Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 132031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
If only that were possible.
Cash trudged up the steep hill to his parents’ current campground. His father’s pulpit and lawn chair pews sat empty between the newish truck he had bought for his parents and their travel trailer.
He guessed he was their church’s biggest donor. His heart smiled. For all the years of his youth, they’d taught him love, acceptance, friends, and family were the true joys of life. The smile in his heart grew. His youth, especially once they had given up on public school and taught him at home, was the happiest time of his life. They gave him a wealth of love to support his solid foundation.
Cash slowed as he got to the entry of the camper. His mother’s decorative crosses and his father’s handmade weaponry sat on a table outside. Their sales helped subsidize the ministry. Or rather…they paid for his parents’ meager lifestyle.
He ducked his head to keep from hitting the top of the doorframe and took the few steps up into the trailer while checking the time on his smart watch.
He had three hours before his flight departed.
“Cashin, my sweet boy, you only just got here,” his mother said, complaining as she’d done since he’d gotten the news his vacation was cut short, called back into work. Her arms were elbow deep in bread dough, kneading the sticky clump.
As a child, he’d been mesmerized that something so gooey could turn out so delicious. Her fingers stopped moving, her sad face rose toward him in confusion.
“We haven’t seen you in two years. Can’t your job give us a full week with you? Surely, there’s someone in the hospital that can hold them over until you return.”
“Mom…” he started, going around the kitchen island that posed as an additional cooking space as well as a dinner table, office desktop, and laundry folding station if the current items on top spoke of its versatility.
Cash hedged, thinking over his words, trying to ignore the guilt that always hung over his head when he lied about his employment.
He stopped about a foot from her, lowered his gaze from her eyes, focusing somewhere around her nose. “It’s a new position. I have to prove myself. If they call, I have to go.”
“Daddy, help me out here,” she said to his father who looked up from the Bible he studied from, peering over the wire rim of his bifocals. He was lost in thought if his expression said anything and didn’t look overly willing to engage.
“What, Mama?” he asked. Since it had only been the three of them for all of Cash’s life, he knew his mother was on a time clock with her answer. His father had given her about fifteen seconds before he’d revert to his studies, preparing for his next sermon.
“Cashin’s work called him back,” his mother said, reminding his father.
“You just got here, son,” his father said, his gaze moving to him with the same confusion his mother used. “I thought you were staying a couple of weeks.”
“I was, but they need me,” Cash answered vaguely.
His father nodded as if that made perfect sense and turned back to his wife of thirty-five years. “They need him, Mama.” All the explanation needed, and he turned back to the Bible again.
Their church’s five or six parishioners really got a well thought out Sunday service until the weed came out. Sometimes that was within the first ten minutes, other times they got as long as thirty minutes of a biblical lecture. Then the service turned to a morning and afternoon of sitting on the porch, eating a potluck lunch and filling their souls with all the wonderfully philosophical thoughts a good high could conjure.
Cash fought a smile. If there was a summation to Cash’s life to date, this was the moment. His hipster parents had found God about the time Cash was born. Their brand of acceptance, love, and let-go-let-God had never found a true following no matter how much of their lives were dedicated to their “missionary” work.
This rundown trailer, parked in the rolling landscape of Arkansas, spoke of everything good in his life. They had never landed in the best areas. They’d been robbed more times than Cash could count, but his parents loved everything about their lives.
And he loved them.
He didn’t love the bunk bed he’d grown up sleeping in, which was still reserved for when he visited.
Cash shrugged at his mother as if his father had settled everything. He leaned down and kissed her soft cheek. “I’m sorry. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“You say that then years go by. Each time I see you I feel like you’ve grown another inch taller and that line between your brows is more pronounced. It makes you look mean. Maybe that’s why you don’t have a boyfriend. You look so scary.” She knocked him in the arm with her elbow as tears welled in her eyes.