Rooms: A Novel (22 page)

CHAPTER 32

Monday morning at just past eleven, a doctor walked into the waiting room of Cannon Beach Medical Clinic that looked like Foghorn Leghorn in human form. He smacked his clipboard against his hand with a sharp pop as he grinned at Micah.

“Howdy! Chart here tells me you’re Micah Taylor, friend of Sarah’s. Nice to meet you and all that stuff.”

Micah smiled. Sarah hadn’t mentioned her doctor’s robust personality. “Hi, Dr. McConnell.”

“Why don’t you ease on back to my office, Micah, and we’ll do the ol’ look-see.”

When they were both seated, the doctor asked for “the lowdown.”

“I started a run a few days ago when this dull ache in my left ankle came out of nowhere. No big deal; I gave it a few days, figured it’d get back to normal.”

“And it didn’t.” Doctor Foghorn nodded and looked at his clipboard. “When were ya born?”

“1980.”

“Almost thirty and old age is already kicking in.” The doctor laughed. “Ever felt anything like this before?”

“Never.”

“You didn’t smack your foot into anything lately, fall down, twist it, something like that?”

“No.”

“All right, partner. We’ll fire some X-rays through those bones of yours and see what turns up.” The doctor walked to the door, then spun on his heel toward Micah. “Give us about an hour, and we’ll have some fine shots of that ol’ right wheel of yours.”

“You mean my left whe—ankle.”

“You’re sharp, partner.” The doctor pointed at Micah and laughed again. “I see why she likes you.”

As he waited for the X-rays to develop, Micah walked gingerly up and down Main Street twice, stopping in two art studios, Geppetto’s Toy Shoppe, and the Cannon Beach Bakery without seeing anything inside them. He returned to the doctor’s office, and ten minutes later the doc stepped into the waiting room.

“Well, no great mystery here. But let me ask a quick question first to make sure I’ve hopscotched to the right conclusion about that ankle.”

Micah nodded.

“You been working the wheels pretty consistently, haven’t you?”

“Four or five times a week down on the beach.”

“There you go. Mystery solved, case closed. Elvis, you can now leave the building.” The doctor smiled, as if he’d been bestowed a fellowship at Scotland Yard.

“So are you going to let me in on the details of the case?”

“Good one!” The doctor slapped Micah on the back too hard and laughed. “The X-rays say you tore up your ankle pretty good a while back, broke it in two places, might’ve torn a ligament down there, too, from the looks of those two little metal screws there. See ’em right there?” The doctor tapped the X-ray with a mechanical pencil. “Can’t really tell for sure with only an X-ray. You’d need an MRI to be 100 percent sure, but if I were a betting man, I’d lean that direction.”

As the doctor pointed out where the screws were on the X-ray, heat filled Micah’s body, and he felt ready to faint.

“Whoever worked on ya did a good job, FYI. So anyway, you’re just getting a little aching from working the ol’ ankle more often than normal down here where the moist air works its way in there and stiffins ya up a bit.”

As the doctor talked, the heat continued rising into Micah’s face. He’d never had an injury to that ankle in his life—ever—let alone had surgery on it. But he stared at an X-ray clearly showing the break and the two screws in his foot. Either this wasn’t his ankle, or something extremely strange was going on.

Again.

“You’re sure that’s my ankle?”

“Pretty sure!” The doctor chuckled.

“Is there any way to find out when the surgery was? And where?”

“You okay, boy?” Dr. Foghorn’s perpetual smile vanished. “You seriously don’t remember this?”

“No.”

The doctor started to say something else but stopped. Micah watched him study his notes but knew the doctor wasn’t reading anything. The perspiration under Micah’s arms trickled down the sides of his torso, and a drop splashed onto his stomach.

The doctor sat in front of Micah, his hands crossed and his elbows on his knees. His jovial delivery disappeared. “Look, Micah, you seem like a bright, articulate kid, but to entirely forget this part of your life is pretty unusual.”

