Rooms: A Novel (20 page)

CHAPTER 30

The phone rang four times on the other end of the line Saturday morning, and Micah readied himself to leave a message on Chris’s voice mail. But on the fifth came an answer. “Hello, Chris here.” The voice was relaxed, warm, and just a notch above deep.

It put him at ease immediately. “Hi, Mr. Hale. My name is Micah Taylor, and I think we have a mutual friend. My great-uncle was Archie Taylor.”

“Hello, Micah. It’s wonderful to hear your voice.” Chris didn’t sound surprised.

“You expected my call?”

“Well, I can’t say I was expecting it. But I hoped you would call one day.”

“You knew Archie.”

“Ah yes, knew him well. And he knew me. One of the best friends I ever had, without a doubt. He died not long before my wife did. Whew, was that a year. By far the toughest one of my life.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was more than twelve years ago.” Chris chuckled. “And odds are I’ll be joining them soon. Some days I still miss Archie terribly. Sarah even more so.”

“Your wife’s name was Sarah?” Micah choked the words out.

“Yes, is that unusual?”

“No, it’s just that I . . . Mr. Hale, could we meet?”

“I’d enjoy that. As long as you can refrain from calling me Mr. Hale.”

||||||||

Three days later Micah stood on the porch of Chris’s North Seattle colonial home. The chime of the doorbell had long since faded with no answer, and Micah looked at his watch. Four o’clock. Right on time. He reached up to ring again when a voice inside called out, “Thanks for your patience. Almost there now.”

Chris greeted him with a broad smile and grabbed Micah with both hands. “Welcome, Micah! Welcome.” He looked like Norman Rockwell. He even had a pipe.

“Thanks for having me over, Mr. Hale.”

“As much my pleasure as hopefully it will be yours, Mr. Taylor.”

“Right.” Micah grinned. “Thanks for having me over, Chris.”

Chris guided him into the sitting room of a home old enough to have one. The wicker chair Micah sat in was aged but restful, and the black-and-white pictures on the walls and old books that lined the shelves made him comfortable immediately.

Chris excused himself to the kitchen and returned with two glasses of iced tea along with more in a pitcher. After a few minutes of banter, Chris raised his voice a pinch. “Well, I can see you have the personality to make small talk as long as necessary, but why don’t we get to it since you’re probably bursting with questions about your great-uncle.”

“Yeah, I have a few.”

“A few?” Chris raised his eyebrow, a mock frown on his face.

“A few dozen. Three or four dozen.”

“I’ll answer as many as I can, but before that, tell me about your experiences in the house so far.”

Although he trusted Chris instinctively, Micah wasn’t sure how much to tell. He decided to touch on some of the supernatural aspects of the home without telling too many of the details. When he finished, the sunlight on the old leather couch had moved more than two feet. It made him realize how significantly life had changed since the day Archie’s letter showed up.

When he’d finished, Chris merely nodded his thanks.

“So what’s the secret of the house . . . my house?”

“Secret?”

“Why is it so supernatural? What’s the connection between it and me? Why did Archie have it built for me? Did he know strange things would happen there?”

“First question: God is God. Second question: everything. Third question: because God told him to. Fourth question: yes.”

“Touché.” Micah laughed. “All right, I’ll put the question-six-shooter away.” He mimed placing a gun in a holster at his side. “How ’bout starting with how you and Archie met?”

“Fine.” Chris patted down the tobacco in his pipe with his pinky finger, lit it, then settled back in his chair. “I met Archie in the navy. He was the most popular aboard ship, even though no one could figure him out. He told jokes with the best of them. When the other guys brought out the jokes with a blue tint to them, Archie didn’t laugh, but he didn’t condemn those that did.

“He wasn’t the best at the physical demands of being on a naval vessel, but no one ever tried harder, and of course most of his shipmates respected him for that. I was pretty shy then, so I was taken aback when he sat next to me one day in the mess hall. He looked me straight in the eye and asked, ‘You want more out of life?’”

