Providence: Once Upon a Second Chance

by Chris Coppernoll

  “Has anyone heard the weather report? It’s starting to look pretty nasty out there.”

  “They predicted three to four inches last night, and we got almost a foot,” Peter laughed. “Today it’s supposed to clear up. What was it doing when you drove in Jack?”

  “Uh … snowing,” I said.

  “Thank you for your brilliant analysis, Jack. You know as much as the guy on TV.”

  “Jack, thank you for sending your book to my dad … and for calling him,” said Nancy. “I talked to him on Sunday, and I could tell he really thought that was something.”

  “No problem. I only wish he were closer than Green Bay. I’d love to visit him.”

  “Well, it did him a world of good. I wanted you to know that.”

  Peter opened the meeting with prayer, then Aaron wrapped up a few loose ends from the fall semester, which felt more like winter. When he finished, he opened the floor for new business. I took my cue.

  “Good morning again, everyone. There’s a small, simple matter I need to discuss with you. This shouldn’t take too long, but I do feel it’s necessary to bring up what’s happening in my life and ministry.” I glanced at the faces around the conference table, hoping to gauge their receptivity. There was no indication, so I went on.

  “Arthur has asked me to start a new book. Don’t laugh, but he wants this one to be about yours truly.” I chuckled, giving them permission to laugh too. Nobody did.

  “Anyway, this has been an unusual season for CMO, as I’m sure you’d agree. The commotion from the last book … well, you all know what that was like. This office was turned upside down, and there were times when the chaos got in the way of the real work that’s supposed to go on here.”

  It was true. The attention lavished on Laborers was both a blessing and a burden. At its peak, tourists would stand in front of our building snapping pictures or knock on our front door asking for tours. One early morning Aaron had pulled into the parking lot to find a reporter from News Channel Five ready to pounce on him with a surprise interview as he climbed out of his Ford Taurus.

  “Arthur will want to market this book in a big way. He hasn’t said it yet, but I’m sure that’s his plan. This would mean pulling my energies away from the office over Christmas when things will be at their busiest, and even into the first part of next year. So you can see why I wanted to discuss this with you before I commit … if I commit to this project.”

  We were already overworked and understaffed. Even with just one person out, like when Peter had the flu the month before, the workload could feel crippling. The Christmas season was already upon us, and our student volunteers were up to their sleep-deprived eyeballs cramming for final exams just when the need for service was at its peak. This wasn’t merely a lousy time to make special requests, it was the absolute worst.

  Aaron, Peter, and Nancy listened attentively, offering no clues on their faces as I finished my opening remarks. I suspected each was deliberating how to phrase a gentle letdown, something about how a less-hectic semester, like summer, would be a better time for me to write a book.

  “I don’t know what anyone else at this table is thinking, Jack,” Aaron finally said, breaking the silence, “but I think you need to write the book.”

  I was stunned. Across the table Peter nodded his head in slow agreement. This didn’t make sense. I turned to Nancy and asked her what she thought.

  “I think you should do the book, Jack. Why wouldn’t you want to?” Nancy’s expression was calm, but her words shot their own kind of caffeinated stimulant into the meeting.

  Peter and Aaron turned in unison to catch my reaction.

  “It isn’t that I don’t want to write the book,” I said, hoping to sound convincing. “Part of me wants to write it.”

  Nancy’s words had blindsided me. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that my three closest friends would agree with Arthur. The reality left me scrambling for cover.

  “I’m very aware of how this … I’m trying to be sensitive to …”

  In front of my friend’s knowing eyes, I wrote, erased, and rewrote excuses until Aaron mercifully stepped in.

  “Jack, I’m going to speak candidly. What’s happened with your book over the past year or so has been remarkable. It’s something only God could have done, and through it, I believe He’s allowing millions of people to reconsider their faith and reflect on how they should serve the poor. But it wouldn’t surprise me if God is up to something more, Jack, something specifically focused on you.”

  Around the table there were confident nods of agreement. There was also an odd burgeoning energy that made me uncomfortable. I began to squirm in my seat.

