LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Her name’s Piper Wynne,” he answered, taking a sip of iced tea so as to savor the taste on his tongue. “But that’s not important, Mom. I’ll probably never see her again. The point is, I realized today how very much I want to have someone in my life again. I think God’s been trying to tell me for some time that it is a possibility.”

      Vernon Sayer removed the stem of his unlit pipe from his mouth. Typically, removal of the pipe weighted whatever words followed with significance. His father hadn’t actually smoked that pipe in years, but he often sucked on it just as if he did. It was part of his dignified lawyer persona, and it had stayed with him even after retirement and the doctor had made him understand how harmful tobacco was to his health. Half a decade later Vernon still hadn’t given up the pipe. The tobacco, yes; the pipe, no.

      “You’re finally ready for a wife and family,” Vernon announced.

      “Let’s just say that I’m ready whenever God is,” Mitch clarified, then lifted an eyebrow at the dramatic flourish Vernon employed as he waved the pipe through the air.

      “Well, it’s about time. Your mother’s not getting any younger, you know, and you’re her only hope of having a brood of rowdy rug rats scampering around here one of these days.”

      Mitch laughed outright. His dad was an endless source of dry witticisms and pure delight for him. His mother, on the other hand, was patience and acceptance personified. They were wonderful parents, and they deserved to be grandparents. Perhaps they would be. Surely God was about to bring someone special into his life.

      Their joy at the prospect humbled him. For so long he had rejected the very idea of marrying again. He wondered now if he hadn’t let his grief over Anne cheat his parents of a grandchild. Though he’d always been keenly aware that, as an only child, he was a major supplier of his parents’ happiness, Mitch had never felt pressured to fulfill some parent-defined role of the good son. Goodness, consideration and integrity were expected of him—yes, even presumed—but he had always felt free to be his own person, to live by his own rules and expectations. Now he wondered if he hadn’t been selfish—and he’d always thought of himself as such a loving son.

      Oh, he had fought the usual adolescent battles, demanding more freedom than he was entitled to or able to handle, but eventually he had come to understand and appreciate what wonderful parents God had given him. They trusted the man he had become. They trusted his faith and abilities, and he trusted their judgment, wisdom and love implicitly, so he pretty much told them everything—had since reaching adulthood. That had helped him in unexpected ways after Anne.

      Maybe he didn’t call his parents every day anymore, but he did try to get over for dinner once a week, and he never hesitated to pick up the phone and ask for advice if he needed it. For the first time, that didn’t seem enough. He owed them more than simple thoughtfulness.

      They sat at the kitchen table for a while longer, talking over the day’s events. Mitch was as comfortable in this house as in his own home. He’d grown up here, after all. Yet this was his parents’ place, a part of him but not his. Oddly, he had never felt the distinction before. It was as if he now stood, quite unexpectedly, at a crossroads in his life, a vantage point from which he could clearly see much that had before been obscure.

      When his dad began to yawn, Mitch rose to leave. As usual, his parents got up and the three of them walked through the house together.

      “Glad you could come, son,” Vernon said, “and I’m glad that everything worked out as it should. Your client’s blessed, and I hope he knows it.”

      “I think he will,” Mitch told him. “Before we part company, I intend to make sure that he realizes God’s had His hand on him.”

      “I rather expect he’ll live his life a little differently from now on,” Marian said.

      “No one walks away from the touch of God unchanged,” Mitch observed.

      “And that includes you,” Vernon said, shaking his pipe at him. “I expect the right little gal will come waltzing into your arms any day now.”

      Mitch chuckled, kissed his mother and hugged his dad. “From your lips to God’s ear,” he said, pulling away.

      He went out the door and down the walk feeling happy and loved. It had been a good day after all. Perhaps knowing what God had in store for you or why life sometimes unfolded the way it did was impossible, but Mitchell had learned, at very dear cost, that God never did anything without the best interests of His children at heart.

      Chapter Two

      Mitch next remembered the folded sheet of paper on Thursday when he dropped off his suit at the cleaners and performed one last, hurried search of his pockets. He’d learned the hard way that laundering often rendered writing indecipherable. When he came up with the paper again, he thought about tossing it, but a quick glance at the words revealed the phrasing of a personal letter, not just a bunch of meaningless notes. He pocketed the thing again, instinctively protecting the privacy of the writer and the receiver of the letter.

      Later, in his office high above the streets of downtown Dallas, he thought about shredding the sheet, but when he removed it from his pocket, he felt compelled to take another look. It was clearly one of several pages, for it began in the middle of a sentence. Mitch noticed for the first time that the ink was tear-stained. His heart wrenched as he began to read the eloquent, carefully penned words.

      “…of him will surely never subside,” he read, “and will one day be, not a cross to bear, but a cherished joy. His memory will sustain us until that time, and that’s why it is so important that we not forget. The pain makes us want, in its depth and rawness, to do just that, but to forget our dear boy would be to rob us of all the delights he brought into our lives.

      “Hold on to that, dear heart. Don’t let him go, for if you do, you also let me go, and how can I bear that? To lose you as well as him is more, surely, than God can allow, so I beg you, please don’t leave. I need you. We all need you. How he would hate it if he thought that his loss would tear this family apart!

      “Whatever you do, please know that I love you. I don’t blame you in any way. You will always be my treasured…”

      The page ended as it had begun, in the middle of a sentence. Mitch turned it over in his hand once more, as if the rest of it might miraculously appear. He stared for a long time at the blotches near the bottom of the page and felt the heartbreak of their loss.

      It seemed to be a letter written from one spouse to another, lamenting the loss of their son and desperately trying to prevent the destruction of the union, but he couldn’t be sure of that. He couldn’t even tell if it had been written by a man or a woman. All he knew was that God had dropped this into his path for a purpose. Why else would he, an experienced grief counselor, have been the one to find it?

      A sense of failure swamped him. Mitch smoothed out the letter on his desk blotter and bent his head over it, confessing his error. He should have looked at the paper the moment he was on the plane. Perhaps its owner could have been found then. Perhaps he could have said the right words to send that person home again to a desperate and loving family.

      He thought of the pain of losing Anne so unexpectedly, of the anger, even hatred, that he’d felt for the drunk driver who had so unthinkingly snuffed out her life, and he prayed that God would bring these two back together. He prayed for abatement of their pain, for healing, because it was like having a limb ripped off or your heart torn apart when a loved one died. He prayed for the nourishment of new joy and the balm of sweet memories, for the assurance of salvation and the strength of faith. Finally he prayed—for his own peace of mind as well as that of this family in torment—that the recipient of this letter had been returning home and not running away from it.

      Perhaps he would never know the facts, but by the time he lifted his head again, he knew that his involvement with the letter wasn’t over yet. Either God had a deeper purpose here than making him aware of his failure or he had not yet correctly divined the depth of it. One thing was for certain: the

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