Providence: Once Upon a Second Chance

by Chris Coppernoll

  “I’m back from England. We decided to fly into DC first and see Erin before we return to Indiana.”

  “But I saw your dad. He said you wouldn’t arrive until February.”

  “We sold the house before Christmas, and the woman who’s stepping in knows more about mission work than I do. The boys and I decided to start the new year in America.”

  Jenny wore a pair of blue jeans and an English-style white wool sweater. Her hair was redder than I’d seen before, highlighting her natural brown.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, laughing. “I sure didn’t have any idea you’d be here.”

  “You mean you just happened to pick today to come to Annandale for the first time in your life to see a friend you haven’t spoken to in twenty years?”

  “Something like that.”

  Erin’s Christmas tree was trimmed with strings of popcorn on its evergreen limbs, and a young child’s painting of the nativity decorated the refrigerator. While she prepared chicken salad, we stood in the kitchen talking about everything and nothing, and I found myself lost in this moment. Every word Jenny and Erin spoke was music. Every gesture as fresh as it was familiar. The scene was sublime.

  “Jack, do you think you could stay for dinner?” Erin asked. “I’d love for you to meet Donald.”

  “Yes, I’d love to stay, if it’s not too much trouble. I know I sort of invited myself.”

  “I don’t think so, Jack.” Both girls laughed. “This one was a little over your head.”

  “So, where are the boys?”

  “They went into DC this morning with Donald. He works with the Park Service and is giving the boys a tour.”

  After lunch Erin went upstairs to check on Baby Claire, and Jenny and I sat on the leather sofa in the front room, where sunlight was streaming in through the windows. We sat quietly in the airy room, content with the day’s events.

  “So. What’s new?” Jenny jested. It had only been a lifetime since our last day together in London.

  “Not a thing,” I said, the two of us smiling like idiots.

  “You know, if we keep grinning like this, Erin’s going to think we’re lunatics.”

  “Quite possibly,” I said. “I may actually be a lunatic, though, so I’m bound to be found out sooner or later.”

  More quiet. The rustle of electricity humming around us made me feel alive. At last, words spilled out like water flooding over the rim of a cup.

  “Jenny, however this day was laced together, I want to say for the record, I can die now. This has been an amazing day.”

  “It’s been a very good day.”

  “Jenny, you know I didn’t know you were going to be here, don’t you?”

  “I know,” she said.

  “When are you leaving for Indiana?”

  “The day after tomorrow.

  “Nate and Andrew, right?

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I saw their pictures at lunch with your folks. Nice-looking boys.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m … sorry about Murphy.”

  “Yeah. Me, too. He was a great man and a wonderful father to the boys. They miss him.”

  “You must miss him too,” I said, hoping she would be comfortable saying she loved him.

  “Yeah, I miss him,” she sighed. “Murphy was the man I always hoped I’d marry. I loved him very much. He was a great provider, and we had an amazing marriage. We were partners in every sense of the word, and when he died, the boys lost their father, and I lost my best friend.”

  Her lips closed tight. There was more, but it wasn’t for me to hear. It was only for her and Murphy.

  She turned the conversation to me. “How is it you escaped the bonds of matrimony all these years? I thought women would beat themselves senseless trying to snag a hot author like you.”

  “Funny you should ask. I actually have piles of senseless women stacked up outside my door in Providence. I’ll have to clear the walkway if you ever come for a visit.”

  “You may have to do that,” she said.

  “I heard you read my book.”

  “Yes, I did. Jack, I liked hearing about what you’d been doing in Providence. I knew you could grow into that person.”

  “What person?”

  “The person who would care more about other people than you cared about yourself. As I listened to your words—I had the book on tape—part of me was cheering on the ministry, but another part of me was really just happy about the person you’ve become.”

  “It took a long time,” I confessed. “A long time and a lot of hardship … But God changed me.”

  “I see that now.” Jenny gave me the warm acceptance of her smile. “So how does it feel to be a best-selling author?” she asked, both teasing and flattering me.

  “Honestly, I’d rather talk about you. The book, all the attention surrounding it, it’s all about God—His doing. It has meant a lot to the people in Norwood. Did you recognize the project as an extension of the work you and Dr. Holland were doing?”

  “I think it’s much different than what we were trying to do. The fact that you’re doing it to serve the Lord makes it better.”

  The phone rang. Erin answered it upstairs.

  “You can put Band-Aids on people’s lives, but they’re only temporary fixes. If they can find the Spirit of the Lord, they’re changed for good.”

  Erin walked into the room. “Donald just called. He said they should be back home by four. I told him you’re here, Jack, and he says he’s looking forward to meeting you.”

  For the next two hours the three of us talked about Mitchell, Providence College, and how the Lord had been working in three different lives over the past twenty years.

  When Donald, Andrew, and Nate returned home at four, I recognized the boys from their photos. I saw a little bit of Mitchell in Donald—his astuteness and athletic pose were reminiscent of my best buddy.

  I prepared to leave for the hotel room around eight. The kids needed to get to bed, the baby needed a bath, and Erin and Donald needed their home back.

