Rooms: A Novel (18 page)

CHAPTER 27

Four days later, on Tuesday morning at 10:00, Micah cleared his throat and looked around RimSoft’s conference room at the members of his board. This could get rough.

“Friends, even though Julie isn’t here yet, I want to get started. You’ll have questions and I don’t want to go past noon. So let’s—”

“Who’s Julie?” Shannon said.

Micah’s stomach felt like it had spent three hours on Disneyland’s teacup ride. For the past few weeks whenever Julie had popped into his mind, he’d strangled the thought into silence. And now via Freudian slip, he’d set the problem front and center, making him face the loss in front of his board of directors.

Julie had been a friend and confidant since college. They’d built a company together, had shared years of laughter, sorrow, and success. She would always have a piece of his heart. But he wasn’t even the smallest piece of hers anymore. Another part of his Seattle world sliced off and melted away.

“Who’s Julie?” Shannon repeated.

Micah’s face warmed, and his mind raced for an answer.

His oldest employee rescued him. “I think he’s joking. His original partner in the company was named Julie. She hung on for about two years before she bailed. I started a few weeks before she left.” He turned to Micah. “I’m probably one of the few who even remembers she exists, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, just you and me.” Micah coughed and pushed out a weak laugh.

His head swirled. So Julie had been part of his life for a time and part of RimSoft. So why didn’t she remember him when he went to her house?

“Micah?” Shannon said.

“Yeah, sorry, mind is wandering.” He paused and rested his hands on the conference room table. “That’s one of the reasons for this meeting. I’ve been creating, driving, and sustaining RimSoft for six years now. I’ve taken a total of three weeks of true vacation during those six years. By my choice I admit, but that’s not enough. I need a break where vendors or partners are not along for the ride. A long break.”

He took a long swig of coffee.

“Working from Cannon Beach these past two months has helped me find out what I really value. Now I want to take this exercise a step further. In the end it will make me a better leader and make RimSoft stronger than ever before.”

For the next hour Micah answered questions about his sabbatical.

“How long?” asked one board member.

“Do you realize how this could impact the stock?” another said.

“Software moves too fast for you to take a sabbatical,” protested a third.

“This is not a good move. Shannon, talk to him,” chimed in one of his VPs.

In the end he quelled the board’s concerns and established the parameters of his time away. His two senior vice presidents and Shannon would handle the day-to-day operations. Once a month the three of them and Micah would have a conference call to discuss any major decisions needing his input. Other than that, he would be absent from any and all operations of RimSoft. No phone calls, no e-mail, no communication except through Shannon, and then only if the emergency was significant.

||||||||

He crossed into Oregon at 5:30 that evening and stopped off at Fort Stevens State Park to walk the beach and think before arriving back in Cannon Beach. It had been years since he’d seen the wreck of the
Peter Iredale.
Had the ship sunk any further into the sands of the North Pacific shoreline?

Not much as it turned out. He found a secluded spot to watch the sun seep into the ocean and ask God for desperately needed guidance.

He’d told the board he would be taking a break, but he wondered if God would let him. Micah had been running an emotional marathon in both Cannon Beach and Seattle, and he was exhausted. Weren’t the miles up yet? Couldn’t he give his mind and heart the chance to snooze, even for a day?

After praying for ten minutes, he gave up. God was on mute.

When he opened his eyes, a glossy piece of paper caught his attention. It stuck out of the sand to the right of the log he sat on. It was a magazine cover:
Coast Life.
The weather had beaten it up, but it was the July-August issue from a year ago.

He started to toss it aside when a name in the lower-left corner caught his eye. Taylor. He looked more closely. The first name was smeared, but he could still make it out. Micah. Underneath, even more clearly, he saw the sell line: Talent rising. An Exclusive Interview.

Micah knew every magazine he’d ever been interviewed by, and
Coast Life
was definitely not one of them. He jogged back to his car, got in, and headed for the Seaside library.

His life in bizarroland had added another chapter.

||||||||

“Good magazine,” the Seaside librarian offered when Micah asked about the publication. “Just not enough readers. Went belly up nine months ago.”

“Do you have any back issues?”

“Maybe.” The librarian chuckled. “Problem is, a lot of people don’t realize when you check a magazine out of a library, you’re supposed to bring it back.” He stamped the inside of a book with almost enough gusto to break the spine, and Micah gave him a courtesy smile. The librarian stepped away from the counter. “Let me do a quick check.”

When he returned, Micah knew the answer before he spoke. “None right?”

“Sorry, good magazine, you know.”

Too many questions. Not enough answers.

The marathon continued. At a sprinter’s pace.

He needed explanations, not a slew of more questions.

