Richard Paul Evans: The Complete Walk Series eBook Boxed Set

by Richard Paul Evans

  Initially, my talk didn’t have a name and I just referred to it as “the talk.” It was more than five years after that first presentation before I began calling my talk “The Four Doors.” I liked the metaphor of the door for two reasons. First, because passing through a door requires knowledge, intent, and action. We can’t pass through a door we can’t find and we can’t pass through a door without moving ourselves.

  Second, once we’ve crossed a door’s threshold, we are not in the same place as we were before. These characteristics are true for each of the doors, or principles, in this book.

  I believe that the greatest thing that all humanity has in common is the desire to make their lives matter. In the last two decades, I have met thousands of people and heard many of their stories. Far too many are living what Thoreau termed “lives of quiet desperation.” They live far below their own potential for joy, accomplishment, and power, caged in the prisons of their own unknowing. To some degree, this describes all of us.

  The Four Doors is about how to live life joyfully, with freedom, power, and purpose. I have witnessed the powerful effect each of these doors carries—in both my own life and the lives of those with whom I have shared this message. If you are willing to follow even just one of these principles, you will find immediate, positive change in your life. If you choose to live them all, you will soon be in a very different place than you are now. The choice is yours. And, as you will soon learn, the Four Doors are entirely about choice.

  © DEBRA MACFARLANE

  RICHARD PAUL EVANS is the #1 bestselling author of The Christmas Box. Each of his more than twenty novels has been a New York Times bestseller. There are more than seventeen million copies of his books in print worldwide, translated into more than twenty-four languages. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the American Mothers Book Award, the Romantic Times Best Women’s Novel of the Year Award, the German Audience Gold Award for Romance, three Religion Communicators Council Wilbur Awards, the Washington Times Humanitarian of the Century Award, and the Volunteers of America National Empathy Award. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife, Keri, and their five children. You can learn more about Richard on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RPEfans, or visit his website, www.richardpaulevans.com.

  FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Richard-Paul-Evans

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  ALSO BY RICHARD PAUL EVANS

  The Walk Series

  The Walk

  Miles to Go

  The Road to Grace

  A Winter Dream

  Lost December

  Promise Me

  The Christmas List

  Grace

  The Gift

  Finding Noel

  The Sunflower

  A Perfect Day

  The Last Promise

  The Christmas Box Miracle

  The Carousel

  The Looking Glass

  The Locket

  The Letter

  Timepiece

  The Christmas Box

  For Children and Young Adults

  The Dance

  The Christmas Candle

  The Spyglass

  The Tower

  The Light of Christmas

  Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25

  Michael Vey 2: Rise of the Elgen

  Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by Richard Paul Evans

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition May 2013

  SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Designed by Davina Mock-Maniscalco

  Jacket design by Jackie Seow

  Jacket photographs by Getty Images

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-1-4516-2829-6

  ISBN 978-1-4516-2834-0 (ebook)

  Acknowledgments

  A s I wind up this journey, my own as well as Alan’s, I wish to thank all those who helped me cross this country, especially my very talented daughter Jenna for her companionship, navigation (both literal and literary), research, and overall brilliance in helping me craft Alan’s journey.

  Thank you to my agent, Laurie, for her immediate enthusiasm for this series.

  I wish to thank those at Simon & Schuster who have done so much to push Alan along: Jonathan Karp, Carolyn Reidy, Trish Todd (and Molly), Gypsy da Silva, Richard Rhorer for suggesting the title of this book, and the Simon & Schuster promotional and sales teams. Thank you to David Rosenthal, who was there at the beginning of the journey and believed that this series was precisely what America needed at this time.

  I wish to thank Glenn Beck and Kevin Balfe for helping to spread the word about this series, as well as Hoda and Kathie Lee.

  Blessings to my staff: Lisa Johnson (the angel midwife), Diane Glad (thank you especially for all your help in Florida), Heather McVey, Barry Evans, Doug Osmond, and Cammy Shosted. Thank you to my dear friend Karen Roylance for helping me brainstorm and believe in the mission of this series.

  A special thanks to my neighbor, Joel Richards, for sharing his stories from Vietnam. (You’ve become an action figure to me.) Thank you to Karrie Richards, Madison Storrs, Natalie Hanley, Ally , Kelly Glad (again!), and Alexis Snyder for their assistance with medical research, as well as Ronda Jones for advising us on Danish names, Earl Stine for sharing with us his experiences of biking the Keys, and Ted and Alease at the Inn at Folkston for their warm welcome.

  To Karen Christoffersen, the widow of the real Alan Christoffersen, I hope this series has helped heal your heart and kept your love close to you.

