The Pages of Her Life

by James L. Rubart

  “Who are you, Parker?”

  He frowned. “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “You’ve been given the gift of sight, I think.” Abe’s eyes grew intense. “I hope. Sight to see how strong you truly are. To see who you truly are. You’ve lived your entire life trying to live up to your dad’s expectations, but they weren’t your dad’s—they were yours. You’ve lived your entire life trying to prove to your dad you’re worth something. But you don’t need to. You never needed to. All you needed to do is see what has always been inside you. And now you have.”

  Parker nodded as a surge of emotion circled his heart.

  “When you heard that your mom needed help, you didn’t hesitate. You came. You offered your strength. My guess is that’s what you’ve done your whole life when people have needed help.”

  Parker could only nod as the emotion threatened to spill onto his cheeks.

  “And four hours ago you again didn’t hesitate to save a man who has treated you with disdain.”

  “I did hesitate. I almost didn’t go. So close to not going.”

  Abraham leaned back against the railing, closed his eyes, and tilted his head to the sky. “Once a man who owned a motorcycle shop had two sons. One day he goes to the oldest and says, ‘Hey, I need your help in the shop today. I want you to come by.’ The oldest son says, ‘No problem, I’ll be there.’ Then the man goes to his younger son and says the same thing. His second son says, ‘Sorry, Dad. Not going to happen.’

  “After looking at his schedule, the oldest son decides he’s too busy and blows off his dad and doesn’t go into the shop. The younger son grabs a quick breakfast, and as he’s eating it he’s thinking about his dad. He ends up going to the shop and helping out.”

  Abe opened his eyes, leaned close to Parker, and lowered his voice.

  “Which of the sons did the will of his dad?”

  With that, Abraham stood and strolled away, whistling a song that Parker knew he’d never heard yet sounded like one he’d known all his life. After Abe slid inside the wheelhouse, Parker turned and gazed out over the water lit up like diamonds by the sun.

  His world had been altered forever. Altered was the wrong word. Transformed. Infused with a truth that had always been there, one he’d always wanted to believe. And now he did.

  fifty

  NEARLY EVERYTHING IN HER WANTED to put this off. Do it tomorrow. Next week. Next month. But what would change if she waited? Nothing. She had to do it now. Not next week. Not tomorrow. Now. It was far past time for the fire inside to blaze like the sun. Allison slowed as she reached Derrek’s door. It was open a crack. She could see him through the sliver of the opening. She stepped up close, closed her eyes, and shot up a prayer. Live an authentic life. No matter the outcome. And this was her being true. To God. To herself.

  The Lord is a warrior, the Lord is his name.

  Allison is a warrior, a daughter of the King, Allison is her name.

  Be that warrior now.

  She knocked on Derrek’s door and her pulse spiked. This felt like the time she’d gone bungee jumping; her ex had relentlessly pushed her to go and she’d finally given in. But at least that time there’d been a bungee cord attached to her ankles. A few more seconds went by before Derrek’s voice, almost too soft to hear, said, “Come in.”

  Allison pushed the door open. She stood in the doorframe as she looked at Derrek, sitting ramrod straight at his desk. But he wasn’t alone. Linda sat in one of three chairs on the other side of Derrek’s desk, with one leg locked down tight on the other. There was a glint in the woman’s eyes that Allison had grown to loathe during the past several months.

  “Hello, Allison.” Derrek motioned to the chairs. “Please come in and have a seat.”

  Allison didn’t move. “I asked that you and I meet alone. You agreed. I clarified so there would be no misunderstanding.”

  “Yes, but I prayed about this, and I feel it’s best we have a neutral party present to give a perspective that neither of us might have the ability to acquire on our own.”

  “You gave me your word.”

  Derrek chuckled, and Allison gritted her teeth at the sound of it.

  “My every intention was to meet with just you, Allison. However”—Derrek pointed skyward—“when I’m led by my Lord and King to do something different, I submit to that leading.”