As he drove back toward 101, he pulled up Astoria movie theaters on his cell phone. Bingo. Time to catch a flick and get his mind off the insanity.

||||||||

After the film was over, Micah took one step outside the Astoria Cineplex and yanked his Seattle Mariners baseball hat down over his face. He rubbed his hands on his shorts and glanced up and down the street twice before jogging across the lot to where he’d parked.

He scrambled into his car and hunched down in the seat. What was wrong with him? For crying in the ocean, was it a crime to go to a movie?

He turned the key and his car purred to life. As he pulled into the street, Micah tried to loosen his grip on the wheel. Boatloads of Christians were going to movies like this one. So it was a little raunchy, the humor a deep shade of blue, and they showed a little skin, but so what? All comedies these days were rated R. He was living for God again; it didn’t mean giving up everything.

How else was he supposed to get a moment’s escape?

Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d just stolen something and couldn’t return it. When he got home, he went to talk to himself about it.

“How are you?” the voice said as Micah stepped into the darkness.

“Saw a movie tonight.”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

“We blew it again,” the voice said.

“Bad choice.” Micah slumped against the wall next to the door. “I knew it and did it anyway.”

“Will we ever stop?”

“God keeps forgiving, right?”

“Hebrews worries me.”

“What?”

“Chapter 10 says if we go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, then there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.”

Micah leaned forward. “What does that mean?”

“Maybe just what it says. We
know
it’s a movie we shouldn’t see, but so many times we go anyway. So maybe for those times we’re not covered. I don’t know. It just worries me.”

Anxiety rose in Micah. The promises he’d made not to touch another movie he wouldn’t be proud to bring God to roared through him. Promises he kept breaking.

“I’m scared He’ll finally leave us forever.” The voice breathed hard. “I’m an idiot.”

“You’re right. You are. We are. A follower of Jesus? Sure. The straight and narrow? I’m on the highway to hell.”

A deep sigh floated out of the darkness. “We’re not overcoming anything down here. Seattle’s not perfect, but parts are pretty awesome. I think it’s time to go home.”

“You’re right.” Micah nodded. It felt good to say it. Less failure. Less pressure to be good. Less facing all the painful issues from his past. A world where his relationship with God didn’t pour so much guilt on his head.

He walked out and pulled the door hard behind him. No matter how many times he talked to himself, it was still a little strange having his own voice come out of the heart of a tar black room.

Tomorrow morning he would find a way to get control and fix this vice forever.

CHAPTER 28

The next morning a ray of August sunshine woke him at 6:30. The movie from last night splashed into his mind, and he groaned. Guilt peppered his heart as he threw on his sweats, laced up his shoes, and shuffled out the door to make himself pay.

He ran north toward Haystack Rock and pushed himself. Hard. He gasped for air within a few minutes but refused his body’s plea for relief. It was a self-inflicted penance he often performed after one of his “movie nights.” But it was a sponge in his ocean of guilt.

After a shower and breakfast, he started a biography of C. S. Lewis. No help. He picked up his Bible and through sheer willpower stayed with it for more than an hour. It was hot sand through his brain.

“You’re blowing it” pounded through his mind, and he knew it was true. Prayers sent skyward just bounced off the ceiling like racquetballs. He needed to give himself a break. All this guilt was a little over the top.

It was just a movie.

He walked out on the deck, down the stairs to the beach, and followed the tiny stream to his left that carved its way to the sea.

But still, why couldn’t he get control over this thing?

Micah drove down 101 all the way to Newport and spent the day poking through kite shops and art studios, looking for something and nothing, anything to divert his mind.

By the time he got home, it was late and he headed straight for his bedroom. That’s when he discovered the new hallway. It was short, maybe five feet long. A thick mahogany door stood at the end with detailed carvings on it, almost a language.

He started toward it, then hesitated. Although by now he fully believed God was in control, it still unnerved Micah every time he found a new room.

Fascinating.

Frightening.

Just because God was in it didn’t mean it was safe.

He inched toward the door and guessed the language was Hebrew. There was no doorknob. He pushed the door. It was like rock. “Lord, if You hear me, do You want me to get in?”

Nothing.

When he fell into bed a few minutes later, he tried reading, but the book slithered out of his fingers almost immediately, and sleep buried him.

When the dream came, he stood in front of the new door wondering how to get in. Then his surroundings went Dalí, and the door, carpet, and walls melted into each other. When the swirling stopped, he stood in a dimly lit room staring at the back of a door.

He instantly knew where he was—on the other side of the door, now inside the room. A small TV threw off a greenish tint, enough light to see the room was crammed with piles of something. As he groped for a light switch, a soft light streamed under the door from the hallway, enough to show him what the piles were made of.

