Rooms: A Novel (28 page)

Micah stood still as perspiration wound its way down his back while he pleaded with his eyes for her to believe him.

She walked to the windows. “There are plenty of people right outside who could make your life uncomfortable if you insist on making more of a scene than you already have. Unless you get out right now, I’ll shout loud enough to break the glass.”

Micah swallowed and left without a word.

The jingle of the bells on the door as he stepped onto the sidewalk seemed to come from a distance. He stumbled south down Main Street and turned right at the end of the block headed for the beach. Micah held it together till he reached the edge of the water, where he emptied his stomach onto the damp sand.

He’d given up Seattle, all of it, and returned to what?

He stood and staggered toward Haystack Rock. Enough twilight remained for it to stand out as a looming shadow against the sky.

“Where are You, God?” Micah yelled.

The roar of the waves was the only answer. Micah felt more alone than he’d ever been. God was more distant than before he’d first come to Cannon Beach, and Sarah was gone.

He dug in his pocket, wrenched out the new cell phone he’d picked up earlier in the day, and punched in Rick’s home phone number.

C’mon, be there!

Little hope remained as he listened to one, two, three rings. Even if Rick was there, how much of
their
relationship had been wiped out? Two months? Three? The whole thing? The fourth ring turned into Rick’s recorded voice.

“Hi, this is Rick, sorry I’m not here. But we’ll talk soon if you care to leave a message.”

“It’s Micah Taylor. Call me, please. The number is—”

“Hello.”

“Rick?”

“Yes?”

“Micah Taylor.”

“I think I know your voice by now.” Rick chuckled.

“So you haven’t forgotten me?”

“No.”

“None of it?”

“Nope.”

Relief showered him. To be sure, he asked when they’d talked last.

“The Fireside restaurant just a few days ago, and we talked about choice. You chose Seattle.”

“Sarah doesn’t remember any of it. Her last memory of us was our first dinner at my house!”

“You made a choice, Micah. You sowed, and now you’re reaping.”

“English. I need it in English.”

“No you don’t. As strange as the past five-plus months have been, deep down you know what has happened, what the King has been doing with the two lives you’ve been living. He has shown you the paths your choices will take you. The Seattle path and the Cannon Beach path.”

“I have chosen! I came back.”

“Now you face the final choice between the two worlds and the consequences of your final choice.”

“It’s not that simple. I need you to explain how I’ve been living the events of two separate lives. I remember parts of a life I never lived as clearly as the one I did live. I need you to explain how huge chunks of Seattle can be wiped out, then return, then disappear, then return in a mutated form! I need—”

“No,” Rick interrupted, his voice sharp. “You need to seek the King with all your heart. All your mind. All your soul. All your strength. He is sovereign, and He is most certainly in control.”

“That’s it? That’s what you’re leaving me with? You’re the only one who seems to understand both lives.”

“Seek the King.”

“I need more than that—”

“Seek the King, Micah.”

“That’s not enough!”

“Seek Him.”

Micah snapped his cell phone shut and filled the night with a guttural moan. He had never been so empty. Seek the King? He’d tried! No sense of God, no peace, only his shredded life for an answer.

When he got home, night had fallen. He hadn’t left any lights on, and the house felt like an ominous mountain he was about to tunnel into.

After flipping on lights all over the ground floor, he poured a Diet Coke, stepped out onto the deck, and replayed every moment from the past week as he stared at the stars. The voice told him he could have both Seattle and Cannon Beach, that he should go back to Seattle.

The voice.

His voice.

The bottom of Micah’s glass dented the redwood railing as he slammed his drink down. He strode toward the dark room, his heart pounding.

CHAPTER 40

Micah ripped open the door and leaped into the dark room. “I want answers!”

“Hey, buddy, how are you?” the voice said.

“Swell.”

“It is a time of turmoil.”

“Nice understatement,” Micah muttered. “You were so wrong.”

“No, Micah, you were. You made the wrong choice.”

“No kidding, Einstein. And you pushed me into it.”

“No, I didn’t. You’re talking about the choice to go to Seattle. I’m talking about the choice to return to Cannon Beach.”

“What?” Micah cocked his head. “Are you insane?”

“I said go to Seattle, get our life back, and stay there for at least
six weeks!
Not come back after three days.”

“Don’t use that against me. My relationship with Sarah vanished. My relationship with the Lord vanished—the two most important things in my life. And you’re telling me I should have stayed?”

“Yes.”

“This ought to be stellar.” Micah folded his arms.

“First, Sarah. You want to spend your life with her. Is that your plan or His? The Word says we must forsake mother, father, brother, sister. If Sarah is more important to you than following God, then you are not worthy to put your hand to the plow. We need to let her go.”

“Sorry, I don’t buy it. The Lord brought us together. Sarah even said the Holy Spirit told her about it years ago.”

“I believe Sarah was called into our life. But for a season. To give us the chance to choose God over her in the end. We are called to obey. Not to question. Remember, Micah, I’m you, so this is as painful to me as it is to you.”