  “Enough of the God-talk, Derrek. If you refuse to talk to me unless Linda is here, fine, but don’t give me the ‘God told me’ crap anymore.”

  Derrek stared at her for at least ten seconds, his face a stoic mask covering any emotions he might be feeling.

  “Why don’t you have a seat, Allison?” he finally said.

  Allison smoothed her skirt, walked over to the chair on her right, and stood in front of it. Her face must have been like fire and steel.

  “Whew,” Linda puffed out. She gave Allison a cold smile. Dead eyes. “I think I’m glad I’m here. Are you sure you’re in the right mood to have a conversation about . . . What did you call this? Truths you need to tell us? About you and about Derrek? Something like that, wasn’t it?”

  “No. There’s no ‘us.’ I came to talk to Derrek. Period.”

  She turned back to Derrek, who glanced at his watch.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t mention this to you, Allison, but I have an early dinner appointment scheduled. I need to arrive within the next forty-five minutes, which means I need to leave here—”

  “I’m not interested in playing games, Derrek. I’m sure you’re not either. I told you I needed half an hour when we set up this meeting, and you agreed. You gave me your word. So I encourage you to keep your word and stay.”

  Derrek’s mask cracked for a moment. Anger? Or just frustration? She couldn’t tell.

  Allison smiled. “But don’t worry, Derrek. This won’t take any longer than a half hour. Most of what I want to say is a simple thank-you for what you’ve done for me. Truly.”

  “That’s the truth you want to speak?” Derrek narrowed his eyes. “A thank-you?”

  “Yes.” Allison raised her chin a millimeter. “Back in April I was in a difficult financial situation as well as a personal crisis with my former business partner. I sent out a desperate prayer when I saw no way out of it. You were the almost-instant, direct answer to that prayer. You called and asked me to be your partner in this firm. It was a dream come true. I admired you. I knew I would learn a great deal from you. We were friends, so I trusted you when you said we could finalize the partnership once I got here. But my reason for coming here was about so much more than learning the business and making the money I needed to make as a partner. Your invitation was something I’ve longed for from a father figure. You saw something valuable in me. Your invitation told me I was enough. Told me I was worthy. A validation I’ve wanted my whole life. And you gave it to me.

  “But then it didn’t happen. And it became apparent it would not happen unless I pushed for it. And if I’d been honest with myself back then, deep down I knew it would never happen, but I held on to the dream that I was worth something. Finally we had a conversation that confirmed the truth that you’d lied to me, and it crushed me. It told me my worth was very little, and I believed that lie.”

  Derrek glanced at his watch and then at Linda. “Allison, I need to stop you there. I didn’t lie to you, as we discussed, and—”

  “When we set up this meeting, I asked to say the things I needed to without interruption. You agreed.”

  “All right.” Derrek slowly folded his arms across his chest.

  She continued. “I floundered after that, had little idea what I was supposed to do, but soon you gave me a gift I needed desperately. Your talk on integrity.” Allison walked slowly back and forth. “I went home angry because you have lied to me and to the staff and to our clients more than most politicians lie.”

  “Allison, you—”

  “No.” She held up a finger and took a step toward Derrek. “My thoughts, then yours. Keep
your word, please. I encourage you not to add one more lie to the list.”

  Linda’s breathing grew labored. Allison glanced at her. From the redness creeping into her face, Allison guessed she was angrier than Derrek.

  “I thought you could tell me who I am. You can’t. But in that longing I gave away my authority. So when you told me I wasn’t worthy of being your partner, it was devastating. I don’t know why you manipulate people like you do. I don’t know why you have to lie about the things you’ve accomplished. I could guess, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not your judge or jury. In fact, I want to thank you for the way you act, because it has set me free.

  “I wrote an entry in my journal the other night about how you don’t live an authentic life. That you posture and pretend and pose and stretch the truth into whatever you want it to be. But after I wrote in my journal, I went back a few days later and read the words again and ended up having to face the hardest truth I’ve ever had to face about myself.

