The Man He Never Was

by James L. Rubart

  “You needed to go down that path—all the way to the dead end—until you would be willing to admit you cannot do it in the natural man. You needed to see that the good man inside Toren could never win. You needed to see that in order to find freedom, you needed to find your true identity as a son of Abba, and in that identity realize not only how much you are loved but that you must love yourself in like manner.”

  Toren sighed as the truth of Clavin’s words poured through him. “I had to embrace the way of love. I had to embrace Love, who is my perfect Father. Then love my greatest enemy—and forgive my greatest enemy—myself.”

  “Yes.”

  He studied each of them for a few seconds. “So you’re a team that brings people to their lowest point so they can reach heights they never knew existed. You watch them. Then when they’re ready, you bring them here, to the octagon.”

  Eden waved a finger. “Not exactly. Yes, we watch, but we only give an invitation. It is they who choose to come.”

  “I have no words.” Toren nodded and smiled. “Thank you. All of you.”

  More questions, more stories, more laughter.

  Alena said, “Do me a favor, Toren.” She handed him the puzzle she had given him the first day he’d come to the shop. The puzzle he’d asked her to keep there for him. “Try your wooden puzzle again.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  Toren turned the puzzle pieces over in his hands and immediately saw what he’d missed the day Alena had given them to him. His alignment had been wrong. Toren smiled. Of course it had been. Not now. With light pressure he slid two of the pieces together, and a second later the third piece joined them.

  “Thank you,” he said to Alena. “This will be a treasure forever.”

  Finally it was time to leave, though Toren desperately wanted to remain with them.

  “Will I see all of you again?”

  “Without question,” Clavin said.

  “So what now? What do I do from here—where do I go?”

  Eden smiled. “First, we get you cleaned up. Then, of course, you must write your name into the wall down in the corridor. Then? Go anywhere. Do anything. All things are permissible.”

  “But not all things are profitable.” Toren grinned.

  “This is true.” Eden tilted her head to the side. “So I suggest doing the most profitable thing for your heart, soul, and spirit. That is what you do. That is where you go.”

  “I know exactly where I go.” He rubbed his lower teeth against his lips. “I go to Sloane. I find a way for her to sit down with me. And I talk to her like I’ve never talked to her before.”

  CHAPTER 47

  When Sloane got back from a short run on Sunday afternoon, she checked on Colton and Callie, showered, then took a salad sprinkled with blue cheese dressing onto the back deck. But before she could sit and eat, the vibration of her cell phone on the granite countertop just inside the door stopped her.

  She set the salad on the deck table and stepped back into the kitchen to see who was calling. She closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. Toren. All she wanted was a lazy Sunday afternoon to relax and enjoy the sunshine, not another debate over the divorce papers. How stupid did he think she was? Toren was stalling. Trying to prove to her that this time he’d really changed. Digging for some argument that would change her mind. Why couldn’t he accept the fact it was irrevocably over?

  For a moment she considered picking up. But what would be the point? He wasn’t going to budge. He would run through his same old list of convincers again. How the past weeks at the cult up at Friday Harbor had changed him, but this time it wasn’t a Band-Aid, but deep surgery on his soul. How he’d discovered a way to be free of the dark side of himself forever. How it could help her too. And how God was more real to him than he’d ever been before.

  He would tell her he truly did know how to love, not with a formula, or with a steely determination to do right, but with a love that flowed from the Christ in him into everyone who came into his world. He’d probably tell her how he’d forgiven his dad for what he’d done to Toren’s mom, his brother, and himself. Probably a long speech about how he’d finally gotten control over his temper.

  For brief flashes of insanity, she’d believed his words about what was happening at this . . . what? Compound? Spiritual training center out at Friday Harbor? But then the memory of him smashing his hammer into the birdhouse in her garage, fifty feet from where she now stood, thundered into her mind, and she made the wall between Toren and her thicker and stronger than ever.

  She turned and walked back out onto the deck and ate her salad as two birds cavorted overhead in a sky that held only wisps of white clouds. The image took her back to the days when her life was sky blue most days and the occasional cloud was an anomaly. Yes, deep down inside, where no one was allowed to go—and rarely even her—she wished that whatever the change Toren claimed to have slipped into was real. Yes, if she could wave a magic wand, she would turn him back into the man he was before his football career ended.

  But that wasn’t going to happen. On top of that, Levi was a good man. Solid. He loved her. And she loved him. And she knew within a few months, maybe a few weeks, they would set a wedding date.

  She sighed and thought about the kids. Should she wait till they were older? No. Yes. Maybe. There was no right answer because whatever she chose would set up land mines for Colton and Callie, not only as they grew up, but for the rest of their lives. And then there was her. Didn’t she have a right to have a life? To think about her own wants and desires?

  A robin landed on the peak of the chair across the table from her, cocked its head, and stared at her.

  “Take me with you,” she told it.

