If only we could hear from Adler too. Nothing would make us happier than to see our family whole again. When that day comes, you three boys will see Mama and me running to you down the road, and you’ll smell the fatted calf on the barbecue.

“Great news,” Clay said from between gritted teeth. “Just great.”

He stuffed the letter inside his Parsons field jacket and shoved himself to standing.

Like Adler, Wyatt hadn’t suffered one whit, and Clay marched along the cliff. A naval officer, was he? Walking around in a smart navy blue uniform, probably in some swanky headquarters, far from cliffs and foxholes and machine-gun bullets.

“Swell.” Clay kicked at a tuft of grass. Wyatt felt bad? Good. He ought to.

He planned to pay Clay back? Sure, he did. Even if he did, fat lot of good it’d do Clay with only weeks to live.

And Daddy and Mama wanted to throw a party for Wyatt and Adler, just like for the Prodigal Son who wasted his inheritance on “riotous living.”

Except Wyatt had wasted Clay’s money, not his own. And Adler did his “riotous living” with Clay’s girlfriend.

Did Daddy expect Clay to leap for joy?

He grabbed a rock and hurled it off the cliff like a hand grenade.

What had Daddy meant about running to the three of them? Clay hadn’t run away. He’d served at Paxton Trucking while Wyatt and Adler shirked their responsibilities and left Clay to do their work. He’d hated that job, but never once had he failed his father.

Another rock, and Clay sent it flying. “Daddy never threw a barbecue for me.”

His own words smacked him in the chest and buckled his legs.

He fell to his knees, the cool wind drying his widened eyes, the truth wringing out his soul. “Oh no. I’m the elder brother.”

Clay might be the youngest Paxton boy, but in his heart he was the Prodigal’s elder brother.

He reached into his breast pocket and whisked out the tiny soldier’s Bible with its leather cover and the brass plate on the front that read “May the Lord be with you.”

Where was that parable again? The gospel of Luke, chapter 15.

He knew the story backward, forward, and upside down, and he already knew Jesus was talking to him. Most people thought the parable was spoken to lost sinners, letting them know the Father wanted to welcome them home. And sure, the parable did say that.

The first three verses stung, but he read them out loud, needing to hear them. “‘Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. And he spake this parable unto them.’”

Unto the Pharisees. Not unto the sinners, and Clay’s head sagged back.