A Step of Faith (4 page)

“Arrogant?” I asked.

Dr. Kelson grinned. “No, not that. He’s just quirky. Don’t worry about it.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” I said.

“No problem. Do you have any questions?”

I shook my head. No one else spoke.

“All right, then have a safe flight home. Good luck, Mr. Christoffersen. I hope you’re back on the road soon.”

“Thank you,” I said. “So do I.”

“Let’s just get you better,” my father said. “We can worry about this walking jazz later.”

CHAPTER

Four

I’ve never before realized that it’s a privilege to be allowed to make up for the hurt we’ve done in our lives. This is most evident to me now that I have broken a heart and not been allowed to pick up the pieces.

Alan Christoffersen’s diary

A half hour later I checked out of the hospital. Nicole’s flight to Spokane was scheduled to leave three hours after our flight to Los Angeles, so we said goodbye in the hospital lobby and she went back to her hotel while my father and I took a taxi to the airport.

The St. Louis airport has notoriously slow security and I had another bout of nausea as I was going through the security line. I threw up on the floor outside the security stanchions, which created no small stir.

My father helped relieve some of my embarrassment by loudly announcing, “He has a brain tumor,” which had the remarkable effect of turning everyone instantly sympathetic. More than a dozen people wished me well.

After we had boarded the plane and settled into our seats, I took the airsickness bag from the pouch in front of me and opened it on my lap.

Even with everything I had to think about, Falene’s abrupt departure weighed heaviest on my mind. Once we were in the air, I asked my father, “Did Falene say anything before she left?”

My father reached into his carry-on bag and brought out an envelope. “She asked me to give you this. I wanted to wait until we were alone.”

I extracted from the envelope an ivory-colored card embossed with an iridescent foil seashell. Inside the card was a folded square of papers. My name was written on it in Falene’s handwriting. I unfolded the pages and began to read.

My dear Alan,

Sometimes a girl can be pretty deaf to the things she doesn’t want to hear. I should have heard your answer in your silence. I’ve asked you twice if I could be there when you arrived in Key West and you never answered me. I should have known that was my answer. If you had wanted me there, you would have answered with a loud “yes.” Forgive me for being so obtuse (I learned that word from you). But there’s a good reason I ignored the obvious. The truth was too painful. You see, I love you. I’m sorry that you had to learn it here, so far from me. I looked forward to the day when I could say it to your face. But I now know that day will never come.

I love you. I know this. I really, truly, deeply love you. I first realized that I had fallen in love with you about two months after I started working at the agency.

Of course, I wasn’t alone. I think all the women at your agency had a crush on you. Why wouldn’t they? You were handsome and funny and smart, but most of all, you had a good heart. Truthfully, you seemed too good to be true. You were also loyal to your wife, which made you even more desirable.

Up until I met you, I thought all men were users and abusers. Then you had to come along and ruin my perfect misandry. You are everything a man should be. Strong but gentle, smart but kind, serious but fun, with a great sense of humor. In my heart I fantasized about a world where you and I could be together. How happy I would be to call you mine!!

I know this will sound silly and juvenile, like a schoolgirl crush, but I realized that your name is in my name. You are the AL in FALENE. (As you can see, I’ve spent
way
too much time fantasizing about you!) But that’s all it was. Fantasy.

When McKale died, I was filled with horrible sadness and concern for you. I was afraid that you might hurt yourself. Seeing the pain you felt made my love and respect for you grow even more. Please forgive me, but the afternoon of the funeral, when I brought you home, I believed, or hoped, for the first time, that someday you might be mine. I didn’t feel worthy of you, but I thought that you, being who you are, might accept me.

When you told me you were going to walk away from Seattle, I was heartbroken. I was so glad that you asked me to help you, giving me a way to stay in your life. Then, when you disappeared in Spokane, I was terrified. I didn’t sleep for days. I spent nearly a hundred hours hunting you down. I’m not telling you this so you’ll thank me; I just want you to finally know the truth about the depth of my feelings.

But, like I said, a girl can be pretty deaf sometimes. I wanted to hear you say that you loved me and cared about me as more than just a friend. Yesterday, when I saw how close you are to beautiful Nicole, my heart broke. I realized that I had already lost my one chance of being yours. And there I was with nothing to offer. Not even my apartment in Seattle to go to anymore.

I didn’t tell you, but I took the job in New York. I needed to get out of Seattle. I failed to save my brother. I failed to save your agency. I failed to make you love me. I’ve failed at everything I’ve hoped for.

I’m sorry I didn’t finish the task you gave me. I gave all your banking information to your father. He’ll do a better job than I could anyway. I’m so sorry to not be at your side in your time of need, but it is now obvious to me that you don’t need me. I’m just noise in the concert of your life. And this time I need to be selfish. I have to be. The risk to my heart is too great. They say that the depth of love is revealed in its departure. How true that is. I’m afraid that I’m just learning how deep my love is for you, and it’s more than I can stand. I love you too much to just be a bystander in your life.

Well, I guess I’ve finally burned the bridge. I couldn’t help myself. Please forgive me for being so needy. Please think of me fondly and now and then remember your starry-eyed assistant who loves you more than anything or anyone else in this world.

I know you will reach Key West. I know you’ll make it and that you’ll be okay. That’s all I need. It’s not all I want, but it’s all I need——to know that you are okay and happy. Damn, I really love you.

Be safe, my dear friend. With all my love,

Falene

I put the letter down, mechanically folding the pages back together. Falene was right. The depth of love is revealed in its departure, because my heart ached.
How could I have taken her so much for granted?
I had been so obsessed with my pain that I had been oblivious to hers. She had given me her heart and I had handled it carelessly. I had thrown away love.

