The Long Journey to Jake Palmer

by James L. Rubart

  “Yes, Jake. Yes.”

  Jake looked up again at the boy, who now had tears in his eyes.

  “What would life look like if you could accept yourself, Jake? What would it look like if you realized the fault in your growing up was not yours, but parents who were just children themselves? Parents who tried but simply did not know how to love you because of their own brokenness? What if you realized you are worth being loved not for what you look like, or how powerful your body is, or what you’ve accomplished, but simply because you are?”

  Tears now streamed down the boy’s face, accompanied by a radiant smile.

  “What if you were to step outside the bottle and show the world who you really are? What if you didn’t have to be perfect for anyone? What if you knew you are complete, and perfect, and perfectly loved exactly as you are? What if you knew that the burns you carry are a physical reflection of the burns you carry inside, and that the far greater healing would be of those burns that cover your soul? What if you realized you are Superman? Complete, powerful, whole in the Son of God? What if you knew these things, Jake Palmer?”

  As the boy spoke each question, understanding rose up in Jake. Not just understanding, but healing. Not just healing, but forgiveness. For his mom, for his dad, for Sienna—but that was nothing compared to the forgiveness that thundered up out of him for himself. For not being enough for his mother and father.

  And as he gave himself the gift of unquenchable grace, the tears he’d been fighting to contain exploded out of him and he leaned forward, head in hand, his body racked with sobs from the deepest part of his soul. As he did, the cabin itself seemed to shudder with a freedom and joy that reverberated off the walls.

  After a time he felt a hand on his shoulder, the boy’s hand, but it felt stronger than a boy’s hand should feel. Jake lifted his head and blinked his eyes. The boy was no longer a boy, but a young man, at least four or five years older.

  “What?” Jake shook his head. “What is happening?”

  The young man smiled, now a hint of facial hair playing on his chin, his jaw strong, eyes even more full of wisdom than before. He held up a finger as if to place Jake’s question on hold.

  “What do you really want, Jake? The deepest desire of your being.”

  “This.” Jake spread his fingers wide and placed his hands on his chest over his heart. “I want to be whole, here.”

  The young man nodded. “And?”

  “It’s happening right now.”

  The young man nodded again, and as Jake fixed his gaze on him, his face grew from that of a young man to one in his midtwenties. The same dark hair, the same eyes, the same angle of the shoulders. It couldn’t be, but it was.

  “I don’t understand what is happening.”

  “Yes, you do, Jake.” The man laughed, his head thrown back. The sound sent a lightning bolt of joy through Jake’s heart. “You know exactly what is happening. I’m growing up. Right before your eyes.”

  “I created you. Out of my imagination.”

  The man fixed his eyes on Jake and laughed again, even more powerfully, if that was possible, and it echoed through the small cabin and shot such life into Jake that he thought he might explode.

  “Yes and no. I’m as real as you are, Jake. Trust me that this is true. And yet you are right; you did imagine me. But more than imagine me. You’ve known me as long as you’ve existed. I’ve always been here. But you hid me away. Covered me up. Forgot that I existed, even when those around you told you I did. But now those days are over. You have done it, Jake. You have taken the long journey and at last have found me.”

  Jake stared at the man for eons before he spoke what he’d somehow known seconds after stepping into the cabin. “You are me.”

  The man nodded as smiles broke out on both their faces.

  41

  When Jake finally forced himself to leave the cabin and walk back toward the meadow, he tried to convince himself that he didn’t have to look at the place where his mom’s house had been. Had been. Funny how he didn’t have a shred of doubt it would be gone—just as he didn’t doubt Ryan would be gone—but when he reached the tiny trail that led to her home, he found his feet shuffling over the pine needles once more. He had to see it.

  He kept his eyes focused on the path till he reached the point where he knew the house would be in view. When he looked up, he found himself gazing at a massive willow. Jake chuckled. The perfect replacement.

  He was right. Gone as if it had never existed. But about Ryan, Jake was wrong.