The smoke from Chris’s pipe curled toward the ceiling, and Micah watched Chris relive the memory.

Chris chuckled and gave a little shake of his head. “I stared at Archie. It was pretty forward, and I wanted to laugh but was too self-conscious. There was no, ‘Hello, how are you doing, my name is Archie.’ The first thing out of his mouth was, ‘You want more out of life?’ A lot of answers popped into my mind, but I decided on the simple truth. ‘Yes, I do,’ I told him.

“So right there in the middle of a mess hall full of guys, he starts telling me Jesus came to Earth to bring me back to God and to set me free. ’Course I’m staring at him like he’s just come out of the loony bin, but I can’t help asking the follow-up question, ‘Free from what?’ And you know how he answered? He didn’t. He just smiled at me. Archie probably knew I already had the answer. There were so many things I needed to get free of I didn’t know where to start. My chains had chains.”

Chris paused and looked right at Micah. “You know what I mean, don’t you? Archie worked on me, and I guess I helped him a bit, too. During the four years we served together, we became best friends. More than best friends. Brothers.”

Chris’s eyes moistened a little. “But I have monumental doubts you came to watch me get sentimental.” He patted the arm of his chair. “Archie carved out a solid career in architecture. Did very well. They still use a couple of his designs at the University of Washington to show students how to infuse a sense of freedom in the structures they design.”

“Everything about Archie pointed toward freedom, didn’t it?”

“If you’re going to focus on one thing, it’s a pretty good choice, don’t you think?” Chris leaned forward and clasped his hands. “And he loved to show people how to live for something bigger than the next ball game or vacation. Help them find their destiny and glory.”

“I wish I’d known him.” Micah let the regret settle. “So, if it wasn’t Archie, who oversaw the construction of the house?”

Chris smiled and realization washed over Micah. Why hadn’t he figured it out sooner? He shook his head. “You did an awesome job.”

“You like it?”

“Feels like it’s part of me. I’ve never felt so at home anywhere.”

“Ah, I’m glad. Archie would be so pleased. These days, Hale & Sons Construction is 99 percent Sons, but I got pretty involved with your home.”

“It’s perfect for me.”

“Good, good, good.” Chris gazed at Micah for ten seconds before continuing. “Archie never had kids of his own, as you probably know. Just didn’t work out that way, although I know he wanted a wife and children. But this life isn’t perfect, is it? So when your dad married and had you, Archie prayed in earnest. Couldn’t talk about much more than you most of the time.”

Chris repacked his pipe and lit it again. “Don’t exactly know why, but God built quite a love inside Archie for you.”

Micah shifted in his chair. “It doesn’t make sense. If Archie had this great love for me, why didn’t I ever meet him?”

“You did. Only once though, shortly before he died.”

“What?” Micah lurched forward in his chair.

“Regretfully, the time you met, he didn’t tell you who he was as he wanted to see you again. He feared you might tell your dad about it without thinking. And you know how your dad feels about followers of Jesus, and especially about Archie.”

“I asked my dad once what he had against Christians. Last time I made that mistake.”

Chris pulled off his glasses and rubbed them on his pants. “After your mom’s accident, some religious acquaintances of your dad invited him to an evening Bible study. Out of respect for your mom’s beliefs, he went. At first it was okay. They let him talk through the pain, but soon they started asking him for money to support their church. He said no, but they argued with him, telling your dad if he gave a certain amount, he’d meet God and it’s what Jesus would want him to do, what your mom would want him to do. Not exactly true Christian behavior.” Chris sighed.

“That incident soured him on Christians. Then it got worse.” Chris held up his glasses and squinted through them. “Yep, clean. You want to hear this, Micah?”

“I need to.”

“Shortly after that, Archie made a trip back from Europe—where he was living at the time—to see if he could do anything for you, your dad, and your brother. Well, he came to one of your baseball games—”

“Not
that
game?”