“Where’s your pain?” Micah slumped against the wall and slid down to the carpet.

“I am you, but a different part. I more easily separate logic from emotion so we can see clearly.”

“I don’t see clearly?”

“When you allow fear to creep in, no. Like right now. The loss of Sarah is blinding you to the fact that God is in this. That He has another out there for you. Fear and faith cannot exist together. The questions and doubts always come down to faith in the end. And what good is our faith with sacrifice? And this is a sacrifice God has asked us to make in order to be fully His.”

“Sacrifice?” Micah slammed his fist into the wall behind him and stood. “I’ve given up my company, my career, my awards, my condo, my money, my fame, and you say that’s not enough? I have to sacrifice Sarah, the one thing left on this earth that means anything to me? And I have to sacrifice my relationship with God?”

Micah turned to walk out, then stopped. “The moment I crossed the city limits back into Seattle, God vanished. Since then my prayers have slammed into a ceiling an inch above my head. Yeah, sure, that makes perfect sense. The Lord is asking me to sacrifice my relationship with Him for Him!”

When Micah finished, sobs seeped toward him out of the darkness. “I know it’s hard, so hard. Feeling so distant from God. But we cannot rely on feelings, only on truth. He is taking us through a dry time now to see if we will still choose Him, still choose the hard path even when we can’t sense His presence nearby. This is our desert time, and we must not turn back to the pretend comfort of a mirage but keep walking the straight-and-narrow path through the wasteland to the true oasis God has designed for us.”

“You know, I’m finished with your ornate oratory. Just say what comes next.”

“Start over.”

“What does that mean?” Micah again sank down the wall into the thick carpet.

“Go back to Seattle. Stay this time, even if RimSoft is completely gone. Build another company, this time for the right reasons. Not your outcome but one with eternal impact.”

“Impossible. I’m done with that life.”

“With God all things are possible.” The voice paused and cleared his throat. “Besides, there is a small part of you that isn’t done with that life. That still wants it. We can fan that ember into a flame again.”

It was true. Images of the European and tropical trips filled his mind. The restaurants in Spain, the beaches in French Polynesia, the awards, the interviews on national TV, the money to buy anything he wanted.

“The world needs you to start that new company. Think of the lives you could touch with the message of truth.”

“This is where I want to be.”

“We are to deny ourselves and pick up our cross daily.”

“You exhaust me and offer nothing but confusion. I need clarity.” Micah stood and walked out, slamming the door with enough force to knock a picture in the hallway off the wall. He didn’t bother to pick it up.

||||||||

The next morning Micah ran down to Hug Point and back to clear the confusion swirling around him.

No help.

After he finished his run, he showered, then pushed through the first two chapters of Galatians in his Bible.

Dust.

As he finished cleaning up his breakfast dishes, he glanced at the cordless phone in the kitchen. What if the voice was right about RimSoft being completely gone? He had no delusions it would bring good news, but he couldn’t stop himself from dialing that familiar number.

The third ring had just started when the receptionist chirped, “RimWare, what can I do to make your day better right now?”

Micah rolled his eyes. He never would have let anyone answer the phone with something so trite. “Human Resources, please.”

“Of course. One moment, please.”

He started pacing after ten seconds. At a minute and a half a male voice squeaked, “May I help you?”

“Hi, my name is Allen Vorreiter from Norwest Medical, and I need to verify the employment status of one of your workers.”

“Norwest Medical? Yeah, okay. Who?”

“Micah Taylor. Just need to know what department he works in.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Uh, yeah, hang on.”

After an intolerably long forty-five seconds, Human Resources Guy coughed out, “You don’t happen to know what department he works in, do you?”

“That’s what I was hoping to find out from you.” Micah gritted his teeth.

“That’s right!” The guy snorted. “Sorry. Be back in a sec.”

Micah wandered into the living room and watched the waves thunder onto the beach as he waited for an answer. Two minutes later he had it.

“Sorry, I went through everything in the database, and then I even flipparooed through the hard copies. You sure he works here?”

Micah’s eyes closed as his head slumped onto his chest.

“Hey, are you there? Is that all you wanted to know?”

“That’s it.”

He dialed another number, then another. Seven minutes of calls confirmed there wasn’t a shred left of his Seattle life. He called his bank, his CPA, his insurance agent, his condo association. None of them had ever heard of Micah Taylor. Nothing was left. No home, no company, no money.

What remained? A gorgeous mansion on the ocean with huge yearly taxes and no way to pay for it. He had no income. No Sarah. No career. No direction. No relationship with the Lord. Nothing. Utterly and completely nothing.

Is this what God wanted?

Now what? If Seattle no longer existed, what life was he living? He slumped onto his couch in front of the fireplace and dialed one more number.

“Taylor residence. Daniel speaking.”

“Hey, Dad.”

“Well, hello, son.”

“I have to ask some questions about the past six years that might seem a little strange.”