DVDs, from floor to ceiling. All labeled, all in alphabetical order. Movies and TV shows from as far back as twenty years ago, right up to the movie he’d seen the night before. Every questionable show he had ever allowed to sink into his soul.

The ceiling of the room looked as if thousands of cigarettes had been puffed in it, a dull haze hanging in the air, as if the smoke had never fully dissipated.

A knock at the door stopped his heart. With the sound the brightness along the bottom of the door increased like a dimmer switch being turned up to its highest setting.

“Who is it?” Micah eked out.

“One who would help.” The light under the door grew even brighter.

A wild fragrance seeped in, full of oak and the smell of a surging river in the heart of summer.

Micah’s pulse raced. “You don’t want to come in here.” He used both his hands to push against the door.

“Why not?”

Silence.

“If you are from God, you know why.”

“If I know, why not let me in?”

“Because this is a room of . . . that I’ve . . .”

“I know what is in the room. It has been forgiven.”

Micah’s hands shook. Only One could forgive.

He whirled back toward the DVDs. Shame flooded through him. He loathed the idea of opening the door. It didn’t matter that the Lord knew about this room. It didn’t matter that he was forgiven. But there was nowhere else to turn.

“All right!” He pulled his hands off the door, as if they were smeared with rubber cement.

“The door doesn’t open from this side. You must let Me in.”

Micah reached for the door and froze. Images of the anger about to lash out at him flooded his mind, the disgust and disdain that would be hurled his way. The crushing disappointment in His eyes. Micah dreaded the discipline he knew must come. The thoughts bounced around like a pinball as he steeled himself, closed his eyes, and wrenched open the door.

The Lord burst into the room and strode for the back wall without even looking at Micah. Before reaching it, He drew a sword that radiated light like the mirrors of a thousand lighthouses. He brought it down on the stack of DVDs along the back wall so fast Micah couldn’t follow the arc. Light exploded as the sword struck and the DVDs vanished, revealing a door. It was shackled with thick iron chains, each link dense and rough. Six ancient-looking bars across the door guarded it from entry.

The Lord’s eyes sparked as He turned and winked at Micah. He raised His sword and brought it down like a flash of lightning. The iron bars, the chains, the locks, all shuddered. As the second blow fell, faint lines formed in the bars and the chains. At the third strike of the sword, another flash of light exploded, and the iron bars and chains shattered. A pungent odor accompanied their destruction, but it faded, and the fragrance of pine needles filled the room.

“Ready?” The Lord motioned toward the open door.

Micah dropped his head. “I am so ashamed . . . the shows . . . I’m so sorry. I just . . .”

“I don’t care about the shows, Micah. I care about your heart.”

He stared in bewilderment. “But those shows—”

“Are garbage.”

Micah waited for the rebuke to come. But it didn’t.

“They are full of death,” the Lord said. “To your heart, your soul, your mind. But do you need Me to tell you that? The critical issue is why you watched them, not what they contain.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I desire truth in your innermost being, Micah. There are broken places to fix. Because there is lack of truth there and a choice you must make.”

“Yes, but—”

“We must go in.” The Lord motioned again to the open door.

Fear surged out of the room. “What’s in there?” Micah took a step backward.

“Come and see.”

“I can’t.” He stared at the opening. He was certain facing it meant massive pain.

“You can.”

Only a dream. This was only a dream.

Micah stepped through the dim opening, the Lord beside him. They stood in a hallway at least fifty-feet long. A movie screen covered the far end. As they walked toward it, the screen flickered to life.

A young woman lay in a hospital bed, her ivory arms wrapped around a newborn. “Isn’t he beautiful?”

“Perfect,” the man said.

The woman laughed as she looked down at the pink face buried in the blue cotton blanket. “You’ll be more in love with him than me before the week is over.”

“I’ll love this Micah kid crazy fierce, but I’ll never love him more than I love you. Not a chance.” The man ran his forefinger over the woman’s cheek. “Never more than you.”

“So what should we have next?” the woman said. “Another boy, or should we have a girl this time?”

“Do we get to choose?”

“Sure.” The woman handed the baby to the man who rocked it gently.

The scene faded as another one filled the screen.

A little boy tried to climb a Douglas fir tree in a backyard drenched in sunshine. His father sat in a white-and-green striped chair, strawberry lemonade in one hand, the day’s newspaper in the other.

“Daddy, Daddy!”

“Hmm?” came from behind the paper.

“Do you think I can do it?”

The paper snapped down. “Do what?”

“Climb it! Climb the tree!”

