Tidings of Joy. Margaret Daley

shot to his feet. “That’s okay. I’ll come over tomorrow after church and see what I can do.”

      “That’s great. See, Crystal, how easy the problem can be fixed? From what Darcy says, Sean can do anything with a computer.”

      “Yeah, Mom,” her daughter mumbled with her head down, her hands twisting together in her lap. “This may not be that easy to take care of.”

      The sound of his feet pounding against the pavement lured him into a rhythmic trance as Chance ran down Berryhill Road, heading toward his temporary home. Sweat drenched his white T-shirt and face. He almost went past the one-story older house with a detached garage and apartment above it. He jogged a few yards beyond, slowed and circled back around.

      Freedom, as he hadn’t experienced in years, called to him. He wanted to keep going, but his body screamed with exhaustion, not used to this form of exercise—not for the two years he’d spent incarcerated.

      He came to a stop at the end of the driveway and bent over, drawing in lungfuls of rich oxygen, the air scented with the smells of the clean outdoors, nothing stale and musty about it. The rich colors that surrounded him no longer threw him.

      He had dreamed for so long about running with the wind cooling his skin and the sun beating down to warm his chilled body that he could hardly believe he was finally doing it. He’d taken so much for granted before—not any more, not ever again. He cherished each fresh breath of freedom, each precious day he could walk out of a place unhindered, each time he could close his eyes and not worry about whether he would wake up the next morning or not. His life began the day he’d walked out of prison.

      Was his new job thrusting him back into a world he didn’t want to be in? He needed a job and had been glad for a reference from Samuel, but the more he thought about the duties Nick wanted his assistant to do the more he felt as though he was being thrust back into the corporate life he’d wanted to avoid, that very life that had required hours and hours of overtime. If he had been with his wife and daughter when they had come home to find a stranger in their house, then maybe they would be alive today.

      Still he needed the job. He would just have to take it one day at a time and not let his job consume his whole life. Not ever again.

      With his heartbeat slowing, he strode toward the stairs that led to his apartment. A quick look toward the left halted his progress. Crystal sat on the deck, drawing something on a pad. Suddenly she threw down her pencil, tore off the sheet and crunched it into a ball. She tossed it into the yard where several other similar papers lay crumpled.

      The frustration and anger that marked the teenager’s face drew him toward her. If his daughter were alive, he would want to be there for her. That was impossible, of course, but he could help Tom’s daughter.

      “Nothing working out?” Chance gestured toward the wadded-up papers in the grass.

      Crystal took the pencil her service dog had retrieved for her and looked up at him. “What’s the use? I’m not any good anyway.”

      He descended the two steps to the yard and smoothed out one of the sheets. He whistled. “If this isn’t good, then I hate to think what you consider bad. Who is this?” He came back to sit in the lounge chair next to her.

      “Just a guy. No one important.”

      “Are all those attempts of him?”

      Crystal nodded, peering away.

      “Do you always waste your time drawing someone who isn’t important to you?”

      She sighed, then shook her head. “He doesn’t know I’m alive.”

      The anguish that wrenched her voice did the same to him. He cleared his throat and asked, “How do you know?”

      “I just do. I might as well be dead for all he cares.”

      The pain her words produced stole his breath. “I’m sorry. I…” Words failed him.