  “Everyone who comes in contact with your book seems to benefit: the college, the Norwood community, and Arthur Reed, I’m sure. But I don’t think God’s done with it yet, Jack. I really don’t. There may be something in all of this He’s saving just for you.”

  “You’ve got to be joking!” The words left my mouth before I could rein them in.

  “No, I’m not joking. I’ve worked with you for twelve years. There are a lot of things about you I don’t know.”

  “Never gives interviews,” Peter interjected, his face propped up against one open hand, his eyes studying me.

  “I’ve read your books.” Aaron held three fingers in the air. “Hardly a word about yourself in any of them. Why is that?”

  “Well, they’re not about me. They’re books about Norwood,” I said, sounding more defensive than I intended.

  “Fair enough, but you found space in those pages to talk about everyone who lives in Norwood, and most of the students who’ve volunteered here. You even wrote a paragraph or two about those of us around this table, but never so much as a word about yourself.”

  “Yeah, I’ve thought that too, Jack,” Peter said. He tugged at the white plastic lid on his Starbucks cup, a Cheshire-catlike smile appearing on his face. “Maybe this is God’s way of getting you to write your story.” He let out a slow laugh, and I heard something in it that scared me: truth.

  With the three of them sitting on the opposite side of the table, the meeting felt like a parole-board hearing. I didn’t like how this was going. I’d already fought a tug-of-war with Arthur. Now Peter, Aaron, and Nancy were grabbing hold of the rope too.

  I wanted to say something to change their minds, but before I could find the words, Nancy spoke.

  “Jack, God may be giving you not so much a book to write as a course to take. Maybe He has something for you to discover about Him or yourself, something you can’t learn any other way.”

  “That’s possible,” Aaron said. “He may even want to heal something from your past you’re not aware of.”

  “I don’t know about anyone else,” said Peter, “but I don’t think you have much of a choice. You need to write this book.” He seemed awfully chipper about the whole thing.

  “I don’t doubt this will be challenging for you, Jack,” Nancy added, “but look at the positives. It could be an incredible adventure.”

  And there it was. My three friends spoke as if God Himself were speaking through them. I knew then that I had to write this book. I felt it in the core of my being just as surely as I feel this plastic keyboard beneath my curled fingertips. I’d raced in looking for a way out. What I found was a trio of voices to accompany Arthur’s self-assured solo.

  There was a fifth voice, too. One that came from inside me. Until that moment it had been silent. I could say no to Arthur, even to my coworkers, but not to this inner voice.

  “You’re not concerned about our work?” I asked.

  “The students will come back in January ready to handle a lot more than when they arrived here last fall,” Peter said. “I can take on more.”

  The four of us sat in silence.

  “Jack, the work we do here is service based,” said Aaron. “It’s not just assistance to the college but serving any needs we see the Lord directing us to. If you’re asking for our counsel�
�which I’m not sure you wanted when you came in here—my suggestion is to take time off, to think and pray, to remember, and especially to write.”

  Nancy pushed in the stinger. “Jack, have you considered taking a leave of absence?”

  “No, I haven’t.” But I can read the writing on the wall.

  “I think that’s an excellent idea,” Aaron said.

  Downstairs the office phone rang, and I heard Mrs. Burman pick it up. “Campus Missions Office.”

  Aaron stood, and Nancy and Peter followed suit. Our meeting was over. The most trusted people I knew on earth had just cut me loose from the tether that held me to it.

  “You’ve had an incredible year, Jack,” Aaron said. “Don’t be afraid to take some time off.”

  “Yeah, Jack, unwind a little.” Nancy smiled.

  “We’re not trying to get rid of you!” Peter quipped, prompting laughter from Nancy and Aaron and lightening my somewhat dour mood.

  As Aaron walked through the conference-room doorway where I’d nearly knocked him down twenty minutes earlier, he turned and issued a decree. “Use this week to get your things together, and then take off the rest of December and January—even February if you need it.”