  After he walked through the apple orchard into the meadow, he gazed in a wide arc and spotted Ryan sitting at the base of the waterfall.

  Jake approached cautiously, and yet he wasn’t sure why. He’d won. Found the healing he’d wanted all his life. Was now living in a freedom he didn’t think possible. What could Ryan do to him at this point?

  When Jake was ten yards away, Ryan rose to his feet and smiled. A different smile. An old smile. The one Jake had come to know the first two times they’d met.

  “Hello, Jacob Palmer. You know what your last name means, don’t you? ‘Pilgrim.’ And you have completed your quest. Well done, Jake. Well done.”

  Once again, revelation swept over Jake. “You’re not . . . you’re not . . .”

  “Your enemy? No.” Ryan chuckled. “No, I am your friend. I always have been. Yes, I was distressed to see the pain my actions caused you, but as I told you that day at the river, they were necessary.”

  “What?” Jake tried to wrap his mind around Ryan’s pronouncement, but it was almost too much to take. “The things you said, the things you admitted to about who you were . . .”

  “No, I admitted to none of the things you think I did. I never lied. I only spoke truth. Think back, Jake. There is nothing I told you that wasn’t true.”

  “But you said I would die.”

  Ryan’s smile went wide. “Would you not describe what happened to you in the cabin in a quite real sense as being reborn?”

  Jake eased over to the pond and looked down at his reflection. He was indeed a new man, a man reborn. “Without question.”

  “For something to be reborn, something else has to die.”

  “Die to the man I was—to the lies, my beliefs, the way I lived my life—in order to become the man I always was destined to be.”

  “Yes.”

  “But why? Why did you have to make me think you were my enemy?”

  “Because you had to fight to win with everything you had. You had to have a rage burning inside, a determination so deep that you would never quit trying to be enough. You would go back again and again to your mom and dad, and you did. That way, when you had expended everything you had, you would realize the task was utterly impossible. Only then would you be ready to receive the revelation you did inside the cabin.

  “I had to force you to go back into your deepest wounds and see them for what they were. If you knew I was for you, you might have still agreed to walk into your mom’s house, Sienna’s home, your dad’s backyard. I don’t know. But certainly you wouldn’t have gone into them with the intensity that you did, with the relentlessness you did, and your heart would not have been in the condition needed to take in the healing.”

  Ryan motioned toward the lake and they both strolled in that direction. He set his hand on Jake’s shoulder as they approached the curtain of willow vines that would usher him into the corridor, onto the lake, and back to his friends. They didn’t speak again till they reached the edge of the meadow and stopped, now facing each other.

  “I won’t be coming back, will I?” Jake reached out and took a few of the willow vines in his hand.

  “The corridor has grown narrow, Jacob.”

  “Too narrow to get through again.”

  Ryan nodded, sadness in his eyes.

  “But the healing will remain.” Jake winked.

  Ryan’s eyes brightened as he laughed. “Oh, yes, your healing will remain.”

  “Than
k you.” Jake grabbed Ryan and gave him a fierce hug. “Will I see you again?”

  “Your life is but a moment, Jacob. A vapor. And when the vapor is gone, what is eternal will remain, so yes, you will see me again.”

  Jake clambered back into his canoe, and when he’d settled in, he glanced around to see if Leonard was there. No. Not this time. This moment was Jake’s to immerse himself in. The sun streamed down on him from just above the mountains to the east out of a cloudless sky, and the lake was glass.

  He reached for his legs and ran his perfect hands over his once again blotchy, burnt, scarred legs and smiled. Jake let his head fall back, and he breathed deeply of the late morning air and laughed. Yes. The healing would remain. He would never hide again. Not from himself. Not from anyone.

  He dipped his paddle in the water and gave a gentle pull. The bow of his canoe parted the scattered cattails in front of him and he eased through them into open water. Jake didn’t hurry back. He wanted time to figure out what he was going to say to Susie, to the others. Maybe nothing. Maybe it was okay to let what had happened settle for a day, a week, a month. He would eventually tell Susie everything. Of course. She was the reason he now felt like he was beginning life over again. But he wouldn’t say anything for a while, not for a while.

