The Chair (9 page)

Irritation flitted across her features. Mark thought about pointing it out, then decided to ignore it. Give her grace. Grace was always a good choice.

“Ten or fifteen minutes.”

“Which one?” Mark turned back to his computer. “Ten or fifteen?”

“Fifteen.”

“Perfect. Thanks.” He looked up and winked at her. “You’re awesome.”

She smiled and turned to go.

“Hey, I almost forgot.” Mark leaned back, hands cocked behind his head. “
Sports Illustrated’s
swimsuit issue should be hitting our mailbox in the next few days. I don’t need that garbage filling my brain.”

“True.”

“So I need you to make sure you pick up the mail for the rest of this week, and when it gets here, burn it or toss it, whatever.”

“A lot of men would take that mag—”

“I’m not a lot of men.” Mark picked up his remote, turned on the TV, flipped to ESPN, and smiled.

“I’m grateful.” She walked over to Mark and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll keep an eye out for it.”

“And burn it.”

“Don’t worry; you’ll never see it.”

“Thanks, gal pal.”

AT MIDNIGHT, MARK woke, slipped out of bed, and wandered into his study. He glanced at the shelves packed with books from the past five centuries, then wandered over to his black leather chair, sat, and flicked on the lamp sitting on the end table next to the chair. The warm light fell on the small book sitting next to the lamp illuminating its worn brown leather cover. Mark picked it up and ran his finger along its surface.

If this Corin Roscoe truly had The Chair, Mark’s prayers had finally been answered. All the clues he’d collected in the small journal would prove true.

He tried to rein in his hope but after a few minutes let his emotions run.

If it was real and if it truly had the power to heal? His life would never be the same.

Tomorrow. Ben would find Corin’s store tomorrow and start digging. And depending on what he found, Mark would make Corin Roscoe his new best friend.

He stood, went to his desk, woke his MacBook Pro from hibernation, and started surfing. Facebook was quiet. So was Twitter.

He pulled up
Sports Illustrated.com
and pretended he was interested in the predictions for that weekend’s games, pretended he didn’t care about the banner ad promoting the latest issue of the magazine about to arrive in millions of homes, pretended his mouse clicked on the ad by itself.

Mark glanced at the door to his office and beyond it. No lights. His wife and kids were long asleep.

Just a peek. Just a quick look; that’s all he needed. It was okay; it would be forgiven. He was only doing it to see what the men in his church would be fighting against for the next month or three. He needed to know the enemy so he could battle against it.

Instantly photos of stunningly beautiful women splashed onto his screen adorned in little more than inches of fabric, staring at him with eyes so provocative his pulse spiked.

He clicked through the pictures like popcorn popping. Just a glance. Nothing more. No harm, no foul, no guilt.

It wasn’t wrong. It was just like going to any beach in the world and stopping for a moment to admire what God had created. Just a slice of the Creator’s beauty on display to be admired.

Stop.

The thought rose from his heart into his mind like lightning.

Why?

It was nothing he wouldn’t see on any of the exotic trips he and his wife would take in the next year. Nothing thousands, millions of men weren’t looking at right now on computer screens across the globe.

What if that were your daughter? Would you want men slobbering over her like you’re slobbering over these women?

He wasn’t slobbering.

What if they were daughters of the men you supposedly lead?

The thought ripped through his mind and stabbed at his heart.

But they weren’t his daughter. He thanked God he had sons.

After fifteen minutes he stopped fooling himself, slammed his laptop closed, swore, and slumped back in his chair. It was the last time he’d do it. Never again. Never. But he didn’t believe the lie.

Mark rubbed his face with both hands and rested his elbows on his desk and let out a soft moan. When he sat up again, his wife stood in the door of his den and his heart shifted into double-time. How long had she been there?

“Are you all right?”

Did she know? She couldn’t. There was no reflection for her to see what he’d been looking at, but maybe his face had already betrayed him. “Wow, you startled me.”

“Sorry, I woke up and you weren’t in bed. Are you okay?”

“Fine, just trying to figure out what I’m preaching on this Sunday.” Mark stretched his neck to the right and then the left. “And I’m a little tense.”

“What’s on your heart?”

“What?”

“On your heart, what are you hearing from God?”

Hearing? That he hated himself for not being stronger; hated himself for failing his kids, his wife, his church; hated the image of who people thought he was.

“Lots.”

“Then preach on that.”

Right. And lose his church. “Okay. I’ll be back to bed soon, sweetie.”

His wife shuffled away, undoubtably with an angelic smile on her face.

She was pure, a good heart, believed in him, even though he didn’t believe in himself.

He needed healing. Deep. They said admitting it was the first step.

And the chair might be the second.

A
s the sun crested a ridge to the east, Corin stood with A. C. Avena at the top of a long winding road, adrenaline pumping through his body. This would be a rush of nitro proportions. A great way to start a Tuesday morning.

“Are you sure about this run?” A. C. looked at him with the crooked smile that drove girls nuts when they were in high school.

“Shasta would have done this with me in half a nanosecond.”

“Only after you talked him into it.” A. C. pulled on his leather luging gloves and stared at Corin. “I heard you got a little crazy up near Pikes Peak last weekend.”

