good. He ought to.
He planned to pay Clay back? Sure, he did. Even if he did, fat lot of good it’d do Clay with only weeks to live.
And Daddy and Mama wanted to throw a party for Wyatt and Adler, just like for the Prodigal Son who wasted his inheritance on “riotous living.”
Except Wyatt had wasted Clay’s money, not his own. And Adler did his “riotous living” with Clay’s girlfriend.
Did Daddy expect Clay to leap for joy?
He grabbed a rock and hurled it off the cliff like a hand grenade.
What had Daddy meant about running to the three of them? Clay hadn’t run away. He’d served at Paxton Trucking while Wyatt and Adler shirked their responsibilities and left Clay to do their work. He’d hated that job, but never once had he failed his father.
Another rock, and Clay sent it flying. “Daddy never threw a barbecue for me.”
His own words smacked him in the chest and buckled his legs.
He fell to his knees, the cool wind drying his widened eyes, the truth wringing out his soul. “Oh no. I’m the elder brother.”
Clay might be the youngest Paxton boy, but in his heart he was the Prodigal’s elder brother.
He reached into his breast pocket and whisked out the tiny soldier’s Bible with its leather cover and the brass plate on the front that read “May the Lord be with you.”
Where was that parable again? The gospel of Luke, chapter 15.
He knew the story backward, forward, and upside down, and he already knew Jesus was talking to him. Most people