  I spent the rest of the morning in my office answering e-mails, canceling appointments, and wondering what had just happened. I’d walked into the building intent on ditching the book. Now, as the heaviest snowfall of the year fell outside my office window, I was clearing out the desk I’d known as my home away from home for the past twelve years. It didn’t take a week to get my things in order. By ten thirty I’d scratched all the upcoming events off my day planner.

  “Doesn’t do interviews,” Peter had said.

  “There are a lot of things about you I don’t know,” Aaron had said.

  Welcome to the club. I’ve been walking around in these shoes for forty years, and there’s plenty I don’t know either.

  Around noon Mrs. Burman knocked on my open door. She handed me mail she normally would have left in a box downstairs.

  “A little birdie told me you’re gonna be leaving us for a while,” she said, making it sound like I was a kid about to be dropped off at summer camp.

  “Yes. I’ve been hearing that too, Mrs. B. You want to join me? We can make it a twosome.”

  She laughed, ever guileless. “Oh-ho, I can’t do that. But I’m going to miss you when you’re gone.”

  I knew she meant it. I got up from my desk and gave her a hug, not something I normally did, but it felt natural just the same. I thanked her for her thoughtfulness and took it all as a sign the office would find a way to adjust to my departure.

  I called Arthur and told him the news. I’m certain he tried covering up the phone, but I could still hear him squealing with delight. He was a lucky jackpot winner hitting it big the day his house almost got repossessed.

  “The Lord works in mysterious ways, Jack!” he told me. I wondered how he’d ever wipe the grin from his face.

  After twelve years at CMO, my last official day ended with Peter and me stepping out for a quick bite at Oscar’s, a popular on-campus deli. We grabbed seats in the first open booth. A busboy cleaned off the vinyl red-and-white-checkered tablecloth, and I scanned the mini-jukebox mounted on the wall between us. We gave the waitress our order without looking at menus. Over the noise of the bustling lunch crowd, Peter asked how I was doing.

  “I’m fine,” I said, not wanting to admit to either of us the trepidation I was feeling. “It’s going to take transition time, that’s all.”

  “Sorry if we were a little brusque with you. We could have eased you into things a little better,” Peter said, mending fences that didn’t really need mending.

  “It’s fine, Peter. I’ll get into the swing of things.”

  “That’s the spirit. You really do need a break. What’d you sell? Something like a billion books? After that kind of earthquake, I’d think anyone would want to step away for a while, nail their cupboards back on the walls.”

  The waitress returned and dropped off two oversized Reubens with dill pickles and chips and two Coca-Colas in large red plastic cups. We asked the Lord for His blessing, then dug in.

  “I’m not against taking time off, Peter,” I said. “I just haven’t figured out what I’m in for.”

  “All the more reason to take a break. Have you thought about going somewhere? An exotic writer’s retreat, or whatever you best-selling authors call it. Go somewhere and just write and relax.”

  Did those two words go together? Write and relax?

  “I can’t say it’s crossed my mind,” I said, suddenly distracted by a twenty-something female student a few tables away, who reminded me of someone I knew a long time ago.

  A customer in the booth behind me dropped a quarter in the jukebox and punched in a song. Even with the deafening crowd noise, I could hear the faint melody from an era ago.

  “This is the sound of my soul, this is the sound …”

  “You’re writing the book, right?” Peter took a long pull from his Coke.

  “Yes.” I said for the official record.

  “So, fly out of here. What’s keeping you? We’re in the middle of the coldest winter in memory, and Jamaica is eighty degrees with blue waters and white, sandy beaches. I thought you were rich, Jack.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t even be here now.”

  I took another bite of my Reuben. “Jamaica, huh?”

  “Why not? You haven’t taken a vacation in … how long has it been?”

  “Twenty years, give or take a decade.”

  “So go. Who knows, the future Mrs. Clayton may be waiting for you on one of those beaches.” Peter smiled, a subtle tease at my being forty and still single.

  I didn’t need to remind him that he was single and nearly forty too. I wouldn’t remind him, of course, how there’d almost been a Mrs. Clayton. That was a memory I kept private. As close as Peter and I were, I could never tell him about Jenny. Where would I start? And just how would I end, with her tears or my own?

