Rooms

by Rubart, James L.

  “Uh, maybe, I don’t know,” Rick said as if Micah mentioned it might rain.

  “Are you hearing what I’m saying?” Micah popped his hand down on the table hard enough to rattle all the silverware. A few surprised looks came their way, and the waitress who was about to fill their water glasses did a 180 on her heel and skittered back toward the kitchen.

  “Knock it off.” Rick looked up, his eyes dark and intense. “You know exactly what is going on here. And you’ve made the choice to make it happen every step of the way.”

  “What? I’m living in The Twilight Zone, and you’re saying it’s obvious what’s going on? What choices have I made? Enlighten me.”

  Rick stood, took wrinkled ten- and five-dollar bills out of his wallet, dropped them next to his plate, and looked down at Micah. “If you need it spelled out for you, it’s in Matthew in black and white. Chapter 13, verses 44 through 46. For you it’s jumped off the page and turned into real life. An amazing gift. But you have to make a final decision on whether it’s worth the price.”

  When he got home, Micah slammed the door and screamed at the top of his lungs, “Lord, where are You? Why are You doing this to me?” He hurled his keys at the kitchen counter and watched them crash into the coffeepot, shattering the glass.

  He knew he should pray but was exhausted. Tired of no concrete answers. Tired of trying to figure out which life was real and which one he wanted. Most of all tired of seeing his life disappear out from under him.

  He glanced at his coffee table in front of his picture windows. Archie’s remaining envelopes sat there, mocking him. He glanced at the calendar on his refrigerator. Six days early. He didn’t care. Micah snatched up letter number fifteen and ripped open the envelope. With the fourteen previous letters, he’d shot up at least a quick prayer for wisdom and understanding. Not this time.

  November 4, 1991

  Dear Micah,

  I have prayed before each letter written in an attempt to write only the words the Lord God would have me write through His guidance and the guidance of the angel I told you about in my last letter. However, in the end I am just a man, and it is only in Him and in His strength I can approach perfection.

  That is a lengthy introduction to say I have most assuredly made mistakes in the letters you have read so far, and for that I offer my apologies and ask for your forgiveness. My prayer is that you are taking every scene, decision, and circumstance these letters stir up in you to deep prayer, that my mistakes might be filtered out, and the only remnant that remains would be pure truth.

  In the end only one voice matters. Only one.

  Micah set down the letter. Of course. In the end only one voice mattered. His own. And he hadn’t been listening.

  The end of your journey is coming soon.

  Seek Him.

  For eternity’s sake,

  Archie

  Micah folded the letter, then slid it back into its envelope. A sliver of hesitation and apprehension had grown toward the voice, but he pushed through the emotion and strode down the hall. Archie was right. One voice mattered.

  Micah pushed open the door and eased inside. “Hey, you awake?”

  “If you’re awake, I’m awake.” The voice laughed.

  “Yeah, okay. You’re me. I’m you, etcetera.”

  Micah sat with the voice in silence.

  “My life has disintegrated. Our life. But I’m going to figure this thing out. I refuse to let it beat me. I think the way—”

  “The time for thinking and talking is over,” the voice said. “We have to act. Now. You know it. Look what’s happened since we hesitated.”

  Micah ran his teeth over his bottom lip and paced.

  “Talk to me, Micah.”

  “What do you want me to say? Okay. I admit it. I was wrong. I should have listened to you. Archie’s letter spelled it out in black and white. There is only one voice I can trust. Myself.”

  “Yes.”

  “But if I’m really supposed to go back to Seattle like you say, two things make no sense.”

  “What?”

  “Those verses in Matthew. You’d have to be spiritually blind not to know what Rick was driving at.”

  “What is that?” the voice said.

  “Oh, c’mon. I’ll assume that question is rhetorical.”

  “Let’s talk it out to be sure.”

  “Hello? The pearl of great price? I have to give it all up. All of it. Everything I had, and have, in Seattle for the relationship I have with the Lord down here. That is the choice.”

  “Do you want to give it all up?” the voice whispered.

  Micah was silent.

  “We must be careful not to take any verse out of context. The Christian life is a journey. We’re not instantly at the point of perfection the moment we start out—are we?”

  Micah didn’t respond.

  “I don’t think that’s what Archie was driving at or what those verses show us.”

  “Your theory?” Micah said.

  “Don’t misunderstand.” Light laughter floated out of the darkness. “I’m not saying we don’t need to be willing to give everything up and that we shouldn’t be working toward that attitude. We do, but we certainly don’t have to literally give up everything.”

  “Maybe I do. This life or Seattle. Not both.”

  “Look to the Scriptures, Micah. Zacchaeus, for example. He gave up half, not all, half of what he owned, and salvation came to his household. The question was whether he’d given up everything in his heart, not the amount of physical wealth he turned over.

  “We cannot just sit back and let God’s blessings come to us. We must take part. We must take action. That is how to show we truly believe. Without action how can we pretend we have faith?”

  “And going back to Seattle is a step of faith.” Micah coughed and settled to the carpet, his back against the wall next to the door.