The father folded the paper and tossed it to the ground. “Not only do I know you can do it; I know you
will
do it. But we need something first.” His dad picked up the camera sitting next to the chair. “We need to document this moment, don’t you think?” His dad winked and held the camera up to his eye. “Ready!”

The boy strained for a branch just out of reach until the twig underneath his foot snapped, and he spilled onto the concrete patio. Hard. Tiny streaks of scarlet sprang out of both knees.

“Micah!” His dad leaped toward him and yanked a paper towel from his pocket. “Here, let’s take care of that.” He rubbed the boy’s back. “You okay?”

The boy nodded as his dad wiped the blood off his knees.

The scene faded but the screen didn’t go black.

Sounds of hammering rang out before a scene of a boy building a tree house came into focus. The floor was done and one of the walls was in place. A twelve-year-old Micah jumped down from the eight-foot-high floor and walked over to a second wall lying on the grass.

The sun glinted off his father’s pitching wedge as he chipped foam golf balls at a bucket ten yards in front of him.

Micah hoisted the wall and strained to shove it up the side of the tree into his brother’s wanting hands.

As it wobbled, Micah said, “Dad, some help here maybe?”

His father kept chipping as he said, “You get hurt, son, and you’ll have to find your own way to the emergency room. Stupid idea, building that thing. Once again you’ve proven you need a microscope to find anything going on inside that brain of yours.”

As the scene faded to black, Micah’s face went cold. His long-buried pain rushed to the surface as more memories like the one he’d just relived filled his mind. The screen shifted again.

A 1985 Toyota Celica screeched around a corner and sent autumn leaves swirling into the air. The car pulled into the driveway of a modest house too fast, but the man standing with his arms folded didn’t budge as the driver screeched to a halt, then popped out of the car.

“Hey, Dad, I got it. Whaddya think?”

“How much did you pay, son?”

“Seventeen hundred. He asked for $1,950 so I think I got a pretty good deal. And, man, does this thing move!”

“No, son, $1,575, maybe even $1,625 would have been a fine price. But $1,700 for this car is overpriced. I studied the blue book value and local ads and that is the truth.”

“But it’s my first—”

“Son, you made a stupid mistake. Again. But not much harm done. You’ll have other chances.”

The scene faded and lit up with a new scene for the fifth time.

On-screen rain blanketed a stadium filled with blue and red umbrellas. Athletes huddled in small bunches around the track, white towels over their heads. Small numbers pulled sweat suits off or on, getting ready for their race or having just finished.

Around the far corner of the track came nine runners: the three in front synchronized stride for stride, the rest scattered in behind. Two of the leaders started their kick at the same time. The third waited an instant longer. Micah knew who would win: the one who started his kick last. It was himself, at the Washington state high school track finals, in the eight hundred meters. The finish would be excruciatingly close. They went to the photo in the end to be sure. But he had won. State title in the eight hundred meters.

Dread hit him like a sledgehammer. He knew what came next. The scene shifted, and he watched himself walk into his childhood home, Mick bouncing out from the kitchen with a big grin on his face. “Hey, bro. Not bad. You smoked ’em all.”

After giving Mick a high-five, Micah turned to his father.

His dad sat in his twenty-five-year-old beige Barcalounger with no shred of emotion on his face.

“I had it today, didn’t I, Dad?”

“It was good, yes. However since the state record remains unbroken, it is apparent that you did not have quite enough. Might even describe that as losing.”

Part of him regretted what happened next. Part didn’t. His eyes watered as he gave his dad the finger and stormed into his bedroom. It was the day he vowed to leave home as soon as possible and never look back.

Micah collapsed to his knees. The dam burst and pain poured out of him.

The Lord knelt beside him, strong arms pulling him in tight. “Let it out, all of it.”

Wracking sobs spilled over as the grief hit Micah full force.

“What have you longed to hear since the day your mom died, Micah?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you know. I’ve had you live the wounds again for a reason.”

“He took care of us after mom died. We always had a roof over our heads and food on the table, and he even bought me things I didn’t need.”

“What did you need to hear?”

“He was always home from work by 5:30; he bought me decent clothes; he—”

“What did you need to hear?”

As Micah tried forming the words, a surprising emotion arose: anger. Unbidden. Unexpected. And unstoppable. “I hate him! He destroyed me. He abandoned me! Why was it so impossible for my dad to love me after she died? Even for a moment? Couldn’t he care about me at all? Would it have killed him to say ‘nice car’? I won state in the eight hundred meters! I beat
everybody.
But it wasn’t good enough. Listening to him you’d think I’d been tearing the livers out of neighborhood dogs.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Why couldn’t he have loved me just a little?”