  “Well, I hope she doesn’t burn easily,” I said.

  After lunch we drove back to the office and said our good-byes in the parking lot, the relentless snow temporarily switched to off. I climbed into an ice-cold Jeep and fired up the engine. Sitting in the frozen cab with the windows frosted over, my mind wandered to dreams of tiki huts, resting my bare feet on a crate of fresh papaya, reading in a lazy netted hammock, the setting orange sun warm on my face.

  Driving out of the parking lot, I thought about those boxes of memories sitting unopened in the far reaches of my mind, most having not seen sunlight for twenty years.

  I got home around two o’clock, exhausted, and managed to switch on CNN before falling asleep on the sofa in front of the TV. Two hours later I awoke feeling disoriented and went upstairs for my second blistering-hot shower of the day. By the time I was dry, I felt a state approaching normal again. Across the bedroom the phone-message light was blinking red. I walked over to the nightstand and pressed the playback button.

  “Helloooo, Jack!” the caller said in a tone crackled and low. “This is a voice from your past. Does the name Howard Cameron ring any bells for you?”

  Oh my gosh …

  Howard’s good-natured laugh trailed after the question like the twinkling tail of a kite. “You’re probably at work right now, but since this is the only number we have—without tracking you down through the FBI—we’ll just have to leave a message.”

  Had it been twenty years?

  “By now you’ve probably received the postcard Angela and I sent you.”

  Postcard?

  “We’re back from England as of the seventh, and as I wrote on the card, we’ll be passing through Providence this Saturday. We both read your book by the way and are delighted to see you’ve finally come to some good!” More hearty laughter. “Hope you’re free ’cause we’d love to see you, Jack. Anyway, we’ll try you again later in the week.”

  The machine shut off, a
nd the little red light began blinking again. For all these years, Jenny’s parents had been in England working as missionaries. The last time I’d seen them, they were leaving to go to Europe. I’d always liked Howard and Angela, especially Howard. He acted as if he thought the world of me, even though I never did a thing to earn it. Now they were on their way back to Indiana.

  “Well, I’ve got the day off,” I said to the empty room, a sure sign of my impending crack-up.

  I finished dressing and went downstairs. It was five thirty and already dark outside. I set a fresh pot of coffee to brew in the kitchen and returned down the hallway to the office. I switched on a small lamp and lit a scented candle I’d found in the back of a drawer. Nothing wrong with a little atmosphere.

  Soon the room was aglow with light and the scents of vanilla and cinnamon. Fractured frost painted the windowpanes in front of my desk. Outside, Indiana was a winter icebox, the wind whistling her subzero carols.

  When the iMac finished booting up, I double-clicked the document icon I’d planned on tossing out just twelve hours earlier. It was time to write—but first, time to pray.

  Lord, You’re here with me. I know You’re doing something. Let my work be in line with Your plans. Make me fit to serve You. I needed God’s blessing, and His company, on whatever journey I was about to take. I needed to hand Him the book before I wrote a single word.

  The iMac greeted me like C-3PO from Star Wars. “Master Jack, how good of you to return! I knew you wouldn’t leave us!”

  “Leave you? No, I wouldn’t do that, C-3PO. I’ve got a story to write. And I need your help to travel back in time, to the year 1985.”

  ~ THREE ~

  These dreams go on when I close my eyes

  Every second of the night I live another life.

  —Heart

  “These Dreams”

  I bolted upright in bed. A cool breeze whispered through the open window after a day as hot as a summer greenhouse. I could hear the rumble of a storm tumbling from the far side of Collinger County. Awakened from a bad dream, I lay back in my bed, counting the seconds of silence between the flashes of light and the booms of distant thunder. I listened for sound coming from the other side of the upstairs hallway where my mother, Marianne Clayton, slept, but I heard only the raging of the storm outside. There was no noise loud enough to wake my dad, George Clayton, since divorce had transported him to Southern California eight years earlier.