  “Yes. We don’t know what we’re going to find there. To leave all that is going on here, to see if what we’ve lost in Seattle can be salvaged, with no promise of any of it coming back? Yes, that is a step of faith.”

  “Rick would say the step of faith would be to let all of Seattle go and trust God is in it.”

  “Rick is an excellent friend. Wonderful and wise. But with all he is, Rick isn’t you, isn’t us. Don’t you realize how difficult it is to give someone advice when your opinion is skewed by your own life experiences and attitudes? Rick’s experiences taint his advice. It’s why we need each other more than ever. We have the same experiences, the same joys, the same hurts. We know what is right for us because we’re one and the same. What a gift to be able to plan the best course together.”

  “And the best course?”

  “Don’t you think those in Seattle need to see this new Micah as much as the people down here? The Micah deeply committed to his God again, who can now be an example to all at RimSoft? It just isn’t true that we have to choose one world or the other. I believe with every ounce of who I am that we can have both.”

  “Stay involved in both worlds.”

  “Cannon Beach is our spiritual escape, a place for renewal and relationship with Rick and Sarah and others. Seattle is for career, fulfillment of your dreams, and the godly influence you can have on so many more people than you can down here.”

  Micah’s head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton candy. It sounded so right.

  “We need to take action before—”

  “Shut up and let me think.” Micah threw his head back and closed his eyes. “I can’t give up what I’ve found here,” he finally said.

  “Neither can I. But we don’t have to. You’ve been given so many talents that can only be used in Seattle. Do not discard the gifts of God lightly. You’ve been given the best of two worlds, and to reject either one is to reject a great gift given from God’s own hand.”

  “But Rick says—”

  “Let it go, Micah. Stop fighting. Your striving won’t change things, make them happ
en faster or slower.”

  “You’re saying I shouldn’t strive for freedom? And the changes God has made in my heart?”

  “No, not at all. To want that is so good. But stop pushing so hard. Do you have God’s peace right now? No. Relax and let the changes take their natural course.”

  “Rick would say we are in a battle and it won’t happen naturally.”

  “Exactly. There is a battle going on in Seattle right now. We have lost almost everything we’ve created, and Rick is absolutely right. To sit here and wish for the things we used to have to return is futile. We must act now. The window of opportunity to get our old life back is closing. This is the moment to make your choice—the truth or a lie. There is a battle in this instant for your destiny, and you must decide who to believe. Now is the time to reverse this.”

  Micah got up and paced for a full minute. Then he turned and spoke in complete confidence. “All right. We’ll go. Just give me a day to tell Sarah.”

  “Even a day might be too late, Micah. We must hurry.”

  ||||||||

  By 8:00 that night he’d called Sarah four times. He needed to talk to her. With a decision this monumental he couldn’t leave a message on her voice mail. Where was she? She always answered her cell if it was him, even at Osburn’s. Maybe he should drive down there. No. Being with her would shatter his resolve to head back to Seattle. It would draw the conversation out for hours. He needed to leave immediately.

  As he paced on his deck, he watched a somber sky turn dark from gray clouds bunching up on the horizon like sheep forced up against the shearing pen.

  He sat on his Adirondack chair, shook his head, and laughed. What was wrong with him? This was not a big deal. He’d be back down all the time. It wouldn’t change his relationship with Sarah a nanobyte.

  As he picked up his phone to call her again, his hands began to sweat.

  CHAPTER 37

  Osburn’s was shutting down for the night, and the Saturday evening crowd had thinned down to two customers who meandered out the door. The ice cream machines were rinsed and cleaned out, but Sarah still needed to clean the tables, mop the floor, and wash the windows. Heading home for the night seemed years away.

  “You okay?” asked the gal helping Sarah close up the store.

  Sarah’s rag grew cold in her hand, but she continued using it to wipe up the tables stained with Chocolate Chip Mint, Oreo Cookie Crunch, and fourteen other flavors that had slid down customer’s throats that day.

  “Yeah, good. And you?” Sarah answered without looking up.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.” But she wasn’t.

  It had been two days since Sarah had heard from Micah. It wasn’t normal. Eight hours without at least a phone call was unusual. Something was wrong. Twinges in her stomach said more than wrong.

  She tried to ignore the feeling as she finished her cleaning and flicked off the store lights, sending Osburn’s into shadows for the night.

  Ten minutes later the gravel moaned under her Subaru as Sarah pulled slowly into the driveway of her one-bedroom apartment. She threw the gear shift into park, turned off the car, but didn’t get out. She sat and replayed the conversation she’d had with Micah two days ago. It had just felt . . . off.

  Finally she pushed open her car door and stepped outside. A brisk wind brought her the smoky aroma of a beach fire, and she wondered who sat around it. It should be Micah, waiting for her to join him.

  As she opened her front door, her eyes jumped to her answering machine. Yes. The red light blinked. A beacon of hope? Or an emergency siren?