  Jake reached the dock half an hour later and peered up at the deck. Voices floated down to him, but he couldn’t make out who was who in the concert of conversation. He secured the canoe to the dock and started up the stairs. A quarter of the way up he heard Susie’s contagious laughter, and Andrew’s deep, booming voice as well. Peter? Yeah, him too. And then Camille. They were all there. True friends. All of them.

  When Jake was twenty or so steps from the deck, Susie appeared at the top and clomped toward him. He stopped and waited for her, a good excuse to catch his breath. She reached him a few seconds later, her eyes wide. “What’s going on with you?”

  He grabbed her in a bear hug and didn’t let go for almost thirty seconds.

  “What?” Susie laughed. “What? Tell me.”

  “I was healed, Sooz. In the corridor. I was healed.”

  She glanced at his legs and looked back up, confused. “I don’t—”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll explain. Soon.” He wrapped her up in another quick hug. “But thanks for being the inquisitive, adventurous, weird little sister you’ve always been.”

  They tromped back up the stairs and Jake immediately went to Andrew—gave him another fierce hug as only some men can give. “You killed it with your words last night. Nailed me. Inspired me. Pushed me over the edge. Thank you.”

  Jake released him, and the happy, puzzled look on Andrew’s face was priceless. Next, Jake grabbed Peter and Camille, one arm around each of their shoulders.

  “Warning. Sappy moment about to erupt.” He yanked their heads down and kissed each one of them. “I love you guys.”

  It seemed like minutes later they were all saying good-bye in the driveway of the cabin, telling each other they needed to come back here next year. Jake agreed but stayed silent about the fact he’d be coming back in less than a week. As soon as he could free himself up from work, he’d be back to have a long conversation with his friend across the lake.

  42

  Jake pulled into Leonard’s driveway at a little past eight the following Friday evening. He didn’t think his old friend would be going to bed for at least another hour, so Jake was surprised there was no answer when he knocked on the door.

  “He said he’d be home today,” Jake muttered to himself.

  Not in the garage or in the garden. Jake strolled up the slight incline of Leonard’s property, then down the other side toward the dock. That’s where he spotted him, a fishing pole in his hand, a gray aluminum pail by his side. The bottom edge of the sun had just hit the horizon to the west and would bathe the end of the lake in evening gold for a few more minutes. Leonard’s form was a silhouette against the light and could have been a picture on a greeting card. Jake eased down the gentle slope and strolled down the narrow path till he reached the walkway that led onto the dock.

  “I thought you never fished off your dock, Leonard.”

  He didn’t move, and for a moment Jake wondered if he’d been heard. But a second later Leonard turned and glanced at Jake and said, “I wondered if you were ever coming back.”

  “I had to do something first, before I saw you again.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Get out of the bottle.”

  Leonard showed his profile and grinned. Then he stood and wobbled toward Jake, and Jake walked out and offered his hand.

  “Nah, get your hand out of my face, I’m not that old. And if I do fall in I still know how to swim, probably faster than you.”

  Jake laughed and made his way back to the bank. They settled onto the bench and Jake said, “Would you like to hear what happened to me in the field?”

  “Every detail.”

  As Jake told of his final visit, Leonard’s eyes grew wet, then dry, then wet again. When Jake finished, Leonard simply nodded once and said, “I knew you’d make it. I knew healing would come. Well done, Jake. Well done.”

  “Who wrote the song, Leonard?”

  “What song?”

  “Nice try.”

  “You found it, huh?”

  “I’m going to say it was your daughter.”

  “Lucky guess.”

  “How long has it been in that piano bench?”

  “Long time.” Leonard patted his leg. “I’m glad you found it. You’re the first one.”