Micah blew out a long breath. “I’ve never had amnesia; I’ve never had any kind of memory loss. And I swear to you, I’ve never had surgery on this ankle, let alone any kind of injury on either foot.”

The doctor stared at Micah for ten seconds without speaking. Finally he stood and clasped his hands behind his back and returned to his buoyant disposition.

“Okay then. Now, if you want to poke around at the bottom of the well on this one, let’s jump on the Internet and pull up buckets of info.”

The doctor led Micah down a short hall into an office dominated by pictures of the doctor, his wife, and two college-age girls. He directed Micah to the leather couch along the opposite wall.

For all of the doc’s down-home country persona, it was obvious he knew his way around a computer. After asking Micah for his Social Security number and middle name, his fingers flew, and the mouse clicked like popcorn popping. Within five minutes he’d found exactly what they were looking for.

“All right, here we go. Everything you want to know about the health, wealth, and stealth of Micah Taylor, except for the wealth and stealth parts.”

The doctor’s eyes shrank into a slight squint as he studied the screen, then leaned back and let out a whistle. “Woowee, I can’t say I blame you for trying to forget this one. That break was a whopper, plus you ripped a ligament for good measure. Ouch on steroids.”

The doctor turned to Micah. “You know, the PTs would’ve been working you over every few days for at least three or four months. You still telling me you remember zilch about that?”

“Nothing.” But then a wave of nausea hit him. In that instant Micah did remember. At least a part of him did. Small streaks of memory circled the edges of his mind. He knew but he didn’t know, as if it were someone else’s life he’d heard vague, scattered details about.

“Where was the surgery?” Micah said.

A second later he knew the answer. Before the doctor could tell him, he said, “Portland, wasn’t it?”

“Starting to come back to you, eh?”

“I never lived in Portland. Why would I go there for surgery?”

“But you remember it?”

“Yes. No.” Micah held his temples. “I don’t know.”

“None of my business, partner, but I’m wondering if you need a little help with the ol’ cranium to go along with your ankle. I know some good docs in that department.”

Micah tried to smile and shook the doctor’s hand. “If I go that direction, you’ll be the first to know. Thanks for all the help on my ankle.”

||||||||

When Micah got home, he headed for the voice room. “All right, tell me, do you remember us tearing up our ankle?”

“No and yes. I remember bits and pieces just like you. Nothing more.”

“We have to figure this thing out.”

“Meaning?” the voice said.

“Meaning if we’re both getting flashbacks of something happening to our ankle, then maybe something really did happen to our ankle.”

“Well, certainly the physical evidence is there.” The voice chuckled.

Micah paced just inside the door; three steps to the right, turn, then three steps back. “But whose life is it? Not ours. Not when the operation happened in Portland and we never lived there.”

“But when we feel our ankle—?”

“—we know something tangible happened at some point in our life that produced evidence on the X-rays and caused this pain.”

“Exactly,” the voice said.

“So where is that other life coming from? If it’s just in my head, then I’m crazy and we have our answer. But the physical evidence keeps piling up.”

“Like the magazine cover.”

Micah stopped pacing, closed his eyes, and sat down, back against the wall. “I’m sitting in his office with no memories of an ankle injury. Then right before leaving, I start seeing little fragments, like half a second of physical therapy, then a flash of a pickup football game where I think it happened. But I can’t tell you where or when. Then I get an image of maple wood crutches in my hands but only for an instant. Then it’s all gone, and I can’t tell if I’m remembering real memories, or if I’ve made it up inside my head to keep myself sane. You know, we have to consider the very real possibility we’re losing it.”

“We’re not.”

“Really? Are you saying people who go insane are fully aware when it’s happening to them?”

“Trust me, Micah. We’re not going insane.”

“So what’s the solution?” Micah sighed.

“Simple, as I’ve said before. We land on the side of wisdom and make sure things are okay up in Seattle. We go up there and stay put for a while.”