  “The truth is I am all those things as well, the things I accused you of being. I have not been living an authentic life because of the fear of what would happen if I did. And that fear has invaded my entire existence because I haven’t believed in my own worth. Because I had a father who didn’t know how to show me that.” She paused and stopped pacing.

  “But I’ve come to know my worth. I’ve come to see who I truly am. I’d forgotten for so long, but now I know again.”

  Allison sat and leaned forward, hands folded on her lap.

  “As a friend from my college days always used to say, I had a severe case of plank eye. I needed to take the plank out of my own eye first before I could even start to take the speck out of yours, Derrek.

  “What I realized is I had to examine my own integrity first. I had to assess whether I was being true to myself or not, and the answer was like a darkness that fell on me. I was not living an authentic life. I was living a lie.

  “Even more than the money, I wanted your validation. I wanted you to tell me I was worthy of being your partner. To show me by signing the papers.” She let out a small laugh. “A much simpler way of saying that is I wanted to be valued. Liked. And because of that, I didn’t stand up for myself when I should have. I was quiet when I should have shouted from the rooftops. I let you spin the truth because I had spun my own deception. Because I’d forgotten who I am. But now? As I just said, I know once again. So I can stand up for myself.”

  She pulled a sheet of folded paper from her pocket, opened it, and read from a list she’d made.

  “You lied to me about our partnership. You lied to your wife and probably many others, and I didn’t speak the truth because of my fear and need to be accepted, so I lied too. You lied to our clients about other jobs we had done because you wanted to impress them, and because I wanted to be included, I never called you on it, so I lied too.

  “You lied about your band doing a ‘West Coast tour,’ when all you did was go down and play at your daughter’s wedding, but I congratulated you when you told the staff and most of our clients, even though I knew it wasn’t the truth, because I wanted you to validate me, so I lied too.

  “You lied to me years ago when Kayla and I bought computers through you and you sent me your used computers and told me they were new.”

  Linda couldn’t stay silent. “Of. All. The. Ungrateful . . .” Linda’s words grew too quiet for Allison to hear, but if she were guessing, they were words not sanctioned in Linda’s rules for appropriate Christian talk.

  “But I’m not here to—”

  “Be quiet, Allison. Just shut up! Maybe Derrek promised he would wait till you were finished, but I certainly didn’t.” Linda’s eyes were on fire. “You are a horrible person, Allison, you know that? Derrek was your friend, gave you advice about starting your own firm, and you never even paid for those computers! What kind of person does that?”

  Allison narrowed her eyes and said, “Check your receivables from three years back, Linda. We paid in full. If you can’t find the paperwork, I’d be happy to provide copies of my bank statements that show the money was transferred to your account. Also, I think it would be enlightening for you to check the computer that Derrek sent me. I have it at home. I’ll bring it in. See, I was told by the company that fixed my laptop that it was more than a year old when I got it. That the person who bought the computer for me must have switched it out and sent me a used one. I told them that was impossible, that the person who sent it was my friend, who told me the computer was new.”

  Linda’s face went pale, and she sat back in her chair and looked at Derrek.

  “A simple mix-up, Allison. I had no idea I sent you an older version of that computer. If it is that critical to you, I’m certainly willing to—”

  “It doesn’t matter, Derrek. I don’t want a newer version of that computer. I want what you’re not able to give. Truth. Integrity. True friendship. Worth. But again, it’s okay. This isn’t about my fixing you; it’s about me fixing me. Or at least trying to. That’s why I’m grateful for what I’ve gone through here, because even as I sit here, I feel the joy of telling the truth filling me. So thank you, Derrek, for everything.”

  Derrek locked and unlocked his fingers. “That was quite the soliloquy, Allison. You seem pleased with yourself for getting those thoughts out, so well and good. Now I suppose it’s my turn, time to respond to your thoughts.”