  “It was my friend Andrew. I’m glad too. None of this would have happened without that song knocking over the first domino. None of it would have happened without you, Leonard. Thank you. You revolutionized my life.”

  Leonard’s only reaction was a gentle smile, but that was more than enough.

  After a long pause of doing nothing more than watching the light play tag on the lake, Leonard said, “You think you’ll come back to the house next summer?”

  “As long as the owners let us.” Jake peered across the water at the cabin that had been part of changing his life. “Good memories. As you might imagine, that cabin has become much more than a house to me.”

  “Yeah, okay, good. That’s good, very good news.” Leonard rose from the bench and trudged toward his house. “Come on, move, I haven’t got all day. Gotta get to bed.”

  “What’re we doing, Leonard?”

  “Well I’m not gonna kill you with an ax if that’s what you mean. Would’ve done it long ago if I was going to.”

  “That’s comforting.” Jake chuckled.

  After they’d stepped through Leonard’s sliding glass door into his living room, he waved Jake toward his kitchen table. “I was hoping you were going to say you loved the house.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I need a dollar from you.”

  “What for?”

  “Just give it to me.” Leonard waved his hand impatiently.

  Jake opened his wallet and took out a beat-up dollar. “It’s a little—”

  Before he could finish, Leonard snatched it out of his hand and stuffed it in his back pocket. “Good. Start signing.” Leonard jabbed at a thick document on his kitchen counter. “I drafted it myself, so trust me, there’s nothing in there that doesn’t play to your favor.”

  “What am I signing?”

  “A simple buy-and-sell agreement.” Jake’s elderly friend held out a blue pen. “Gotta be in blue ’cause it proves the document wasn’t photocopied, something like that.”

  Jake glanced at Leonard, then picked up the papers. A quick glance told him the agreement was for the sale of a house. After a longer look he fixed his eyes on Leonard and pointed across the lake. “You own that house? You?”

  “Yep. Thanks for renting it from me.”

  “And you’re selling it to me.” Jake pointed at his chest. “For a dollar?”

  “Stupid question.”

  Jake broke out lau
ghing and even Leonard smiled a bit.

  “So I’m buying a place where every time I’m there, it will remind me of the spot where the girl of my dreams rejected me.”

  “That just means there’s someone better out there for you. You’ll find her someday. Trust me.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I finally stepped out of the bottle far enough to read my own label.”

  “Then maybe it’s time you showed the rest of the world.”

  Jake stared at his friend for over thirty seconds. At the light in his eyes. Or fire. Yes, it was fire. And that was okay. More than okay. Because Leonard was right. And Jake knew exactly how he was going to show the world.

  43

  Eight weeks later, on a Thursday afternoon, Jake stood backstage at Luce Auditorium in downtown San Diego, his heart pounding inside his chest like a bass drum at a rock concert. Through a slit in the curtain he stared at the mass of bodies milling about the venue.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Palmer. You need anything?”

  Jake tore his gaze away. A soundman with hair to his shoulders and a Cheshire-cat grin bounced on his toes, waiting for an answer.

  “What?”

  “You go on in five. Just checking in. Making sure you got everything you need, that your mic is good, all that kind of stuff.”

  “I’m good.”

  “You’re ready then?”

  Jake nodded, against the protest of his churning stomach and the reality that he’d never be ready for this moment. It wasn’t one he could practice by videotaping himself. This moment could only come as he stood in front of a live audience.

  Seven minutes later, after a quick introduction from the promoter of his talk, Jake walked into view and basked in a strong welcoming applause. He strolled over to the center of the stage on wobbly legs and gripped the sides of the podium with both hands. As he stared at the crowd, he shot up a quick prayer and began.

  “Just before stepping out here, I was asked if I was ready.” Jake stared at his fingers gripping and regripping the light wood between his hands. “The honest answer is I’m not ready for this. In fact, I’m more nervous right now than I’ve ever been. I’ve given over twenty-five hundred talks during the past nine years, but none of those have prepared me for this moment.”