The Passenger by Jacqueline Druga (the giving tree read aloud TXT) 📗

can’t just select a song because it’s good, you have to pick the music to match the message. Like this coming Sunday it will be about giving it to God. I try to touch that message at least once a year; people tend to forget.”

“I see.” Jonas nodded. “You pick songs that deal with handing it over. Got it.”

“Yes, and the following week I have a ‘God is First’ theme.”

“You can do like a ‘He not Me’ theme and do all songs that start with He, because there are a ton of them.”

Pastor Rick smiled. “Chip, that’s really clever. Very clever.”

“Have you ever picked your sermon and message based on a song you heard?’

“No.”

“Why?”

“I … I don’t know, that’s not how it works.”

“Christian music is meant to inspire and move, at least that’s what Haley told me,” Jonas said. “Why don’t you have it one day inspire and move you to a message?”

“I … I don’t know. We’ll see. Right now. Dinner. I ran two towns over to get that rotisserie chicken from Costco and you can only reheat it once before it dries out. Haley, are you staying?”

“Um …” she stammered in her answer. “You know what? Yes. I will stay. It will save me from having to cook for myself. Then I have to go. It’s a long day tomorrow. I have to work, then back here. We have deliveries, teen group, evening rehearsal, and I have to try to get the cemetery visits in, and by myself it will take a while.”

Pastor Rick said, “I can do the cemetery thing.”

“No, Daddy you can’t,” she said. “You have hospital visits in Fremont.”

“I can help,” Jonas said, as he stood from behind the desk. “With whatever you need. I mean, I work here, right.”

Pastor Rick nodded. “Yes, you can. Right now that chicken is calling us and since I’ll be in Fremont tomorrow, I’ll grab those frozen raviolis from Walmart you like so much, Haley.”

Haley just gave a closed mouth smile as her father walked out of the office. “Yum.”

“It’s not that bad,” Jonas said.

“Oh, what do you know, you can’t remember if you ever had a fast food burger.”

“True. What’s this cemetery thing?”

“We go to the local cemetery, there’s about six people who went to our church that passed that don’t have family, so we go once a week and try to make the graves look nice. And yes, you volunteered for that.”

“That uh … sounds interesting.”

“Not as interesting as those ravioli you have to eat tomorrow.” Haley walked toward the door. “Oh, hey, put that on pause so you remember where you left off.”

He thought at first that she was making a memory joke about forgetting where he left off, then he realized she was being serious about the tracks he was listening to. He returned to the desk, leaned down, grabbed the mouse and as he clicked it, he saw the title of the song. ‘I got you’

Jonas froze when he read those words. They sent something through him, the title to the song were the words spoken and only memory of that night.

More than anything he wanted to immediately listen to that song, but he knew he had chicken waiting for him and the song would still be there later.

◆◆◆

It wasn’t the song that did it to him, it was the title. How many times over the last week and a half since the accident, did he see that face and hear that voice.

“I got you.”

In fact, Jonas never really listened to the song. He didn’t press play at all. After dinner and after Haley left to go home and Pastor Rick went to his ping pong league, Jonas retreated to the office to listen.

He sat down, put on the headphones, reached for the mouse and his eyes just stayed on those words.

That was when it happened.

Flashes of memories, not feelings like he had been getting, but memories. He knew they were memories. Pieces of a puzzle, snippets. It was like watching a trailer to a movie, no substance, no explanation and possibly misleading.

He couldn’t count on them being in the order they had happened because he could see his own bloody hand reaching out from that broken windshield.

“I got you,” David’s face appeared. “I’m here.”

Then he was back in a moving car, looking at David in the passenger seat.

“Do you think you could have turned the other cheek?” David said.

“I did,” His own voice spoke in the memory. “He punched it.”

Punched? Who? Who punched him?

“Who are you?”

“David.”

“What do you want?”

David’s face zoomed in close in that memory. “I thought I’d take this ride with you.”

Then the memory went blurry, it was almost hard to decipher what he was seeing. But he remembered, he heard David’s voice.

“Denying it isn’t the answer. Admitting the truth is the first step to righting a wrong and to setting you on a new path.”

“Deer.”

Crash.

“I got you.”

Done.

Jonas flung off the headset and jumped from his seat.

He was suddenly flooded with memories of this stranger, the passenger in his car. A man who spoke with wisdom.

A man who told him “I thought I’d take this ride with you.”

That short but powerful series of memories of the crash frightened Jonas some, and he knew exactly who he needed to talk to.

He walked briskly three blocks down and two streets over. It wasn’t late. The sun was just starting to set. In that phase where once it went down it was dark in the snap of a finger. Jonas was certain she wasn’t sleeping, and he could see the porch light was already on when he approached.

Old Joe was sitting on the porch in one of those nice, padded porch chairs. He was eating watermelon and just staring out, until he caught sight of Jonas headed his way.

Old Joe lifted his hand and waved as Jonas approached the porch.

“Hey there, what brings you over?”

“Mr. Baker is Maw-Maw here?” Jonas stood, one foot on the first step.

He set his plate on the table next