Chasing the Wind Read Online Free PDF

like chains. Jude closed his eyes, remembering the lottery for the draft. In the beginning, planted in front of the television, waiting for the numbers to be drawn, they had been struck dumb with helplessness by the randomness of it all. If your number was pulled, you were shipped out to those jungles. He'd been one of the lucky ones.
    Then came the news of American troops withdrawing from Southeast Asia. The images were powerful, imprinted forever on the minds of his generation. Worse was the memory of the many left behind—numerous of America's own, the dead and captured South Vietnamese who had fought alongside them, and the most vulnerable, the elderly and the children of a war-torn land. The shadow children, Amalise had called them, orphans struggling to survive in the burning villages of Vietnam and Cambodia. Cambodia had simply vanished under a black veil in 1975 after the Khmer Rouge moved in. The killing fields, they were calling them now. Amalise had never been able to forget.
    She sat silent beside him now in Franky & Johnny's, waiting for some kind of response. He sipped his iced tea. It was the futility that had gotten her down the most back then, he thought, problems that were too big to solve, even for a girl who'd grown up thinking she could fix anything given enough effort. Amalise could do nothing but watch. That was the blessing and curse of nightly television news.
    He remembered one Thanksgiving in Marianus—1974, he thought it was. They'd had a long day, a good meal followed by an afternoon of fishing together. The Judge had gone to bed, and Amalise had disappeared to her room to study, so he'd thought. He'd shooed Amalise's mother, Maraine, off to bed. He could see how tired she was. He told her he'd clean up the kitchen before going home. Maraine had given him a grateful look with those eyes of hers, so like Amalise, and then she'd kissed his cheek and patted his shoulder and disappeared.
    But when he finished the dishes, turned out the kitchen light, and headed for the door, he'd halted as he entered the darkened living room lit only by the flickering glow of the television set. Amalise was curled up in the cushioned armchair the Judge claimed as his own, alone, eyes riveted to the pictures on the silent screen, the orphaned children of the wars on the other side of the world, children searching the midday sky in eerie silence for the Air America planes to come and leave pallets of food on the airstrip.
    He'd moved toward her and then halted when he realized that she was weeping. Her lips were moving. She was praying for those children in the shadows of the war, he realized. As she swiped tears from her cheeks with the heel of her hand, he'd backed out of the private moment before she saw him. He left through the back door.
    Jude looked at her now. She was searching for meaning and purpose, wanting to get things right this time. But with all that had happened in the past two years . . . well, it was no wonder she felt a little down.
    So he sat up straight while he formed the words she was waiting for, hands clasped before him, conscious that she watched him carefully, as she'd always done. He gave her a reflective look. "You've had a hard time the last few years, chère, between Phillip and everything else. But it's time to let old problems go, to put them in God's hands." He slid his own hands over the table so that their fingertips met.
    She nodded but didn't say anything.
    "Well, here's my advice for what it's worth." He paused. "Take each day as it comes. Use the mind God gave you, keep the faith, and you'll make right decisions." He shrugged. "If there's more . . . if you're meant for a particular purpose, you'll know it when you see it." He gave her a long look.
    She slid her hands back into her lap. "All right."
    Fighting the urge to pull her into his arms and comfort her, he let out a short laugh. "Prioritize," he said. "You've always been good at that."
    A smile broke through. Seconds