“Since, in my opinion, many of your choices since college have been a bit off, I don’t think any question you pose will surprise me.”

Micah got up and walked over to his picture windows, head in hand. “What have I been doing since college?”

“I’m not sure I understand the question.” His dad sighed. “Aren’t you still trying to figure out a way to make a decent income?”

“I’m not in software?”

“Always thought that’s where you’d end up. And”—his dad cleared his throat—“and I, uh . . . when you didn’t, I . . . I just want to say . . . Well, I probably could’ve handled things a little better over the past six years.”

Micah slumped to the carpet. Was his dad saying he was sorry? Was it possible?

“Yeah, well I could have—”

“So were there any other questions?”

It was obvious from his dad’s tone that his landing on the tarmac of apology was only for an instant.

“I just want to get a handle on what I’ve been doing with my life and figure out what I’m going to do with this mansion down here and—”

“Mansion? Did someone buy you a winning lotto ticket?”

“I told you about this house six months ago.”

“Six months, eh? Let me consult my journal.”

As he listened to his dad turning pages, Micah’s fingers grew white due to the stranglehold he was giving the phone.

“No, son. If you’d inherited a home down on the coast, I would have made some notes about it.”

“C’mon, Dad. Your uncle Archie had it built for me.”

“Archie? Nuttier than a fruitcake.”

“We’ve been over that.”

“Is that all you wanted?”

“Where have I lived for the past six years?” Micah stood and walked out onto his deck and let the wind pummel his hair.

“You don’t remember where you’ve lived?”

Micah closed his eyes and lied. “I know where I’ve lived. I just want to hear you say it.”

“Strange question. I have to ask why.”

Micah stepped out on a plank he’d never been on before. “No, Dad, you don’t. You
want
to ask why because you have to have all the details of everything in the entire universe at your fingertips at every moment of your existence and under your control. This time I’m asking you to humor me and tell me where I’ve lived since college with no explanation of why I’m asking.” Micah swallowed. “Please.”

The only sound was the slight hum in the phone line and the swish of the wind racing through the trees.

“You’re right; I’m . . . I shouldn’t always . . . I’ve . . .” His dad clucked his tongue three times. “You lived with me for two months right after college. Then in Bandon, Oregon, for a year and a half. Then Newport, Oregon, almost four and a half years. Now Cannon Beach for just over a year.” He cleared his throat three times before going silent. “And, uh . . . I’m . . . What I mean is, I’m sorry for butting in and for . . . sorry.”

Micah’s body went limp. “Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks. Really, I mean it. Thanks.”

Silence.

“You’re welcome, Micah.”

He hung up and plopped onto a deck chair, stunned. His dad had said the words. It wasn’t his imagination. He’d said it:
“I’m sorry.”
A miracle. Maybe not on the level of the loaves and fishes, but for him it was close. And he’d called him Micah. Not son. Micah.

A flicker of hope toward his dad darted through his heart, almost too ethereal to accept. He pushed the thought aside and wondered what he’d been doing in Bandon and Newport for the past six years.

His focus turned to the surf smattering around two towering rocks that sat a hundred yards offshore, a haven for seagulls and sea lions in repose. It reminded him of something. The painting!

He sprinted to the room, heart pounding.

When Micah reached the door, he hesitated. What if it hadn’t changed? And even if it had, it wouldn’t explain the madness blowing through his life. He’d prayed multiple times, asking to know the meaning of the painting and how it tied into his two realities. There were no answers.

But still, it drew him like a magnet, and he continued to believe it was the key to unlocking the ambiguity his life had become.

Micah stole a quick breath, stepped into the room, and gasped. He saw the change instantly: the home was just a few brush strokes from being finished.

It was his home, standing on his bluff, overlooking his stretch of beach.

Why hadn’t he seen it till this moment?

As the painting had developed, there had been enough similarities between it and his own stretch of beach to make him wonder, but not enough to be sure. Somehow the painter had used a perspective of his beach that didn’t make it obvious. Now he understood why. The image was reversed, a mirror of his house and the beach in front of it.

The edge of the bluff stood slightly higher and narrower in the painting, but it was his bluff. The mountains in the background were higher and held fewer trees, but they were his. The waves were thicker, richer, more powerful, but it was the surf he’d grown to cherish.

But there were no subtle differences about his home. The closer he looked, the more detail he saw. Even the way the light played on the windows was intricate and exactly the way it looked when he came back from his early morning runs.

He’d taken photos of the house from the beach, even enhancing the colors with Photoshop to make the picture more vibrant. But those photos didn’t touch the richness here.

Why had he been chosen as the one person to see this masterpiece?

An hour, maybe two, and it would be finished. When?

He longed to know the artist, be immersed in the knowledge of how waves could be made so lifelike, mountains so majestic, the home so lifelike.

For more than an hour Micah sat and soaked in the painting, until a melancholy feeling settled over him. The changes were exhilarating, but they revealed nothing as to why his life had disintegrated.