CHAPTER

Five

Roses can grow in slums just as weeds can grow around mansions.

Alan Christoffersen’s diary

Even though we had met in Seattle, Falene and I were both raised in California. Same state, but different worlds. While I was raised in a relatively prosperous suburb of Pasadena, home of the Rose Bowl, Caltech, and Fuller Theological Seminary, Falene was born and raised north of me in Stockton, California, a city ranking among California’s top ten in crime and listed as number two in
Forbes
magazine’s list of America’s Most Miserable Cities.

Her home life was as broken as the city. Not that it was apparent from knowing her. The Falene I first met was kind and beautiful, but guarded. It took many months before she revealed any of what lay behind her psychological curtain.

Falene knew little about her father other than that the last time she saw him was right before her brother was born and that he was of Greek descent, something she was reminded of every time she looked in the mirror. Her mother was an alcoholic. Falene’s brother, Deron, was five years younger than her and her only sibling, though, in many respects, he was more like Falene’s child, as she had been his primary caregiver for most of his childhood. By the age of nine she was collecting shopping carts at a nearby Safeway for a dime apiece, to help buy food. It
was all she could do to keep child welfare from splitting up her family.

How two people raised in the same environment can turn out so differently, I’ll never understand. According to Falene, Deron had started drinking by the age of ten, smoking pot by eleven and joined a Stockton street gang by thirteen, when he began both using and selling harder drugs.

Falene’s mother passed away from alcohol poisoning when Falene was eighteen. Two days after the funeral, Falene packed what she could in the back of her mother’s Dodge Dart, forced Deron into the passenger seat of the car, and didn’t stop driving until eight hundred miles later when they reached the outskirts of Seattle.

Falene had chosen Seattle because she had a former boyfriend who had moved there the year before, and even though he was ten years older than her and frequently abusive, he had offered Falene a place to stay while they made a new start.

Falene was always a little vague (and embarrassed) when she talked about her early days in Seattle, though once, during a difficult time, she told me that before she started working as a model, she had worked three months at a strip club to make enough money to take care of Deron. It was a humiliating secret, and she was certain I would look down on her, but the truth is I admired her for sacrificing so much to take care of her brother.

Thankfully, Falene was one blessing that Kyle couldn’t take away from me. Even though it was he who had discovered her on a model shoot and offered her the job, she had a battle-earned instinct about men and from the beginning never trusted him.

Of necessity, Falene was pretty hard in those early
days, and I watched her change—first her wardrobe and vocabulary, then her demeanor. She became soft and polished, shedding the skin of her past with the graceful ease of a woman coming to her true self. She was just naturally good. She began studying yoga and the Bible and began asking me questions about God, which I could never answer.

Falene had been the one to tell me that McKale had been in an accident. She was also the only one on my staff who had stood up to Kyle as he stole my agency, and she’d tried to warn me about his treachery. She had watched over me and taken me home the afternoon of McKale’s funeral when I was in emotional shambles. She had personally overseen the selling of all of my things and put the money in an account to fund my walk. She had always been there, asking for nothing in return. Besides my father, she was the only person I knew I could trust my life to. And when you find someone in your life like that, you’re a fool to let them go.

Apparently, I was a fool.

CHAPTER

Six

I’ve returned to my childhood home. Little has changed, including my father. I don’t mean this derogatively. In a tumultuous sea a small anchor goes a long way.

Alan Christoffersen’s diary

Our flight to LAX was broken up by a layover in Cincinnati. The moment my father and I exited the jetway, I took out my phone and dialed Falene’s number. It rang once, followed by a phone service message.

We’re sorry, the number you have dialed is no longer in service
.

After we’d sat down, my father said, “Falene?”

“She’s disconnected her phone. I have no idea where to find her.” I looked at my father. “She didn’t leave you any contact information?”

“No. Don’t you know where she lives?”

“Not anymore. She moved to New York City.”

“How hard could it be to find her there?”

I looked at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah.” After a moment he said, “I’m surprised that you didn’t see it.”

I glanced up at him. “See what?”

“That she loves you.”

“I wasn’t looking,” I said.

My father looked at me thoughtfully. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. I don’t know if you remember, but for
Grandpa’s seventieth birthday he went back to Utah Beach to see where he had fought on D-Day. Do you know what struck him as most peculiar about the experience? He said, ‘I never noticed how beautiful the beach was. I guess a million bullets will change your perspective.’ ”

“No one’s firing bullets at me,” I said.

“Don’t kid yourself, you’ve had your own war. With casualties.”

I shook my head. “I just can’t even think about replacing McKale.”

“No, no one can replace McKale. And trying to do so would only bring misery. There’s only one reason for remarrying.” He held up his index finger. “Just one.”

“Love?” I said.

“Joy. You marry because it enhances joy.”

I thought over his words. “I just feel so selfish. I’ve been so consumed with my pain that I . . .”

My father put his hand on my knee. “Cut yourself some slack, son. You’re entitled.”

“To what? Self-pity?”

“No,” he said firmly. “To your grief. Grief isn’t a luxury, it’s an appropriate response to loss. You don’t just will it away. If you allow it to run its course, it will fade with time, but if you ignore it or pretend it doesn’t exist, it only gets worse.”

I breathed out slowly. “I guess so.”

“May I give you some advice?”

“Sure.”

“Let it settle. You don’t know if Falene will change her mind and come back. And we still don’t know how bad this tumor is. Let’s focus on one problem at a time.”