“The Lord is becoming the most important thing in my entire life. I’m just supposed to leave that in a closet down here? And what about Sarah? We’re a little more than casual friends at this point.”

“Let me repeat what I’ve said too many times before. I’m not saying stop coming down entirely. I’m saying we take a break. Who cares if the board gave us this time? It’s killing us. Let’s go home, get things under control, make sure this parallel life stops sticking its head in where it doesn’t belong, and get settled.”

“And come back when?”

“When we’re ready. Maybe it’s a month, maybe two; we won’t know how long till we know.”

Micah shook his head and sneered. “It’s easier for you.”

“Really?”

“You haven’t bought into the whole heal-the-brokenhearted, set-the-captives-free thing like I have. You’re not feeling what I am. It’s easier for you to leave all this.”

“And maybe it’s easier for you to see our world in Seattle slowly disappear than it is for me,” the voice said.

“Neither place would be easy to give up at this point.”

“We don’t give up either one. We come down here every other weekend. Or every third weekend.”

Micah stared into the darkness. The voice clearly contradicted itself, and Micah didn’t know why. Maybe it was due to the bizarre fact the voice was himself, so his uncertainty was bound to make the conversation a bit schizophrenic. Whatever the reason, Micah was tired, and his ankle still ached.

“You know,” Micah called over his shoulder as he walked out the door, “sometimes the way you think pushes me to the brink of sanity.”

No answer.

Maybe he should stop listening to himself. Maybe he’d do what he wanted to. Maybe he’d stay in Cannon Beach forever.

Impossible. He couldn’t give up what he’d created in Seattle.

To stay. To go.

He needed a sign.

CHAPTER 33

When Micah stepped out on his front porch the next morning, he found a box wrapped in white paper with a bleached white sand dollar on top. He opened the small card attached to one side and smiled.

Micah,

For you.

Love,

Sarah

He took the box out onto his deck, the roar of the ocean providing background music as he opened it. Inside he found a dolphin carved out of teakwood. Micah smiled. Perfect. He carried it with him as he picked up the phone and dialed.

“Hello?”

“Can I come over?” Micah asked.

“You got it, hmm?”

“You’re amazing, Sarah.”

“Thanks, so are you. And yes, come over.”

They spent the day talking, laughing, strolling on the beach, then stopped at Morris’s Fireside for a quick dinner that lasted three-and-a-half hours. After that another walk along the beach at the edge of the water, counting the campfires; little orange markers for families making memories.

“I have two serious cravings,” Micah said as they walked hand in hand toward Haystack Rock.

“For?”

“S’mores and s’more of you.”

“Bad pun, bad, Micah. Really, really bad.” Sarah snuggled her head into his shoulder. “That doesn’t mean I don’t agree.”

Twenty minutes later they sat on the bluff in front of Micah’s house burning marshmallows and sticking them in between graham crackers and squares of chocolate.

“S’mores are better with dark chocolate,” Sarah said.

“Not a chance.” Micah stuffed the last of his third s’more into his mouth.

“So, if you get married someday, will you let your kids make their own choices? Whether to put milk or dark chocolate into their s’mores?”

Micah put another marshmallow on his homemade roasting stick and held it close to where the coals burned red. “How many kids do you want?”

Sarah stared into the fire and swallowed. “Who says I want any?”

“No one. But if you did?”

Sarah pulled off the shell of a burnt marshmallow revealing the pure-white sugar ball underneath. “Three. One boy, one girl, and one for chance to decide.”

“Sounds perfect.” Micah sat in the beautiful awkwardness of what they had just said to each other without really saying it and smiled. He wondered what Sarah was thinking. But not really. He knew. At least he hoped he did.

After he finished his fourth s’more, he pulled her close and gave her a kiss that lingered on his lips long after he pulled away. “Life would be utterly incomplete without you.”