  A moment later her cell phone rang again and the bird flew off. She finished her salad, strolled back inside, and looked at her phone. Toren again. Sloane cleaned up, checked on the kids, and finally ambled back over to her phone. One voicemail from him. Might as well get it over with. Adrenaline had kicked in already and the only way to get it out of her mind was to listen to what he was spouting today. She put her phone up to her ear and hit play.

  “Hi, Sloane, could you call me when you have a chance? There’s no rush. Thanks.”

  Odd. His voice was more relaxed than she’d ever heard it. At peace, even. Without thinking she dialed him back. He picked up on the first ring.

  “Hey, thanks for calling back.”

  Again his voice was different.

  “Yes, Toren?”

  “I’ve signed the papers.”

  “You’ve . . . you’ve what?”

  “I’d simply like to give them to you in person.”

  “You signed them?” The words lurched out of her mouth.

  “Yes.”

  There was a smile in that simple word, yes. Not of laughter, not of gladness, but of . . . what was it? Peace. So strange.

  “Um, okay. I, um . . .” She frowned. She’d been so ready to fight, she didn’t know what to say.

  “Sloane?”

  “Yes, sorry. I just didn’t expect . . .” She trailed off again, all the adrenaline from the last few minutes seeping out of her.

  “I know. I’ve been fighting you so hard. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s . . . that’s okay.”

  “Far from okay.”

  Silence stretched from a few seconds into ten.

  “Toren?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “You tell me,” he said.

  “Half an hour?”

  “Sure. I’ll see you then.”

  He hung up and she dropped her arm and stared at her phone as if it were someone else’s, as if she’d only been a witness to the call that had just taken place. He’d signed. Did he actually say that? Yes. He did. She believed him. It would finally be over. After all the struggle of the past three years, she would have a new life. She would be free. Sloane stared at the stove where she’d made a million meals for him, practic
ing on him often in her early days because she’d never really learned how to cook growing up.

  “What would you give that one, on a scale of one to ten?” she’d asked him once, in the early days of their marriage.

  “Nine. Nine point five, maybe.” Toren smiled at her with a mouthful of a casserole she’d pulled off the Internet earlier that day.

  “Really?”

  He nodded.

  “You can be honest. It won’t hurt my feelings.”

  “It’s good.”

  “Toren, look at me.” She leaned forward in her seat. “I want the truth.”

  He gave her a pretend ecstatic smile. “Maybe a five point nine?”

  She had promised it wouldn’t hurt her feelings, but it did. After she’d pouted for forty minutes or so, he came upstairs and gave her a back rub that only stopped because she fell asleep. Two days later she tried a chicken dish and he rated it a nine point two. And she knew he meant it.

  Her gaze wandered to the table where he and Colton and Callie had carved ten thousand ugly pumpkins that were some of the most beautiful creations she’d ever seen. And the seed fights. Oh my gosh, the seed fights we’ve had. Every year, Toren had spent the better part of the day after a seed fight scrubbing the kitchen till the seeds and smell of pumpkins were no more.

  “Mom?”

  Sloane looked up to find Colton standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Hey, Colton.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Sorry, I was just thinking about some things,” Sloane said.

  “I’m going over to Griff’s house for the afternoon.”

  “You’ll be back for dinner?”

  “Unless they ask me to stay.” He grinned.

  Colton, her boy, so close to becoming a man, looking more like her husband each day.

  “Just let me know.”

  “Sure, Mom.” He strode to the front door, long, loping strides making her think of Toren even more. “I love you, Mom.”

  “Love you too,” she said as the front door slammed shut.

  She needed that wand. The one that would reverse time to when Colton and Callie and Toren and she had no idea that dark years were coming. As the fantasy circled her mind, a voice called from the top of the stairs. Callie.

  “Hey, Mom?”

  “Yes, sweetheart.”

  “What are you doing right now?”

  “Well, your dad is going to come over for a little bit.”

  “Right now? Yes! When?”

  Callie’s happy smile brought out a sad one of her own.

  “In a few minutes.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “To see me?”

  She bounded down the stairs, but by the time she reached the bottom step, her smile had faded.

  “I know you don’t like him anymore, Mommy. So I’m sorry he’s coming over, but I’m not sorry he’s coming over, do you know?”

  “I don’t dislike your dad. It’s just that . . .”

  “What? It’s just what?” She peered up at Sloane, so much still a little girl, so much a young woman.

  She kissed Callie on the forehead and said, “I’ll let you know when he gets here.”

  Sloane went to her bathroom, brushed her hair, and started to touch up her makeup. Halfway through, she looked into the mirror.

  “What do you think you’re doing? Stop it!”

  Makeup? For him? She should be washing all her makeup off. Attack her hair till it looked like a dilapidated rat’s nest. Smear dirt on her face. Make herself as unattractive as possible. He didn’t deserve to see her looking good.

  A knock at the door came seven minutes later. Always a knock. Toren never rang a doorbell—something about a knock harkening back to an earlier time when life was simpler. A funny little quirk she’d always loved about him. She went to the door and opened it wide, but he didn’t step over the threshold.

  “May I come in?”

