The Chair (32 page)

I
’ve been praying for you, Corin.”

“It’s making things worse.” He yawned and stretched his legs.

“Tell me about that.”

Nicole and he sat at the lake, both covered in heavy coats against the cold of an early November night.

Corin gazed at the lake and told Nicole about the replica of the chair being stolen and the dream and what had happened at the cemetery.

“It seems Someone is trying to get your attention.”

“God.”

“Only you can answer that.” She rubbed her shoulders and pulled her wool hat farther down her head. “And how are you feeling about Shasta?”

“I’m burying the hope our relationship will ever be restored.”

“Oh, don’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t want to. As painful as it is, the deepest part of you wants to hang on to that hope. To deny that hope is to deny one of the most significant parts of yourself.”

She was right of course. He would never be able to snuff out the pilot light that burned for Shasta. But after his talk with his brother the other day, any hope of the fire blazing again had vanished.

“I will hold on, always. He’s my only family.” Corin glanced at Nicole. “At least I thought he was my only family.”

An enigmatic smiled played at the corners of her mouth. “Why do you say that?”

“What is your last name?”

“I think you’ve already guessed, have you not?”

“The same as my mom’s maiden name.”

“Of course.” Nicole smiled. “How long have you suspected?”

“In my subconscious, probably from the day we met.”

“Good, I’d be disappointed if you didn’t feel a strong connection. I certainly feel it with you.” Nicole patted Corin’s hand. “How did you figure it out?”

“The final puzzle piece snapped into place yesterday when you told me you hadn’t kept your promise to your daughter.”

“To not talk to her children about the chair.”

Corin nodded. “Plus all the other pieces fit. The legend says the keeper has always passed it down to a daughter. That isn’t an option for you since you don’t have a daughter, so the next option is a granddaughter who will agree to the vows. But you don’t have one of those either.

“The final option is to give it to a next of kin who will agree to the vows and who is a follower of God. I didn’t agree and I’m not a follower of God, yet you gave it to me anyway.”

Nicole smiled and patted his knee. “It is sometimes necessary to follow the spirit of the law rather than the letter. I knew you wouldn’t believe me if I’d just showed up one day and tried to make you understand who I was.”

“And my mom?”

“Like we talked about already, your mom never wanted to believe the chair was real and didn’t want to be a part of it, didn’t want you or Shasta to be a part of it. Which meant she didn’t want you to be a part of me.”

Corin sighed. He’d been cheated out of so much. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t his mom’s choice to make, but she’d made it for him anyway.

“The only time she spoke of you was about how you were gone a lot.”

“Yes, my duties surrounding the chair kept me busy. There was too much travel. It’s what drove your grandfather away too.” Nicole smiled a sad little smile. “And I’m not sure what I accomplished. Your mom turned away from Christianity primarily due to my being gone so much, and you weren’t raised in the faith.”

“Why did you devote your life to it?”

“I didn’t feel I had a choice.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.” Nicole rubbed her forearms and stared at the water. “In my defense I can’t remember if I knew I had a choice at the time my mother passed the chair to me.”

“And do I have a choice?”

Nicole laughed and tilted her head. “Of course.”

Corin shifted on the bench. “What about Tori?”

“What about her?”

“She’s not a fan of the chair. She’s been so burned by religion.”

“Maybe she needs to sit in it.”

“I think that would take a miracle.”

Nicole looked at him with eyes wide open and eyebrows stretched to their limits.

Corin laughed. “I get it. Yes, I’ve seen a few lately. I suppose God could pull off one more.”

“Indeed He could.” Nicole stood. “I need to go. There’s someone I have to see. He needs to hear the truth. He needs to see the light.”

NICOLE DROVE TOWARD the Garden of the Gods praying for the right words. Words that would penetrate past the polished veneer, into the heart of Mark Jefferies.

As the mile markers flashed by, she let the sorrow of the time she’d missed with Corin and Shasta seep out of her heart into her soul. So much that was gone forever. Time with her daughter she’d never been allowed.

Nicole’s thoughts turned to the last time she’d seen Rachel. It was the last day she’d seen Corin and Shasta as well. She sat with Rachel at her breakfast table, having the same argument they’d had for the past three years.

“They need their grandma.”

“No, they don’t, Mother. I don’t need your strange ideas and obsessions filling their heads.”

“I need them.”

“You should have thought of that ages ago when that chair became the most important thing in your life.”

Rachel was right. The chair had consumed her. She’d lost her daughter because of it, and now she was in danger of losing her grandsons as well. “I’m sorry, Rachel, you’re right, I—”

“Fine. Nice. Good.” She brushed her dark blond hair back from her forehead. “Apology accepted. But it doesn’t change anything.”

“I’ve changed. I know—”

“Too late, Mother.” She glanced over Nicole’s shoulder.

Nicole turned toward the sound of shuffling feet to her right.

“You’re our grandma?”

Corin and Shasta stood staring up at her, eyes full of questions and a tinge of fear. Three and five. Full of innocent wonder.

“Yes.”

“How comes we don’t see you ever?” Corin said.

“I hope to see more of you in the future.”

“When?” Shasta said.