  Derrek steepled his fingers and tapped them against his mouth.

  “I saw this coming, and by that I mean this kind of speech from you. Frankly, I’m surprised it’s taken this long to surface. I’ve seen it ever since we first met each other years ago. A fierceness. The heart of a warrior. To accomplish the things you’ve accomplished in the world of sports, you have to have the spark of a warrior inside. To start your own business you must have that heart as well. There is a strength in you I believe you’re just now starting to see and, more importantly, starting to believe in.

  “With regard to your accusations, yes, I do have a problem with exaggeration every now and then. I’m not proud of it, and I thank you for calling my attention to it. It’s something I’m working on.”

  Allison stared at him, stunned. She’d been ready for him to counter all of her arguments. Explain why she was in error and how he’d done nothing wrong. Justify his every lie. She glanced at Linda, who sat stone-faced, staring at the wall. Derrek kept tapping his fingers together, brows furrowed in concentration.

  “As I’ve told you often, you have a talent for architecture and have done excellent work for our clients.”

  Again, she stared at him. What was this? What was Derrek trying to say? The journal said great change was coming. A thought shot through her mind. He’s going to make me a true partner. The problem was, now that idea made her want to vomit. She’d never link her name to his. All she wanted was to keep working at his company long enough to find another job and for him to set her free from the noncompete.

  “Allison?”

  “Yes, sorry.”

  “Did you hear what I just said?”

  “No, I was thinking about going forward, thinking about what happens next.”

  “Yes, good.” Derrek straightened in his chair. “That’s what I started to touch on.”

  “Okay.”

  “Your fierceness is a strength but can also be a liability. There’s a recklessness about you, a lone-wolf attitude.”

  “What?”

  “You wonder why I never signed the partnership agreement?” Derrek raised his upturned palm toward her. “This is why. Your attitude. Your rebelliousness. Your unwillingness to submit to my authority or Linda’s. Your challenging me on decisions I’ve made. For example, my moving your office, the policy of compensation back to the company when your accounts have a shortfall, my talk on integrity, and many, many other things.”

  The air in the room grew thin. Allison tried to slow her breathing. This wasn’t happening. “I’m sorry you adhere to such a skewed vision of reality. I suppo
se we’ll have to wait till eternity to see which one of us is right. However, in the meantime . . . we need to figure out what to do.”

  Derrek stood and walked to his window and gazed toward the Seattle skyline ten miles to the west.

  “I started this company for two reasons. To make a living and to show nonbelievers how true Christians run a business. Christians who love one another. Who want to grow in their faith. Who listen and learn from each other.

  “What has become abundantly clear through this conversation and during the time you’ve worked here is that you have no intention of listening to anything Linda and I have to say, and even if you did, you are not open in any way to the truth of what we would attempt to convey.”

  Derrek strolled back to his chair, placed both hands on the back of it, and leaned forward. “Your heart has hardened.”

  Derrek went back to the window and didn’t speak for at least a minute. When he spoke again, his voice was soft.

  “When one is betrayed, it presents many challenges. And yet at the same time, it presents an opportunity. The opportunity is to choose to let go, to forgive, to offer grace to the one who has betrayed you.”

  Derrek glanced at Allison, then turned back to the window. “You’ve cut me just now with your words, Allison. The knife went deep. I have offered you grace when you lost accounts. I guided you even before you came to work here, given freely of my knowledge and resources and contacts. I have washed your feet like Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, offered you life, and in return you come here and speak of things that are not true. Yes, I’m hurt, but even more, I’m so disappointed in you.”

  Derrek turned and leaned his back against the window.

  “It is understandable. When one is focused on self, when one cannot see a way to serve another, one will do things in the name of God, but the true motivation is only themselves.

  “I have prayed for you, as has Linda, and we will continue to do so. However, with all that has gone on here in the past twenty minutes, and taking your time with this company as abundant evidence, I think it’s clear we can no longer work together.”