  Jenny walked me to my car.

  “I’m glad we got to see each other today, Jack. I truly am.”

  “Me, too. Although it was the shock of a lifetime.”

  Much had changed. The thick iron door that stood between us in London had melted away into nothing.

  “So, you’re heading back the day after tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Yes, I think that’s the plan. How about you?”

  “I don’t have any plans. My life these days is a testament to planlessness.”

  “Hmm. And you drove down?”

  “Yeah, in a rental.”

  “Why don’t I give you a call in the morning. Maybe you’ll want to join us for breakfast.” Jenny smiled.

  We said our good-nights, not our good-byes, and I drove back to the hotel. When I lay down to sleep, I giggled like a kid whose father has just given him Christmas.

  ~ THIRTY-SEVEN ~

  I’ll be back in the high life again

  All the doors I closed one time will open up again

  I’ll be back in the high life again

  All the eyes that watched me once will smile and take me in.

  —STEVE WINWOOD

  “Back in the High Life Again”

  The next morning I telephoned Bud to tell him I wouldn’t be coming back to Chicago. My writing days were over. I told him about the previous twenty-four hours, though I wasn’t sure he’d believe me.

  “You’re right, man. I don’t believe it.”

  I told him everything while he took notes. He wanted to include all the new developments in the book, and I told him he should.

  “Let me ask you something, Bud. Do you think it’s possible God orchestrated the events that happened yesterday, or was it all just a coincidence?”

  “How would I know?”

  “I’m trying to make sense of what’s happened in my life over
the past month. I guess I’m wondering what you see. How you would explain all this.”

  I wanted Bud to see God’s faithfulness. He’d been reading page after page of my life. He’d come in during the middle of my movie and then got to watch the ending unfold right before his eyes. I prayed that seeing how God was working out what I couldn’t do myself might set Bud’s own heart beating for God’s wondrous grace.

  The surprises kept coming.

  Jenny called and asked if I would consider driving back to Indianapolis with them. “The boys have never been stateside before, and it’s been a long time since I’ve driven on this side of the road. We are both going the same way.”

  I rested on my hotel bed with the shades open, the sun filling the room with more incredibly brilliant light.

  Thank you, God, for all You’ve done …

  At six o’clock on a chilly morning, we loaded her car with a surprisingly small amount of luggage and two sleepy boys still in their pajamas. Jenny and I said good-bye to Donald and Erin, returned my rental car at the airport, and took to the open road in Jenny’s rental.

  “How are we going to explain to your parents why I drove you and the boys home?” I asked.

  “We’ll just say it made sense for us to be together.”

  We made it back to Providence in a single stretch of driving, with plenty of snack breaks along the way. The four of us took in the sights and sounds of our cross-country trek as if the United States were a strange new world being explored for the first time. Indeed, for Nate and Andrew it was. The boys were amazed at the size of the country, the number of minivans on the highway, swiping a card to pay for gas at the pump, and the dizzying array of stuff for sale in our stores. We played road-trip games and license-plate bingo, counted cows, and made one another laugh with jokes and silliness.

  It took some getting used to, hearing English accents from Nate and Andrew, but it must have taken a lot more for the boys to get used to me. In quieter moments I would catch Andrew’s stare from the backseat in the rearview mirror. At times I felt a connection, like during the footrace I lost to the boys at a rest stop, and the hysterical laughter we all shared upon finding a nine-foot-tall plastic chicken guarding the front of a Southern-style restaurant. Other times I sensed walls going up, distancing meant to protect, I suppose. Like when Nate saw the now-old issue of Time magazine on the counter at Cracker Barrel and asked, “Are you famous?”

  “I used to be,” I said, wishing that part of my life was behind me.

  I saw Jenny studying me too sometimes, watching me interact with her boys. Wondering, perhaps, how I might have been Murphy had circumstances been different. Or how nice it was seeing the boys play and laugh in the country that was now their home. Or how much she wanted the boys to have a father.

  “I didn’t know you were such a natural with kids,” she said, threading her arm through mine as we entered yet another Speedy Mart in search of snacks.

  “You’ve raised a couple of awesome boys, Jen,” I told her. “So what’s it like to be a parent?”

  I asked because the woman who’d played the starring role in all my memories was a twenty-something single college student. The real Jenny is a forty-something widow with two young children.

  She gave the question due thought. “It’s like having every important thing in the world wrapped up in two vulnerable and innocent little guys you would give your life for. You focus every day on everything you can do to make their lives happy and complete, while at the same time marveling at just how spectacular they already are as individuals.”

  “So you like them,” I said, smiling.

  “You could say that. So what’s it like staying single all these years?”

  “It’s like living in a big mansion, and you know that behind a certain closed door, there’s a room, a part of you that you can’t access because the door is locked and you can’t open it on your own. Still, you know the room’s there, and every once in a while, you pass the door, and you wonder what’s inside, and whether or not the door will ever be opened.”

  “That sounds terribly lonely.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s been lonely. I just kept pushing on, doing the things I knew to do, trusting that God would do what He wanted, and not really thinking about the outcome.”