“I’m hoping this summer we can—”

“That’s enough, Mother.” Rachel turned and shooed the boys away. “Mommy needs to finish a conversation, so go find something to do.”

“Can we slide?” Corin said.

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Yes, fine. Just give us a few minutes here.”

Corin and Shasta scrambled to the top of the stairs and moments later sat on a lumpy mattress at the top, goofy grins plastered on their faces. In unison they cried, “One! Two! Three! Launch!”

They lurched forward and the mattress spilled over the edge of the top stair. Corin and Shasta rode the mattress like an out-of-control toboggan, their eyes flashing joy only possible in the very young. They reached the bottom, skidded over the floor, and slammed into the wall across from the stairs.

“Again! Again!” Corin said.

If she were twenty years younger, Nicole would have joined them.

“I don’t like them doing it, but it’s the only way I can get them out of my hair for a few minutes,” Rachel said.

Her grandsons climbed back to the top of the stairs, lugging the mattress behind them.

“They’re so young. If you rid your life of me now, they might not remember me.”

“I don’t want them to remember you.”

Nicole forced her tears to stay inside as she stood and nodded to her daughter. “I see.” She turned and walked to the door, waiting for, praying for Rachel to call her back. But her daughter’s voice was silent.

Nicole blinked and the memory faded. She’d wondered what she would tell Mark when they met. Now she knew; she’d tell him what she’d learned too late in life. That an obsession with the chair was a path of despair unless it led to an obsession with the One who made it.

CORIN SWUNG OPEN the door to Tori’s dojo at 8:20 that night, enough time for any straggling students from her last class to have left. Kings of Leon blared from the four Bose speakers in each corner of the room. She stood at the counter with her back to him, tapping away at her computer, probably recording comments on each student’s performance that night or answering e-mails from aspiring black belts trying to get into her perpetually full class schedule.

He held the yellow roses he’d picked up on the way behind his back and eased toward her, his shoes silent on the sparring mat.

She laughed and said without turning, “True masters can see without seeing and hear when there is no sound.”

“How do you do that?”

“Quite well, thank you.” Tori turned and smiled.

“This is for you.” He handed her the flowers and she took the roses and rubbed them across her cheek. “Thank you. I accept your peace offering.”

“So gracious of you to receive it.” Corin gave a mock bow and returned her smile. “Can we sit?”

“Sure.” Tori came out from behind her counter and they walked toward the double row of white plastic chairs used for parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends who came once a month to see the students spar in a tournament.

They sat and Corin took both her hands in his, stared at her fingers, and rubbed them in his.

“So, you have something to tell me, or did you come down here just to give me a hand massage?”

He looked up into her eyes. “I want you to try sitting in the chair.”

Tori pulled her hands away and leaned back. “You are a stained and polished platinum piece of work.”

“What would it hurt to sit in it?”

“Why should I?” Tori tapped her feet on the floor almost fast enough to double as a drumroll.

“Because it might free you from your past.”

“What in my past do I need to be free of?” Tori folded her arms. “I got free when I left home.”

“Free of your resentment?”

“I’m not holding on to any resentment.”

“Right.”

Tori stood. “Listen to me closely. I’m done talking about the chair forever. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“And if we want to continue this relationship, talk of God is not going to be part of it. Are we clear?”

“Crystal.”

On the way home Corin tried to call Tori three times. She didn’t pick up and he didn’t leave a message.

Another relationship on the rocks. He was getting good at denting them. But he’d fix Tori and he once this chair thing settled down. The dust had to land sometime.

But he was afraid the particles would soon be stirred to their greatest height yet.

C
orin stood in the back of his store shelving a new shipment of lamps when the bell on the front door announced the arrival of the last person he ever excepted to spill a shadow across his oak floor.

“Hello?” a voice from the front called out.

A voice he’d heard forever.

“I like what you’ve done with the place.”

Was it him? Had to be.

Corin jogged to the front, skidded to a stop at the end of the aisle, scanned the front of the store, and his pulse spiked. There. Right inside the front door. It was Dominique Shasta Roscoe.

His brother had hated the name Dom or Dominique from the moment he could talk. At eight years old he held up a can of his favorite drink at a family picnic—black cherry Shasta pop—and announced from that moment on his name was Shasta.

Corin stared at his brother for what seemed like ten minutes.

“Surprised to see me, bro?” Shasta tilted his head back and to the side.

Shasta’s dark brown hair was shorter than he’d ever seen it. It was almost a buzz cut. And his face was thin. “Utterly.” Surprise, fear, excitement all rushed through Corin’s brain like a flash flood.

Shasta punched the throttle on his wheelchair with his chin and surged toward him, the electric wheelchair shuddering as he bumped over the uneven wood floor.

“I need to get that floor smoothed out.”

“Why? Do you get a lot of incapacitated customers?”

Corin didn’t know how to respond and said nothing.

Shasta stopped five feet away and stared at Corin. “I’m surprised I’m here too.” His gaze moved slowly around the store. “How is business?”

“It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’ll come back.”

Shasta nodded and the silence between them grew louder. Corin looked at his hands, then back to his brother. “I hope so.”

Another segment of silence.