“Yep, one and the same. The next day Archie confronted your dad about how he treated you. About the choices he was making. Then they talked about the Lord, your dad saying God had stolen your mom and Archie trying to explain that that wasn’t God’s heart, along with a lot of other things. Suffice it to say, it didn’t go well. Your dad hated Archie for speaking the truth and has despised all Christians ever since.”

Micah sat squeezing his knees, trying to assimilate the revelations Chris had just given. It explained so much. And Archie had tried to rescue him from his dad.

“You knew my dad?”

“No, no. Only through what Archie told me. Now you know why anyone who walks with God is on Daniel’s do-not-disturb list.” Chris leaned over and refilled Micah’s glass of iced tea.

“The puzzle pieces are falling into place.”

“That’s why your dad never let Archie near you once he moved back to the States. Shame. Shame.” Chris sighed. “If he had found out Archie was spending time with you, your dad would have made sure it didn’t happen more than once.”

“But you said Archie did meet me one time.”

Chris sat up and nodded. “One day Archie said, ‘I’m going to do something crazy and try to meet Micah.’ I said, ‘How?’ and he didn’t really answer. Just said God would help him with it.”

“How old was I?”

“Oh, you must have been around sixteen or seventeen. Archie came back and said he knew you had it in you, whatever
it
was. He was proud of you for taking the risk. Said you talked about laying up treasures in heaven.”

Micah’s heart pounded as a question sputtered out of his mouth. “What did Archie do in the navy?”

“Oh, he was in communications so he worked the radio and helped with letters and memos; he was a pretty good writer.”

“Did he do anything else?”

“Not for the navy.” Chris looked at the ceiling. “Only other activity of note during those years was his jumping out of all those airplanes, doing that parachuting thing with his buddy in the army. He loved it, got pretty good.”

“Did Archie ever speak with an Australian accent?” Micah felt like his heart must be hammering away at two hundred beats a minute.

Chris’s face lit up. “Now, Micah, tell me, how in creation did you know that?”

Micah’s mind reeled. So what really happened in that room in Cannon Beach? Was the skydiving real? If so, when did it happen? Did he go back in time when he went into that room, or did it all happen in the Spirit and Archie had experienced it outside of time as well? Certainly God is outside of time, but . . . Just when Micah thought nothing else could shock him about this journey he was on, something did.

Chris’s voice brought him back to the moment and forced Micah to squelch the questions sprinting through his mind. “You know, I am truly sorry to say this, but I think I’ll have to call it a day.”

Micah reluctantly agreed. “I’ve got more questions than when we started, but I appreciate the time so much.”

“You’re welcome, Micah. And we’ll do it again sometime. I know Archie would be immensely proud of you. It sounds like you’re going down the narrow path few choose.”

“I think it’s the only path without a dead end.”

“Yes, yes it is.” Chris grabbed both of Micah’s hands and smiled widely. “Thank you for coming by.”

Micah approached the front door, then turned and gazed at Chris’s sitting room once more. A series of black-and-white photos lined the back wall. One of Archie on a fishing boat—looking younger than he had on the plane—grabbed his eye. Chris stood next to him along with another man. It couldn’t be. The haircut was different, and he had on wire-rimmed glasses, but the man looked almost identical to . . .

“Who is that next to Archie?” Micah sputtered. “It looks like the twin of—”

“Let it go, Micah.” Chris took his arm and led him to the door. “Someday all the questions of this life will be answered. But not yet. If they were all answered right now, we’d forget how to be curious. And how much fun would that be?”

Driving away from Chris’s house, Micah mused on their conversation. Now he understood Archie’s motivation for building the home, even though it didn’t explain how he anticipated Micah’s every choice or how the supernatural aspect of the house worked.

Micah eased onto I-5 and merged into the flow of cars. Part of him wanted to head farther south, but the more practical side of him won out, and twenty minutes later he reluctantly took Seattle’s Union Street exit and headed toward his condo.