Playing with Fire by Melody Carlson

Author:Melody Carlson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307561770
Publisher: The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group
Published: 2007-11-01T20:00:00+00:00

I‘m surprised you made it up this morning,” Mom tells I Zach as we load things into the back of her car. Steven decided we should take her car today since his is too small for four people and ski stuff. Plus her Volvo already has a ski rack. My dad put it on about a year before he died. No one has even considered taking it off. It makes me sad to look at it. I try not to think that it should be my dad adjusting it right now. It should be his hands fastening the skis and poles securely. How much different would our lives be if that were the case? Yet I know there's no going back. And I know that God is bigger than all this. Somehow He must be able to sort this out too.

I'm being quiet as I sit in the backseat of the car, but Mom and Steven make up for it as they discuss the latest news—a stock-market slump that is impacting his job and budget cuts at her work, which mean more employee layoffs.

“I think they're trying to see who can win the pity prize today,” Zach whispers to me, then laughs.

I nod and attempt a lame-sounding laugh. “Yeah. Wanna compete with them?”

He shrugs. “Well, I'm currently broke, jobless’, fresh out of rehab with absolutely no direction for my life. Some people think I'm a loser. How's that for starters?”

“What are you saying back there?” Mom turns around from the passenger seat and stares at us. (She asked Steven to drive since she doesn't like driving on snow.)

“We thought you were competing for the best sob stories,” Zach explains. “I'm sure you'd all agree that I can win that one.”

“Oh, Zach.” Mom shakes her head. “If you'd only just try harder, I'm sure you could find work.”

“Yeah, right,” he says. “I mean, you two are up there complaining about the economy and job cuts, and now you act like getting a job is a piece of cake.”

“I didn't say it was a piece of cake.” She frowns. “I simply said you need to try harder.”

“Sometimes there are people, especially job interviewers, who can read you, Zach,” says Steven. “They can tell if you feel negatively about yourself. They catch those vibes and end up feeling the same way.”

Zach gets a very dark look on his face, and I'm worried he's going to say something mean. We're only thirty minutes from home, not even halfway there yet, and this trip could go totally sideways. But Zach keeps his mouth shut. He just folds his arms across his chest and turns and looks out the side window. Still, I can tell he's ticked.

“I'm not telling you what to do, man,” Steven says in a semiapologetic tone. He must suspect that Zach's not exactly swallowing this “fatherly” advice. “But sometimes we need to examine the bigger picture and learn from our mistakes, you know?”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Okay, I know it's time for an intervention or

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