  She walked toward the machine in slow motion, closed her eyes, then opened them to peek at the digital readout of the last call. Micah’s cell phone number. She reached out to hit play, and her arm froze. Part of her desperately wanted to play the message. Another part screamed, “Don’t!”

  She released a tiny moan, walked to the refrigerator, swung open the door, and stared at the Crab Louie from last night. Her right leg twitched. Nerves were fraying and dread crept in for a visit.

  In a daze she grabbed a quart of orange juice, poured a glass, then took a sip. She carried it to the kitchen table, wondering why it had no taste. Rubbing her eyes, Sarah stood, sighed, walked over to the machine, and pushed the button.

  “You have one new message. Message sent today at 9:17 p.m.”

  “We have to talk, Sarah.” Micah’s voice paused, and she sucked in a quick breath in concert with the one he drew on the other end of the phone. “I can’t expect you to understand this.” Another pause. “I don’t understand it myself. But my time here is done, at least for a while, so I need to go back to Seattle. I’m supposed to go back.”

  She heard him pause once more, and seagulls out over the ocean filled the silence as if from a universe away. “There are some things I need to recapture. I wanted so badly to do this in person. I called your cell phone four times, but either you weren’t answering or you didn’t have it with you, and I didn’t want to leave a message on it, in case—”

  Sarah looked at her cell phone, which had sat cradled in its charger for the past two days.

  “—you weren’t going to get it for a while. I’m not leaving us. I’ll be back down again in four or five weeks at the most, and we’ll talk on the phone every day while I’m up there. Call me as soon as you get this.”

  She should have been relieved. Micah wasn’t ending it—just taking some time up north to work through all the life changes he’d been through during the past four-plus months. He’d been through so much; of course he needed time. But her stomach still churned. This was not the right thing for Micah. For her. For them.

  She pushed aside the orange juice, dropped her head to the table, and cried till no more tears would come. After the silence got too loud, she picked up the phone.

  He answered on the first ring.

  “Micah . . .” She hesitated. “With everything in me, I know this isn’t right.”

  “It is.”

  “Don’t go.”

  “I need to do this. For me. For us. Please don’t try to stop this and make it harder.”

  She closed her eyes. “It’s burned onto my heart like a branding iron that you should not go.”

  “You’re acting like I’m moving to Siberia.” Micah gave a weak laugh. “We’ll see each other all the time. I’ll be back down in six weeks tops. Next time you get two days off in a row, you can come up. And by going back to Seattle, I’ll recover what I’ve lost. I believe I can get it all back. Believe with me it can happen.”

  For fifteen seconds the only noise was the hum of the connection.

  “Sarah?”

  Silence.

  “Are you there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Listen, they’ve got this great new invention that keeps people connected when they’re apart. In fact we’re using it right now. It’s called the telephone.”

  She didn’t laugh. “It’s not about us being two hundred miles apart. It’s not about how often we’ll be talking. And it’s not about me coming up to see you. It’s about you going.”

  “Then give me a reason.”

  “It’s wrong.” Sarah sat slumped back, kneading the knots in her right shoulder.

  “That’s not a reason.”

  “Everything inside me tells me it’s wrong, that the enemy is in this, trying to make you take a path the complete opposite of the way you should go.”

  He sighed. “You know I listen when God tells you something. What you feel matters deeply.” He paused, then whispered, “But this time, it’s not enough to keep me from going.”

  Tears spilled onto her cheeks and collected on her chin.

  “Sarah?”

  “Don’t go, Micah. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose us.”

  “You won’t lose me. Ever. I promise. I’ll call you every day.”

  Sarah didn’t respond for a long time. “I gotta go.”

  “I love you, Sarah.”r />
  “Me, too, Micah. All of me.”

  ||||||||

  The next morning just before sunrise, Sarah stood alone on the beach and watched little bubbles burst on top of the sand, indicating clams digging away from her probing shoes.

  She wanted to believe Micah’s going back to Seattle was good. Why couldn’t it be? He could recover some of the life he’d lost and figure out the connection between that world and this one. But her heart was breaking because she knew the choice was wrong. She tried to convince herself she wasn’t living by faith, that she needed to trust God was in control. But the thoughts were hollow and slipped through the fingers of her mind like wind through the trees.

  She staggered toward the waves and stepped into them till the water lapped around her shoes.

  The first time Sarah had met Micah, her heart surged. She knew he was the answer to what God had spoken years ago. But the battle of how much of her heart to give him started the moment she handed him his Pralines & Cream ice cream cone four months earlier. Because she’d also known last night’s conversation would come.

  She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Micah’s house. She had to try one more time. No answer. He was already gone. Must have left last night.

  Sarah watched her hand drop to her side as if it were someone else’s. Her cell phone spun loose and dropped to the sand. Waves raced up and smothered the phone, and the icy September water found its way through her shoes and bit into her feet.

  From the beginning she had feared he would choose the life without her. Despite their love, he would listen to voices other than the Holy Spirit’s, and it would take him away forever. She’d tried to steel her heart for the moment when he left and even believed she could change his mind, but none of her practiced anticipation prepared her for this kind of pain.