The First Phone Call From Heaven: A Novel
Page 24
Sometimes you sit in a cell and don’t deserve it, Mr. Harding. Sometimes it’s the other way around.
Sully read the letter again. His eyes fell on the words the eight voices, and instinctively he went through them in his mind. Anesh Barua’s daughter, one. Eddie Doukens’s ex-wife, two. Jay James’s business partner, three. Tess Rafferty’s mother, four. Jack Sellers’s son, five. Katherine Yellin’s sister, six. Elias Rowe’s former employee, seven. Elwood Jupes’s daughter, eight.
Eight.
What about Giselle—the last voice Horace had manipulated? Did he not count her? Had he left her out on purpose?
Sully grabbed his phone and scrolled through the call log from Friday night. He found the one from the Chicago Tribune reporter. It read 7:46 p.m. He scrolled back one more call, which read UNKNOWN. That was the one with Giselle’s voice.
The time stamp was 7:44 p.m.
He scrounged through his pockets and found the number Jack Sellers had given him at the hospital. He dialed it quickly.
“Yeah, this is Sellers,” he heard a voice say.
“It’s Sully Harding.”
“Oh. Hey. Merry Christmas.”
“Yeah. Same to you.”
“Look, I’m with friends—”
“Yeah, no, I’m with family—”
“Did you want to talk somewhere?”
“I just need to ask you one thing.”
“All right.”
“It’s about Horace.”
“What about him?”
“Time of death.”
“He was dead when we found him. Ray was first in. He had to record it. Six fifty-two p.m.”
“What?”
“Six fifty-two p.m.”
Sully felt every part of him shiver.
7:44 p.m.
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
Sully felt dizzy.
He hung up.
Did I lose you?
Never.
He ran to the living room and gathered Jules in his arms.
Two Months Later
Small towns have their own heartbeat, no matter how many people come or go. In the weeks and months that followed, that heartbeat returned to Coldwater, as trucks departed and stands were dismantled and visitors peeled away like layers of onionskin. Frieda’s Diner had empty seats. Parking was plentiful on the snow-cleared roads. In the back of the bank, the president—and mayor of the town—could be seen tapping a pencil on his desk.
No more phone calls were received. Christmas passed. New Year’s, too. Katherine Yellin never heard from her sister again, nor did Tess Rafferty hear from her mother, nor Jack Sellers from his son, nor any of the other chosen ones from anyone else. It was as if the miracle had blown away, like seeds of a dandelion.
The news about Horace Belfin and his mysterious death gave rise to wild speculation for several days. Many postulated that the calls were an elaborate hoax, staged by this strange old man who, according to a military spokesman, had retired from a low-level clerk position in a Virginia office after being diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer.
But there were precious few details. The equipment from Belfin’s home was seized by the government, which issued a report saying only random data was found. For a while the media pushed for more information, but without the voices from heaven, interest in the story faded, and they ultimately moved on, like a child who leaves a half-read book on the table.
In time the worshippers left the lawns and the open fields. And with nothing to protest, the protesters left, too. Bishop Hibbing and the Catholic Church closed their file on the case. The world absorbed the Coldwater phenomenon the way a shaken snow globe lets its white flakes settle to the bottom. Many took the words of Diane Yellin and studied them as gospel; others dismissed them as fiction. As happens with all miracles, once life goes on, those who believe retell them with wonder. Those who do not, do not.
Although the town was largely saddened by the loss of the heavenly voices, no one seemed to notice how, in their own way, the calls had steered people to just what they needed. Katherine Yellin, so alone since Diane’s death, had made a sisterly friend in Amy Penn. And Amy, once consumed by her TV career, left the station and rented a small house in town, where she had coffee daily with Katherine and worked on a book about what she’d witnessed in Coldwater, Michigan.
Tess Rafferty and Jack Sellers found comfort in one another, patching the holes left by the deaths of their loved ones. Father Carroll and the other clerics saw a boost in church attendance, something they had prayed about for years. Elias Rowe, honoring his conversations with Pastor Warren, made amends with Nick Joseph’s family, built them a small house, and gave Nick Jr. his first summer job, in construction, where over the years he would earn enough to help pay for college.
Sully Harding took the ashes of his wife, Giselle, from the apartment to a niche at a cemetery.
He came home and had his first restful night in years.
It is said that the earliest spark for the telephone came when Alexander Bell was still in his teens. He noticed how, if he sang a certain note near an open piano, the string of that note would vibrate, as if singing back to him. He sang an A; the A string shook. The idea of connecting voices through a wire was born.
