A Gift from the Past Read Free Page A

from next door, I’m notcoming out,” Sarge’s voice rang out, the strength in the tone soothing Joshua’s momentary alarm. Claire winced and offered a look of apology at Wilma.
    â€œIt’s not me. I’m leaving, you old coot,” she yelled down the hallway. She smiled at Claire and Joshua, then headed toward the door. “Let me know if you need me again, dear. You know where to find me.”
    As she went out the front door, Joshua heard a bump, a resounding curse, then a strange whirring noise. He looked down the hallway, shock rocking him as he saw the frail, white-haired man in a motorized wheelchair making his way slowly down the hall.
    Sarge. He appeared to have aged fifty years in the last five. He stopped short of the living room and turned his head from side to side. “Claire?”
    It was at that moment Joshua realized that Sarge was not only thin and frail, but blind, as well. He shot a quick glance at Claire, wanting to know what had happened to the vital, strong man Joshua had loved like a father. But of course, she couldn’t answer his unspoken questions. Not here…not now.
    â€œHello, Sarge,” Joshua said.
    The old man’s face lit with obvious pleasure and he gasped in surprise. “Well, I’ll be damned. Come closer, Joshua boy, so I can smell the rascal and know it’s really you.”
    Joshua laughed and walked over to Sarge’s chair, then leaned down and gave the old man a hug, his heart aching as he felt Sarge’s thinness. He didn’t miss the fact that Sarge’s arms didn’t raise to return the hug.
    â€œAh, don’t smell no rascal, only smell fancy cologne and grown-up man.”
    Joshua laughed again. “There’s a little rascal left,” he replied.
    â€œCookie, put some coffee on, me and the boy got some catching up to do. Joshua, wheel me into the kitchen. They got me this damned fool chair with a motor, but it just makes me run into things at a faster speed.”
    Joshua set the tin box they’d dug up on the coffee table, then moved behind the chair and pushed Sarge toward the kitchen. Claire walked in front of him and he knew by the straight set of her shoulders that she didn’t intend to be a welcoming hostess.
    The kitchen was just as Joshua remembered it, a large airy space with floor-to-ceiling windows that faced the east. Many a morning he and Sarge had drunk coffee while morning light filtered in through the windows.
    There was no chair in the place at the table where Sarge had always sat, and it was here that Joshua pushed him up against the table.
    Joshua took the chair across from Sarge as Claire busied herself making a pot of coffee. Samuel Cook, ‘Sarge’ as he had been known for as long as Joshua could remember, had been a robust, strong man who had looked and acted half his age when Joshua had left Mayfield.
    Regret swept through him as he gazed at what Sarge had become. He wasn’t sure what had put the old man in the wheelchair and stolen his sight, but he felt he never should have stayed away for so long.
    â€œYou still making a killing with those games of yours?” Sarge asked.
    â€œYeah, business is booming and the games are doing better than I ever dreamed.” Joshua’s gaze slid to Claire, who had her back to them. Her long hair rippled down to the center of her back, sparked by the sunshine dancing in through the windows.
    â€œWho’d have thought it, that a grown man could spend his time playing games and make a fortune.” Sarge shook his head. “In my day, kids didn’t have Play Stations and Nintendos to pass the time.”
    â€œIt’s a different generation, Sarge,” Joshua replied. It was still hard for Joshua to believe that he’d managed to parlay the fantasy stories he’d made up to sustain himself through a tough childhood into a financial empire of sorts.
    Just a month earlier, Business magazine had done an