  Thank you to my family, Keri, David, Jenna and Sam, Allyson, Abigail and Chase, McKenna, and Michael. And Philly. You are my hope, comfort, and reason.

  Most of all, thank you to my beautiful readers around the world, who have made this walk possible—especially all those who have gone outside themselves to tell their friends, families, and colleagues about the series. (Please don’t stop!) Without your sharing, we never would have reached so many people.

  In memory of my parents, who taught me to walk

  We shall not cease from exploration

  And the end of all our exploring

  Will be to arrive at where we started

  And know the place for the first time.

  —T. S. Eliot

  PROLOGUE

  When I was eight years old, three days after my mother’s funeral, my father found me curled up on the floor of my bedroom closet.

  “What are you doing in there?” he asked.

  I sat up, wiping the tears from my face. “Nothing.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  My father, who was never comfortable with outward displays of emotion, had no idea what to do with a crying boy. “All right, then,” he finally said, rubbing his chin. “Let me know if you need something.”

  “Why did she have to die?”

  My father looked at me pensively, then took a deep breath. “I don’t know. We all die sometime. It’s just the way it is.”

 
“Is she in heaven?”

  I could see him struggling between telling me what I wanted to hear and telling me what he believed. Even at my age I knew that he didn’t believe in God. Finally he said, “If there’s a heaven, you can be sure she’s there.”

  “What if there’s not a heaven?”

  He was quiet for a moment, then he tapped his index finger against his right temple. “Then she’s here. In our minds.”

  “I don’t want her there,” I said. “I want to forget her. Then it won’t hurt so much.”

  He shook his head. “That would be worse than hurting.” He crouched down next to me. “It’s our memories that make us who we are. Without them, we’re nothing. If that means we have to hurt sometimes, it’s worth it.”

  “I don’t think it’s worth it.”

  “Would you wish that she had never been your mother?”

  “No,” I said angrily.

  “To forget her would be exactly that, wouldn’t it?”

  I thought about it a moment, then said, “Will I ever see her again?”

  “We can hope.”

  As hard as I tried not to, I broke down crying again. “I miss her so much.”

  My father put his hand on my shoulder. Then, in one of the few times in my life that I can recall, he pulled me into him and held me. “Me too, Son. Me too.”

  Imagine that you are sitting on an airplane, holding a pen a few inches above a blank journal page. Now imagine that whatever you write will be read by hundreds or thousands of people. Just imagine. What will you write? Will you share some hidden piece of yourself with those unseen souls? Will you impart some wisdom to help them on their journeys? Are you arrogant enough to believe that anything you write could possibly matter? I suppose that’s where I am right now.

  My name is Alan Christoffersen, and this is the last journal of my walk across America. For those who have been following my journey from the beginning, you know where I am, what I’ve seen, and who I’ve met. You know about my broken heart, the love I’ve lost, and the one I hope to find. For those who have been walking with me, we’ve been through a lot together. And we’re not through. Not by a long stretch.

  For those new to my journey, I began my walk in Seattle seven days after my wife, McKale, died from complications after a horse riding accident. While she was still alive and I was caring for her, my advertising agency was stolen by my partner and my home was foreclosed on. With no place to live and nothing to live for, I considered taking my life. Instead I decided to walk as far away as I could—Key West, Florida. I have already walked nearly three thousand miles to the Florida state line.

  Though I’m close to my destination, in some ways, I’ve never been further from completing my journey. Once again, I’m unexpectedly headed back west. My father had a heart attack and is in critical condition at the Huntington Hospital in Pasadena. Right now I’m sitting on this airplane not knowing if he’s alive or dead. It’s almost too much to process. He didn’t want me to go back out on my walk, but I did. I feel guilty about that. Did he know something was going to happen to him? If I had stayed would it have made a difference? There are too many questions with answers I don’t want to know.

  By the time you read this, I will have already passed through many of the doors I’m facing right now. Only these words will be stuck in time. And you, like I am now, are alone with these words. Use them as you will. Every life can be learned from, as either a flame of hope or a cautionary flare. I don’t know yet which one mine is. By the time you read this, I probably will.

  CHAPTER

  One

  Sometimes our arms are so full with the burdens we carry that it hinders our view of the load those around us are staggering beneath.

  Alan Christoffersen’s diary

  My flight from Jacksonville, Florida, landed in Atlanta, where I had a brief layover before changing planes. My second flight was more crowded than my first. The woman in the seat next to mine, the middle seat in a row of three, held a child on her lap. The woman was crying. I noticed her swollen eyes and tear-streaked cheeks as I got up to let her and her young child to their seat. I didn’t know what was wrong with the woman, but she was clearly in pain.