“I agree.” She buried her head in his chest and held him tight.

||||||||

Micah went to bed that night feeling better than he had in days. Being around Sarah always settled him. He’d said life would be incomplete without her, but a more accurate description was she completed his life like no woman ever had. The next time he was in Seattle, he’d have to stop by E.E. Robbins. Just to see what kind of engagement rings were out there.

Sarah, his relationship with the Lord, his friendship with Rick, the beauty of Cannon Beach—RimSoft could wait. Couldn’t it? The problem was, there was no way to know for sure. Parts of his world up there could vanish without him knowing it till he got there. A sliver of fear worked its way into his mind.

He needed Archie’s next letter to be a good one.

September 13, 1991

Dear Micah,

Again I give you just one verse from Scripture today as the whole content of this letter. But it is a verse full of power and desire.

“God Almighty will be your treasure, more wealth than you can imagine.” (Job 22:25 The Message)

After you allow this piece of Scripture to sink down into your heart, I trust you will know which room you are to go to. Inside that room is the treasure of the Kingdom. Let me repeat myself: The treasure of God’s Kingdom is contained in that room.

Joining in His relentless love toward you,

Archie

Micah sat on his deck for a long time, meditating on the verse. He wanted to leap up and rush to the brilliant room, but he restrained himself, knowing the verse Archie had given him was not to be simply read but digested and savored before being acted on.

After an hour he rose from his chair, walked inside and upstairs to the door he longed to enter. The room had captured his mind, emotions, and deep parts of his heart. He had little doubt answers were inside.

Since his entry partway into the door two weeks ago, there had been no progress. He hadn’t even been able to get that far again, and the door remained ordinary wood. But now, with Archie’s letter and the verse as support, he held on to the hope that this time he would enter completely.

Reaching the top of the stairs, he saw movement on the surface of the door. Colors swirled like a slow-spinning galaxy of gold and silver. He pressed forward as if his feet were in honey. The instant the index finger of his left hand touched the door, he was caught up in a whirlpool of warmth, and his eyes closed involuntarily.

Peace consumed him. There were no cares, no worries, only an overwhelming sense of rightness and love—as if infinite joy surrounded him, reaching deeper into his body every moment. He moved forward, one step, two steps, three steps, as if the door were liquid. But he still wasn’t inside.

And he wasn’t in the hall.

As impossible as it seemed, he stood contained inside the door. The sensation was like being underwater, with the temperature a perfect balance between warm and cool. The door seemed to move around him, and although his eyes were closed, he sensed the light grow brighter with each step forward. There was no sensation of breathing, although he must have been, somehow.

He opened his fingers wide and waved them. Yes, the atmosphere was like water. He pressed forward again, but this time Micah couldn’t go any farther. Seconds later an ever-so-slight pressure built in front of him and nudged him backward out into the hallway, like a mother laying a sleeping child into its crib after holding it close.

He opened his eyes. The door was normal again, with no indication of what had just happened. An impression shot into his mind. Soon he would fully enter the room.

||||||||

As Micah walked out onto the beach, he made a decision. Cannon Beach was where he must stay. His voice was wrong. No matter what might be happening in Seattle, it was not worth leaving what God was doing inside him. Yes, he would go back to Seattle to check in on things soon, but this would be his base of operations for the foreseeable future.

That night Micah ate seafood fettuccine with smoked salmon while he told Rick in detail about the brilliant room.

“You know what’s inside there, don’t you?” Micah said.

“I think I might. But it would be a breach of our friendship to tell you.” Rick smiled. “It’s a discovery you need to make for yourself. Plus I could be wrong.”

Rick’s confidence was encouraging, but it frustrated Micah not being able to speed up the process. God was not someone you rushed. Got that. But how long would he have to wait? A week? A month? He wanted discovery now.

Driving home he tried to tell himself his world was perfect, but the fear needling the corners of his mind wouldn’t let him. Micah sensed something was coming. And it wouldn’t be anywhere near perfection.