Corin grinned. “Wish you could have been there and done the jump with us. It was cool.”

“I heard you almost got yourself killed.”

“Not true.”

“Uh-huh.”

They’d driven the length of the road—two and a half miles—three times, studying the curves and the slope.

“Perfect hill.” Corin rubbed his hands on his thick leather pants. “Let’s shoot it from the top with a no-brakes pact.” He held out his forefinger toward A. C. and bent it in.

“Are you crazy?” A. C. took a step back.

“Yes.”

“No brakes, no do.”

“Why not? I thought we wanted to get a serious adrenaline rush.”

“There’s no way you can hold the corner on that final turn.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I read about this road. Five guys have tried it and each one has ended up with an asphalt beard.” A. C. frowned and grinned at the same time. “We both read the same pieces on this run. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”

“So the sixth time should be the charm, right?”

“You think you’re Superman, don’t you? Nothing can touch you; nothing can take you out.”

Corin frowned. “No I don’t.”

“Someday kryptonite is going to spring out of nowhere and kill you.”

“I can make it.”

“You don’t want to do this without braking.”

“Yeah I do.” Corin locked his fingers together and squeezed till his hands hurt. “I have to.”

“Why do you always push the envelope so far it tears?”

He cocked his head. “I might have stretched it a few times, but it’s never torn.”

“Not yet.” A. C. picked up his street luge and spun the wheels. “This shoot has paper shredder written all over it. Sometimes I wonder if you’ve got some kind of weird desire to hurt yourself.”

“I don’t care if I get hurt.” Corin stared at the shoot. “It would be good for me.”

“I’m not tracking with you here, Cor. How does getting hurt do anyone any good?”

Corin didn’t answer. He set his board on the ground and sat on it, then snugged up the strap on his helmet and flipped his visor down. “You coming?”

AS CORIN TORE through the final corner, the one A. C. said would make him Mr. Hamburger Face, Corin reached for the brake, his fingers trembling. No. Can’t do it. He didn’t deserve the chance to be safe.

He leaned to the left, the centrifugal force of rocketing down the road at seventy miles an hour trying to fling him off the edge of the road to his right.

C’mon, stay with it! Lean in!

His wheels skidded across the pavement as he leaned harder to left. Too close. The edge of the road just feet away a moment ago was now just inches.

Rolling over the edge at seventy miles an hour. Not good. Not healthy.

Three more seconds.
Hang on.
No brakes, no brakes.

An instant later he was through the turn and streaked straight down the road, relief flooding his mind and body.

Two minutes later A. C. skidded to a stop beside him.

Corin whipped off his helmet and grinned at his friend.

“You did it, didn’t you?”

He nodded, still grinning like a kid at his first pro baseball game.

“You’re insane, you know that?”

Corin nodded a second time. “It’s my calling.”

“What are you going to do when a call comes that you can’t answer?”

Corin swung his helmet up to his shoulder, bent to grab his sled, and admitted a small piece deep in his heart hoped that call would arrive soon.

O
n Wednesday morning Corin made coffee and plopped onto his couch ready to play artifact detective. He pulled up Google and punched in “chair of Christ” and in .24 seconds got nothing. Nothing on Bing or AltaVista either. “Chair made by Jesus” didn’t bring any hits either. Jesus made furniture, didn’t He? Tables, plows, benches, chairs. Isn’t that what carpenters back then did? He had no idea.

Then he stumbled across an article talking about a saint named Justin Martyr who lived in Galilee during the second century. Martyr said it was still common during his lifetime to see farmers using “plows made by the carpenter Jesus of Nazareth” into the second century.

Good. This was promising.

If a plow being battered daily by dirt and weather could last one hundred-plus years, why couldn’t a well-cared for chair last till today?

When he typed in “religious artifacts” things got even more interesting.

He clicked on a link that said
Sudarium of Oviedo
and started reading.

Fascinating.

The Sudarium was a blood-stained cloth thirty-two-by-twenty inches that Jesus’s head was supposedly wrapped in after He died. And tests on blood from the cloth confirmed a common blood type among Middle Eastern people but rare among medieval Europeans.

Pollen residue showed strong evidence the cloth was at one point in the Palestine area.

Corin read further. Nothing about the Sudarium healing anyone.

Next was a link to the
Image of Edessa,
a picture of Christ allegedly sent by Jesus Himself to King Abgar V of Edessa to cure him of leprosy, with a letter declining an invitation to visit the king.

Now he was getting somewhere.

But as he read on, it was clear rampant speculation far outweighed the facts.

Corin kept clicking.

According to legend The Veil of Veronica was used to wipe the sweat from Jesus’s brow as He carried the cross and rests in Saint Peter’s Basilica.

He skimmed the research.

Nothing about it having healing powers.

He clicked past the
Holy Grail
. Indiana and Henry Jones had taught him all about that one. But at least that legend supported the idea Christ objects could have healing powers. No, actually, it didn’t. That was a movie and as he read further, it confirmed his feeling. There was less evidence for the existence of a real chalice than for the Sudarium, Image of Edessa, or the Veil.

He skimmed over articles on pieces of the cross, nails from the cross, the Coat of Christ, and the Crown of Thorns.