  He looked at her and time stopped. He was different. Radically different. Not physically, although he looked in as good a shape as she’d ever seen him. His eyes. Sharp. Clearer than they’d ever been. So bright. They spoke of a dozen emotions at once. Peace. Joy. Kindness. A childlike playfulness. A splash of mischievousness, and more that she couldn’t name.

  But most of all, his countenance radiated love. Unvarnished, deeply grounded love. If she didn’t know better, Sloane would have sworn waves of love were surging out from him, wrapping themselves around her, playing a complicated game of tag as they swirled around her body.

  She stared up at him as he smiled and pointed to the hardwood of the entryway and repeated, “May I come in?”

  “Yes, of course.” She motioned with her hand and stepped back. “Sorry, I was . . . You, um . . . Sorry. Yes, come in, come in.”

  He stepped in, stopped just inside the door, and handed her a manila envelope. “Here you go.”

  She took it. The envelope, which couldn’t have weighed more than a quarter pound, suddenly felt like a barbell.

  “Are you okay?” He frowned.

  “Yes, I’m good.”

  “Good.”

  She set the envelope on the entryway table and started for the kitchen.

  “Daddy!” Callie screeched around the corner of the family room and launched herself into Toren’s arms. He picked her up in a hug and spun in a tight circle before setting her back down.

  “What did I do to deserve you?” He grinned at her.

  “It’s bio-o-logical. You couldn’t help it.”

  “Where in the known universe did you learn a word that big?”

  “TV.”

  He laughed. “How are you, pumpkin girl?”

  “Really good.”

  “Are we still on for Wednesday night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sweet.”

  Sloane took Callie around the shoulders and gave her a gentle squeeze. “I need to talk to your dad for a bit, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  She scooted off, giving Toren a quick wave as she went into the family room.

  “Let’s go out to the gazebo,” she said. “I don’t want Callie hearing any of this.”

  “You think I’m going to lose my—”

  “No, I’m not suggesting that at all . . . I just . . .” She sighed and motioned toward the back door, and Toren took the cue.

  They walked to the gazebo and settled into chairs on opposite sides of the table inside. Sloane glanced at him, but there was no point in staring into those eyes. Just let him say what he had to say and get it over with.

  “I was so blind, Sloane. So blind.” He rubbed the surface of the table. “I couldn’t see, but now I can.”

  It wasn’t his words, not even the tone of them that flooded into her heart. It was something else, something she couldn’t name, but it was more real than anything she’d ever known. Whatever had happened to him was more solid than anything had been in his life for a long, long time.

  “I know what I want.” He took in a deep breath and held it for a few moments before continuing. “I want you to be happy.”

  She blinked but said nothing. He looked at her, his eyes far brighter than they’d been even in the early days of their romance.

  “Be with him, Sloane.”

  “Wha . . . what?”

  “Levi. Be with him. I know you love him. From everything you’ve said, from everything I’ve heard about him and read about him—yeah, I did a little research online—he’s a good man. A very good man. Be with him, spend your life with him. He’ll treat you right. He’ll treat Callie right. Same with Colton. We can work it out, the stuff with the kids. I know we can.”

  She stared at him, stunned. She’d been ready for him to give her the papers, then launch into all the reasons why she didn’t have to do this, why she should reconsider, give it more time. She thought his signing was just a ploy to get her to sit down.

  “You are the most stunning creation I’ve ever known. No
t your outside, although you’re more gorgeous than the day we met. I mean what’s inside you. I was so fortunate to share your life in those early years, when spring was in the air every day of the year, and then when we lived in the heart of summer every evening.

  “But fall came, because of me, and now it’s winter. But there is a fire for you in your future, with Levi. So go. With my full blessing.”

  She stared at the tiny lines in the wood under her fingers. Her mind didn’t know where to go. This was . . . This was . . .

  She sensed Toren stand. Three seconds, five. Like a Greek statue he stood, till he stooped down, kissed her on the head, and said, “Good-bye, Sloane.” Then he turned and strolled away.

  Sloane wrenched herself out of the daze she was in and called out, “Toren!”

  He turned and gazed at her, a smile on his face so tender she involuntarily pulled in a quick breath. But it was the sadness in his eyes that went to her heart.

  A look passed over his face. Then he dropped his gaze, but she knew him too well not to know exactly what it was. He loved her. Period. Not for himself. Not for gain. Simply for her. But that wasn’t the deepest part of what the expression was about. The deepest part was the fact he didn’t want her to see his pain.

  Finally he looked back up, but only for a moment, waved, then turned and walked down the path to the house.

  CHAPTER 48

  Sloane sat at in the gazebo for ages, stunned, trying to wrap her mind around what had just happened. That was Toren, but it wasn’t him. Not the man she’d known for the past year and a half, not even the one she’d known in their early days together. The man who had fixed his eyes on her soul just now was someone she’d always seen flitting around the edges of her husband.

  When she finally stumbled back into the kitchen, Callie was sitting at a bar stool at the kitchen counter eating a grape Popsicle.