But it was not a new idea. We call out; we are answered. It has been that way from the beginning of belief, and it continues to this very moment, when, late at night, in a small town called Coldwater, a seven-year-old boy hears a noise, opens his eyes, lifts a blue toy to his ear, and smiles, proving heaven is always and forever around us, and no soul remembered is ever really gone.
Tell Your Friends!
Did you enjoy this book? Please click below to share it with your friends. (Or, if you’re reading this on a device with no Internet access, type the Web addresses below into your favorite Web browser from any Internet-connected device.)
Facebook
http://share.hc.com/fb/9780062294395
Twitter
http://share.hc.com/tweet/9780062294395
Pinterest
http://share.hc.com/pin/9780062294395
Author’s Note
This novel takes place in a fictional town called Coldwater, Michigan. There is an actual Coldwater, Michigan, and it is a fine place and I encourage you to visit it. But this is not that town.
Acknowledgments
This book was written with God’s grace, lots of coffee, a morning table by a Michigan window, and love from family and friends.
It was birthed at a difficult time, and many people helped me through that. A sentence is meager payback, but as deeply as ink can express it, my gratitude to Janine, for every precious minute; to Kerri Alexander, for her partnership and loyalty; to Ali, who shared many a Skype conversation; to Phil McGraw, for efforts above and beyond; to Lew C., for understanding; to David Wolpe and Steve Lindemann, two men of God who showed divine patience; to Augie Nieto, a pal through and through; to Eileen H. and Steve N., whose bravery inspired me; to the kids at HFH in Haiti, where I went to keep my perspective; and hugely to, in a way only they can appreciate, two true friends, Marc Rosenthal (since I was twelve) and Chad Audi (since I was forty-seven). There are no words except “The day finally came!”
Also, Mendel is a bum.
David Black has now passed the quarter-century mark with me, which should earn him a medal. I thank him for his tireless belief, and all the great folks in his office—Sarah; Dave; Joy; Luke; Susan, who rules the globe; and Antonella, who rules cyberspace.
My deepest thanks also to my new family at HarperCollins, who have welcomed me so warmly, from sales to marketing to publicity to design. Particular appreciation to my new creative chum, Karen Rinaldi, who hung in for a mere eighteen years to make it happen, and whose loving touch is all over this book, and to Brian Murray, Jonathan Burnham, and Michael Morrison, for taking a big leap of faith.
A special overseas thanks to David Shelley, of Little Brown UK, whose always-thoughtful note
s make me feel like I know what I’m doing, and to Margaret Daly, the best friend an American writer could ever have in Ireland.
My father said everything would end up OK—“Just keep working on your book”—and he was right, as usual. My love for my parents knows no bounds. My earliest readers, Ali, Trish, and Rick, gave me reason to go on.
And every Giselle, Alli, or Marguerite I write is really just Janine. How else could I imagine a love so deep?
I would also like to pay tribute to the numerous books and articles that helped in my research of the telephone and its colorful history. And to the state of Michigan, which I love, and where I was happy to finally set a story, even a fictional one.
Finally—and firstly—anything created by my heart or hand is from God, by God, through God, and with God. We may not know the truth about phones and heaven, but we do know this: in time, He answers all calls, and He answered mine.
MITCH ALBOM
Detroit, Michigan, June 2013
About the Author
MITCH ALBOM is a bestselling novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and award-winning journalist. He is the author of five number one New York Times bestsellers and has sold more than thirty-four million copies of his books in forty-two languages worldwide. Tuesdays with Morrie, which spent four years atop the New York Times list, is the bestselling memoir of all time.
Albom has founded seven charities, including the first-ever full-time medical clinic for homeless children in America. He also operates an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He lives with his wife, Janine, in suburban Detroit.
Like Mitch Albom on Facebook
www.facebook.com/MitchAlbom
Follow Mitch Albom on Twitter
twitter.com/mitchalbom
Visit Mitch Albom at mitchalbom.com/d/ and sign up for his Shelved e-newsletter at mitchalbom.com/d/shelved for exclusive book content
Credits
Cover design by Milan Bozic
Cover photograph © Eric Cahan, courtesy of Bonni Benrubi Gallery, NYC
Author photograph © Jenny Risher
Also by Mitch Albom
Tuesdays with Morrie
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Have a Little Faith
For One More Day
The Time Keeper
Copyright
THE FIRST PHONE CALL FROM HEAVEN. Copyright © 2013 by ASOP, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN 978-0-06-229437-1
EPub Edition November 2013 ISBN 9780062294395
Version 10252013
13 14 15 16 17 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada 2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada http://www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollins.com