  “Jack, do you believe God cares about the outcome? That He cares about you and what happens in your life?”

  “Yeah, I do. I mean … I’m seeing it. You’re here, Jenny. I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again, but now you’re here, standing next to me. We’re talking again, and it feels so comfortable. Sort of like we shared all those years ago, and every time I …”

  I stopped talking and lowered my gaze. I needed to stop saying so much. This wasn’t a conversation to have in line at the Speedy Mart while waiting for the boys to come back from the bathroom.

  “Every time you what?”

  I lowered my voice and moved a step closer. “And every time I look at you, I praise God for allowing me to know you. I know in my heart there’s no one else on earth like you. I am in awe of you.”

  Jenny was looking at me, into me, like she had so many years before. I recognized that smile, but there was something new in it as well. A sense of peace. The cashier rang up the Cokes and chips as the boys ran up behind Jenny to tell her all about the automatic air freshener that surprised them by misting in the bathroom.

  Jenny and the boys dropped me off in Providence and drove on to Indy. Two days later I called and asked her if she wanted to spend a day with me in Providence. The following Saturday we met for lunch at Oscar’s. I was there early to greet her at a quiet booth in the college sandwich shop, half empty on the weekend.

  “Wow, this place brings back memories. It’s hardly changed. I didn’t realize so much of the town would still look the same.”

  “The students are always changing, but Providence … not so much. A lot of things are just like yesterday.”

  “Which do you care most about, Jack, yesterday or today?”

  “Today. But that hasn’t always been my answer. I’ve unpacked all my yesterdays and sorted through them. Everything’s in order now. The past and present have caught up with each other and are getting along just fine. Though they do have a lot in common.”

  We sat at the cozy booth, breaking our focus on each other only when the server came for our order.

  “So, are you going to let me read this new book you’ve been working on?”

  “You know what it’s about, right?”

  “Yes, the Jack Clayton story. How you went from college dropout to the cover of Time magazine in twenty short years.”

  “Wow, you could work in marketing. It’s something like that.”

  “Does the book have a happy ending? Does the boy get the girl?”

  I didn’t answer right away, but her good-natured question was inflating with importance every second we remained in the quiet.

  “That chapter’s still being written,” I finally said.

  Jenny smiled, and after the waiter returned with our food, we settled into long, slow conversations about London, Jenny’s parents, my mom and her new life, and CMO.

  After lunch we stepped outside. The sun was perched in the middle of the sky, warming the air, inviting us to take a walk. We wandered casually up the street, window-shopping like we’d done years before as money-stretched college students.

  “You know what would feel perfect right now?” I asked her.

  “What?”

  “Me picking out a gift for you. A ‘Welcome back to America’ gift. You know, I do have a little money now,” I joked.

  “Oh, so you have money now, huh? Is the Lexus dealership open? We need to put those best-selling author dollars to work!”

  “Dear, you’re thinking too small. I’m talking about getting you something really nice. What’s the nicest gift I ever got you?”

  Jenny thought for a minute. “What was the nicest gift … probably the locket. Do you remember
the locket?”

  “The one you gave back to me.”

  “Yes. Sorry … I mean, yes. It was the right thing to do at the time. Do you still have it?”

  “No, I hocked it when I wanted to forget you, back when I still thought that was possible.”

  “You sold my locket? I can’t believe it!”

  “Yeah, I got twenty-five dollars for it.”

  “You stinker.” She laughed.

  “You know, I could buy you a big diamond now.”

  “I’ll have to think about that.”

  On Bush Street we approached the front window of Baxter’s Jewelers and peered into the glass display case. The small boutique presented a beautiful array of diamond rings and watches, colored stones and bracelets, earrings and gold jewelry, all set out on posh jewelry boxes on a plum-colored sash.

  “Oh my gosh!” Jenny blurted out.

  “What is it?”

  “They’ve got one of those lockets like you bought me!”

  I looked in the window. On the top glass shelf, in the center of the window display, rested a little silver heart-shaped necklace on a chain. Across the heart the words Love Is Forever were engraved in a graceful script.

  “You know, I think you’re right.”

  Jenny turned to me, her mouth gaped open in mock shock.

  “Unbelievable! Let’s go in and see how much they want for it,” I said.

  “Last time it was fifty dollars; this time it’ll be fifty thousand.”

  The clerk lifted the locket from the display window and placed it in Jenny’s hands.

  “This is a classic silver heart-shaped locket,” he said. “It once belonged to a young couple, very much in love, but beyond that, I can’t tell you much. Lockets hold secrets. If you look at the back, you’ll see it’s tarnished, and there’s no longer a key to open it.”

  “You don’t need a key for these,” Jenny said. “I used to have one just like it, but I lost my key days after I got it.”

  Jenny pulled a hairpin out of her purse and stuck it in the keyhole. Instantly the locket sprung open, and there inside were two heart-shaped pictures, one of Jenny and the other of me. She turned to me and stared, disbelieving what her eyes were telling her.