  She was a few years younger than I was, pretty even though her eyes were puffy and her mascara smeared. I guessed the child on her lap was around two. She was especially active, which added to the woman’s stress. After we had taken off, I took out my phone, set it to a game, and offered it to the woman for her child.

  “Maybe this will help keep her occupied.”

  “Thank you,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess. My husband died yesterday.” She paused with emotion. “I don’t know how to explain it to my daughter. She keeps asking for her daddy.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  The little girl dropped my phone on the floor. The woman was embarrassed but unable to retrieve it with her daughter on her lap.

  “No worries, I’ll get it,” I said. I unfastened my seat belt, got out of my seat, and picked up my phone.

  “Would you mind handing me that bag?” the woman asked.

  I lifted a red leather bag from the space on the floor between our feet and handed it to her. She brought out a fabric book and gave it to her daughter.

  “Are you from LA?” I asked.

  “LA County. I was born in Pasadena.”

  “I lived next door in Arcadia,” I said.

  She nodded. “I live in Atlanta now, but my parents are still in Pasadena. I’m going to stay with them for a while.”

  “It’s good to be with family at times like this,” I said. “Was your husband’s death expected?”

  “No. He was in a car crash.” Saying this brought tears to her eyes again. She was quiet for a moment, fighting back emotion. Then she said, “The thing is, it was just another day.” She shook her head. “Then the police showed up on my doorstep . . .” She breathed in, then exhaled slowly. “It was just another day.”

  “That’s how I felt after my wife died.”

  “You lost your wife?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Was it sudden?”

  “The accident was. She was thrown by a horse and broke her back. She was paralyzed from the waist down. A month later she got an infection. That’s what took her.”

  “Then you know how I feel.”

  “Maybe something of what you feel.”

  The woman closed her eyes as if suddenly lost in thought. A moment later she turned back to me. “Did you love her?”

  The question surprised me. “With all my heart.”

  She looked down a moment, then said, “My husband and I were fighting when he left. The last thing I said to him was ‘Don’t come back.’ ”

  I frowned. “That’s rough.”

  “They say be careful what you ask for.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She took a deep breath. “Me too. We were probably going to get divorced anyway. I just don’t like being to blame for his death.”

  “You can’t—”

  “I am to blame,” she said. “At least partially. If I hadn’t shouted at him, he wouldn’t have left. If he hadn’t left, he wouldn’t have been in the accident. I can’t tell you how guilty I feel. I don’t know what’s worse, the guilt or the loss.”

  “Did you fight a lot?”

  “Constantly.” She hesitated for a moment, as if trying to decide whether or not to tell me more. Then she said, “He was a lawyer. I caught him with his secretary parked in a Kroger’s parking lot about a mile from his office. I was going to get a coffee when I saw his car and I pulled up behind them. I asked him what he was doing. He said, ‘Nothing, we were just talking.’ I said, ‘In a Kroger’s parking lot?’ He just stared at me, and I could tell he was making up an excuse. Then he said, ‘It’s nothing. I forgot one of my briefs and I had her meet me here with it.’ I said, ‘Do I have stupid tattooed on my forehead?’

  “His little girlfriend looked so guilty I tho
ught she was going to faint. That night I gave him an ultimatum, fire her or divorce me. He fired her. But I’m pretty sure he never stopped seeing her.

  “Two days ago we were sitting together at the breakfast table and it suddenly hit me how alone I was. We were just six feet from each other and we might as well have been on different planets. He was reading the news on his iPad. I told him that I was thinking of going to LA to see my sister; he didn’t say anything. Then I said, ‘I think I’ll probably stay a year or two.’ Still nothing. Finally I said, ‘I’ll probably shack up with my old boyfriend in Irvine.’ He looked up and said, ‘Who’s Irwin?’

  “I just looked at him, then said, ‘I’m making pasta tonight; try not to be late.’ Then I got up and walked out. That night he came home six hours late. I had tried to call him to see where he was, but his phone was off. By the time he got home I had already gone to bed. The next morning he kept apologizing; he said he’d had to work late. But I knew he hadn’t been at work because he reeked of alcohol and perfume. Chanel No. 5. How unoriginal is that? I said, ‘So how was she?’ He looked panicked. Then he said, ‘Who?’ That’s when I told him to get out and not come back.”

  “And he left?”

  She nodded. “Three hours later the police showed up on my doorstep.”

  “I think most women would have done what you did.”

  “I suppose.” She looked into my eyes. “What happens? There was a time I used to cry when he’d leave me at night. Where does it go?”

  “It changes,” I said.

  “Did it change for you?”

  “In ways. Relationships are always changing. My wife and I had our storms, but instead of pulling us apart, they drove us closer together.”